Cat's Cradle

No damn cat. No damn cradle. Cat's Cradle is a satire of some of the largest structures in society, showcasing the emptiness of their promises, and questioning our free will to change anything about our lives. Virtually plotless, like many of Vonneguts other works, Cat's Cradle is bleak, playful, absurdist, subtle, and strikingly unsubtle all at the same time. I won't even provide a 'plot' overview, because there would be simply too much to cover.

The closest a book has ever come to matching the energy, pacing, and tone of a Wes Anderson movie. I can see all the events of the book so clearly represented in the colors that Anderson uses, with the actors that frequently collaborate with him. I usually groan when someone draws comparisons between completely unrelated works of literature and film, but I just can't get this one off my mind.

Thematically very focused on the hollowness of many facets of modern society/life. Religion and science are specifically targeted as structures that lack the morality and empathy that they tout. Yet there is also a thread of Vonnegut discussing the necessary and welcome 'untruths' that we tell ourselves to better understand our world, to make ourselves happy and useful. Very interesting to see Vonnegut's perception of the scientists working on the Manhattan Project as indifferent to the ramification of their discoveries. There's also criticism of US government and politics, specifically as they relate to banana republics in central America.

Ice-9 is a hall of fame level SF concept, one that I use a benchmark of creativity in the genre, though it's hardly the focus on the novel. Vonnegut focuses the bulk of the novel on Bokononism, and it is here that he makes many of his thematic points. Some aspects of Cat's Cradle haven't aged so well though. Severally of the characters are drawn with a ham fist and stereotypical representations, and the prose itself isn't anything to write home about.

I struggled finding any cohesion to my thoughts on this work, even though I've now read it twice. I'm not frustrated by this though, more so puzzled in pleasing way. There's depth and nuance here that doesn't make itself plain on the surface.