Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut

Yes, it's another Kurt Vonnegut post. As of this writing, I'm reading Player Piano, his first novel, and have read over half of his books. I really enjoy his writing, because the style is so original. I'll talk more about his style later, since this post is specifically about the book that earned him his masters degree: 1963's Cat's Cradle. Now, I don't remember every detail about this book, since I did read it about five months ago, but I remember that it really was a masterpiece.

A little backstory on it, before I begin: Vonnegut was working on his masters degree in Anthropology at the University of Chicago, and they originally rejected his thesis. He left UChicago, wrote Cat's Cradle, and years later UChicago accepted it as a masters thesis. That was what drew me to this book specifically. I wanted to see what UChicago saw in it.

The book follows a writer who wants to write a book about what many people of note were doing on August 6, 1945, the day the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. He finds the family of Dr. Felix Hoenniker, one of the scientists that worked on the bomb. He finds Newt, a midget, and his sister Emily, who plays the clarinet. They all have samples of another weapon their father had developed, Ice-nine, which is a substance that turns all water it comes into contact with into a solid. Many people inadvertently come into contact with Ice-nine in the book and die. Their older brother, Frank, became the Major General of the island of San Lorenzo in the Caribbean sea. The writer goes there to find him and ask for any stories about his father, specifically from August 6, 1945.

What he finds on the island of San Lorenzo is a religion called "Bokononism." Bokonon was a man, and he said many wise things that united the people of the island. Officially, Bokononism is illegal on San Lorenzo, and nobody will admit to practicing it, but everyone follows the teachings of Bokonon. Bokonon talks about the groups of people that exist, and how people organize themselves. The most common way people organize themselves is into "granfalloons," an artificial karass that is not really destined to accomplish anything or do God's will. A karass, then, is a group of people who work together to do God's will, whether they know it or not. There is also a duprass, which is a karass with only two people. Michelle and I are a duprass, and we belong to a granfalloon called the human race.

Vonnegut's books are generally very well written, but this book surpasses all of them. There isn't much of a story to recollect, but Vonnegut keeps it very interesting and engaging throughout. He makes you really want to know what happens to the characters, and there is a really emotional climax at the end. It should be obvious to most people that developing weapons hurts a lot of people, but Vonnegut shows how it hurts people.

Overall, this is in the top three best Kurt Vonnegut books. I highly recommend it to anybody who wants to start reading Vonnegut.