Cat's Cradle

This book was my introduction to Kurt Vonnegut. I marvel at the author’s genius in bringing together science and religion, two of the most profound subjects known to mankind, in such a playful way.

The unsentimental objectivity of science (and scientists) and a ‘perfect’ religion, whose greatest act of faith is to look at itself with a rather jaundiced eye, join hands to expertly manoeuvre, explain and let chaos be. It is the kind of hilariousness that makes you gaze into space rather than fall out of your chair.

I have always thought that poetry is important to allow prose… show more.

I re-read this book about the end of the world so that Joe and I could talk about it on our podcast, Re-Creative. It’s my favorite Kurt Vonnegut novel, filled with savage observations about the stupidity of human nature, all the while being so compassionate towards the characters – even the ones making bad decisions.

It’s the kind of satire and science fiction I aim to create myself. And if you’re only going to read one Vonnegut book, this should be it! 

The technology that features in this book is more of a single-edged sword and a sharply-edged one at that, but it is one of my favorite fictional science tales of all time. Hilarious and devastating, it showcases the very worst of carelessness.

In Cat’s Cradle, a brilliant scientist has created a catastrophic substance simply because he could. Upon his death, he left a sample of it to each of his three children and as our narrator tries to keep track of these deadly samples, he becomes entangled in their absurd lives along the way.

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I could include any of Vonnegut’s smart and darkly funny books on this list. This one satirizes science, technology, and the arms race. Vonnegut also presciently touches on an allegory for climate change. My very favorite facet of this novel is the commentary on the purpose of religion. “Anyone unable to understand how a useful religion can be founded on lies will not understand this book either” remains one of my favorite quotes ever.

Kurt Vonnegut is my favorite writer of political fiction because he makes me laugh, even as he describes a totally screwed-up world. He grounds the reader in an absurd reality and then has his characters either ignore this reality or overcome it through bizarre means. Vonnegut is intolerant of greed and selfishness and violence, making all of these seem absurd in the extreme, then he takes us back through his sublimely creative fiction to simple truths. He gives his readers a wonderful gift: hope based ultimately on our humanness, humility, and sense of humor. 

Ice-nine is a substance that freezes any liquid water into more ice-nine, created for military use, and so obviously overpowered and out of control that any actual use of it would mean the end of the world as we know it. But humans, being the stupid, greedy beings that we are, will find a way...

Vonnegut wrote this novel in 1963 yet it remains as grimly relevant to the world of today. A true classic.

Vonnegut was a master storyteller whose dim view of the world and its human inhabitants was informed by his experience as a WWII POW in Dresden, Germany and enduring the deadly firebombing of the city at war’s end. Cat’s Cradle, like all of his novels, is a critical portrayal of the human condition as depicted by his characters which often are more important than the actual story. Ice-Nine, in the wrong or perhaps the right hands, has the potential to end all existence on earth. Vonnegut, through his characters, debates what the right course should be.

As an avid Vonnegut reader and aficionado, I can confidently recommend any of his fourteen novels. You’ve probably heard of his most famous work, Slaughterhouse Five. My personal favorites are Galapagos and Mother Night. But in terms of apocalyptic collapses of human civilization, I’d have to suggest Cat’s Cradle as your next (perhaps, first) Vonnegut read.

Cat’s Cradle was published in 1963 as a satirical commentary on technology and religion, specifically referencing the creation of the atomic bomb and its devastating impacts on the planet and its people. But even more devastating is Vonnegut’s ice-nine, a solid… show more.

This was the first Kurt Vonnegut book that I read (I subsequently read almost all of his works). The first chapter is entitled “The Day the World Ended”.  It is not climate change that is the villain here, but Ice Nine. It tells the story about man’s hubris that can result in making our planet inhospitable to mankind and most other living creatures. Hopefully, climate change will not end this way, but it is a warning to take the issue seriously.  Ice Nine is science fiction, climate change is real.