Cat's Cradle: Review

 

If I had to pick one word to summarize Cat’s Cradle, it would be “cynical”. But cynical can make for a funny read if done right. Kurt Vonnegut’s characters and situations are not just fictional but ridiculous in the extreme. Cat’s Cradle tells how the world ended through stupidity and accident, and how a lack of morality pervades all decision makers.

I think the problem with a highly cynical book is it lets evil off the hook. Good and evil aren't opposites but different shades. With all the horrors from the twentieth century, it’s as if these events are another bit of silliness we have to endure. It’s one thing to talk about the complex system of religious codes and government malfeasance, it’s quite another to make evil dictators part of the machinery of war instead of their cause. It’s true that conditions within a country can push citizens toward it, but atrocities are the result of greed and selfishness.

I get what he’s Vonnegut is doing. He’s making an absurd reality to show the contradictions in religion, belief and the future of civilization.

The basic premise is this: Jonah is a writer who intends to write a story about the effects of the atom bomb after World War II. Right off he tells us that he used to be a Christian but converted to Bokonism. We learn more about it as the story unfolds.

 He tries to find Dr. Hoenikker, the famous creator of the bomb and interview him. But since he is dead he talks to his youngest son (Newt) through letters. Jonah also goes to the lab where the Doctor worked to interview his colleagues. The book Jonah intended to write instead becomes about his interactions with Hoenikker’s kids. The oldest (Frank) is about to be married to the daughter of a dictator (Pappa) on a small island country.

Jonah’s travels to the island, San Lorenzo, to meet Frank constitute the bulk of the plot. Frank sold a dangerous chemical compound invented (Ice Nine) by his father to the dictator Papa. His younger sister Angela married a weapons manufacturer and Newt is a midget who once slept with a Russian spy. Papa is close to death and hopes to see his daughter married to Frank, who will become the new president once Papa dies. Frank doesn’t want the job and convinces Jonah to marry Mona and become the president instead. I won’t spoil the end but it’s not a happy one.

No one in the story has a conscience but that’s also the point. Vonnegut is saying that life is meaningless and so are the ways we try to make sense of it. That’s where Bokonism comes in. San Lorenzo is supposedly a Christian nation but no one actually believes it. It’s a convenient way to keep the natives in check and provide them with a common enemy, Bokonism. It’s a religion of ‘harmless lies’ that admits it’s a bunch of lies. Vonnegut uses the belief to tear apart religion and the systems built up around them.  

It’s clear almost right away that everyone is lying about who they are or what they want. They either lie or are too dumb to see how fake everything around them is. It’s an ugly view of humanity but done with a light touch. The absurdity of the island and the characters hides the cancerous rot at the heart of life itself. Obviously I don’t subscribe to any of it. But Kurt Vonnegut lived as a POW in Dresden when the allies bombed it into oblivion.

That’s not an excuse but I do think it probably colored his perception of humanity. Also his mother killed herself when he was very young and his father suffered from severe depression. I watched a documentary on him recently and realized I’ve never read any of his books. It struck me as interesting because I’m always looking out for writer inspirations. My motivations are less about type of books and more about how they got their start, what kept them going and so on.

The most useful thing about Cat’s Cradle is how technology can be insanely destructive. In part it’s so destructive because of the slavish devotion we associate with scientific achievement. Breakthroughs are automatically assumed to be beneficial despite the indifference of the scientists to the morality of the project. Dr. Hoenikker’s kids encapsulate this purely amoral look at research and development. Ice Nine is a stand in for nuclear fission. It wasn’t created to kill but became a weapon. The fact that Felix Hoenikker didn’t anticipate this shows indifference rather than carelessness.   

I wouldn’t recommend the book for anything other than a look into the life of its author. Kurt Vonnegut doesn’t draw a sharp distinction between good and evil. War is hell, goes the saying. He certainly believes that. But are there redeeming qualities to be found whether heroism or sacrifice or charity? The answer is not obvious.