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    Cat's Cradle
    Cat's Cradle
    Cat's Cradle
    Audiobook7 hours

    Cat's Cradle

    Written by Kurt Vonnegut

    Narrated by Tony Roberts

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Cat's Cradle is Vonnegut's satirical commentary on modern man and his madness. An apocalyptic tale of this planet's ultimate fate, it features a little person as the protagonist; a complete, original theology created by a calypso singer; and a vision of the future that is at once blackly fatalistic and hilariously funny.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateNov 6, 2007
    ISBN9780061135217
    Cat's Cradle
    Author

    Kurt Vonnegut

    Kurt Vonnegut was a master of contemporary American Literature. His black humor, satiric voice, and incomparable imagination first captured America's attention in The Siren's of Titan in 1959 and established him as ""a true artist"" with Cat's Cradle in 1963. He was, as Graham Greene has declared, ""one of the best living American writers.""

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    Reviews for Cat's Cradle

    4/5

    418 ratings160 reviews

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    • 4/5
      This is a book I wish I'd read years ago but am finally getting around to. Vonnegut's genius is how he can convey so much in such simple prose. In this satirical tale, the narrator is writing a book about one of the father's of the atomic bomb. His research leads him to the man's three grown children, a mysterious substance called ice-nine, and the ultimate end of times, at least for Earth. I suppose I would have had a stronger reaction to the message contained in the book's pages had I read this in my teens or twenties, but it does still resonate. The world might end in a cataclysmic war, or it might end in a totally banal fashion due to the arrogance and carelessness of humanity. Into that mix, Vonnegut threw in a fake religion created by a calypso singer, something that doesn't sound at all strange in today's world.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Vonnegut always makes me laugh. And sometimes want to cry, but mostly laugh.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      I really liked this book.I record this impression for whatever it may be worth. "Write it all down," Bokonon tells us. He is really telling us, of course, how futile it is to write or read book reviews. "Without accurate records and ratings of everything you ever read, how can men and women be expected to tell good books from the bad ones?" he asks ironically. So, again: I really liked this book.You, non-Bokononist readers, consider this a recommendation.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      Is this where the germ of an idea for Moon over Parador came from ? who knows? A surrealist collision between invention, a band of unlikely characters and a few very antithetical assumptions about leadership, progress, religion and social mores - does anyone know if this story or these characters have ever been taken up as a stage play ?

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      Each Vonnegut book I have read is similarly the same, but still manages to be about something completely different. Cat’s Cradle is about Jonah, a writer working on a book about what people were doing when the atomic bomb was dropped. It eventually starts an obsession with the Hoenikker family, a brilliant scientist father and the absent minded inventor of the atomic bomb, the oldest daughter, who gave up her life to raise her siblings, the middle son, a misfit, only good for at model making, and the youngest, always treated as a child and a dwarf. The whole book is tied together by a religion called “Bokanism”, a belief that every person Is part of a larger group that has a purpose. What that purpose is, no one knows, but it is fated.So what is this book about... I don’t know. Maybe the end of the world can’t be prevented, it that people will always do what they feel is write, or maybe it’s a statement about the futility of war. Or maybe it is whatever a reader takes out of it. Regardless, it’s a great book.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      It begins with "Nothing in this book is true; Live by the fomas (harmless untruths) that make you brave and happy and kind" which is the greatest lesson one can learn from reading this. Very excellent! It is in the absurdist style like his other works, but this seems more bleak than others. The driving force is the paradox that life seems to have no meaning, since it is rather brutal and short and we are mostly unhappy, but that everyone seems to be pulled to a specific end - that we are on strings pulled by God, but not a beneficent God, one who was just interested in making something out of mud that could admire all the other cool stuff that he made out of mud. It is thus a treatis on religion, that it is always all lies, that we need to confort ourselves and that our search to find meaning makes us human, but it is a meaningless search because there is no meaning, there is no plan, just like there is no cradle or cat made by the string in a cat's cradle - the strings of your life draw you in to places, but the reasoning you create is probably not true. It's about humans inability to ever really know and our desperate attempts to try to know. Another idea is that unless everyone is happy and healthy - with enough food and wealth (which is a utopia, and thus impossible) then they need a reason for the baddess that happens i.e. God which is good vs. evil. Even though this is more plot driven (which it would have to be since it's about what the driving force between people's destinies is) It is also ruminations on people - they are selfish and self-serving and we are what will destroy the world. The best example of this is Dr. Hoenickker, who invented the atomic bomb, without understanding the consequences of his actions. He is a "pure researcher" and he shows how dangerous Vonnegut believes science without conscience can be. His children take his apocalyptic final invention, Ice-9, which turns all water into ice with a melting point of over 100 degrees and buy themselves happiness. There are tidbits added to each character that makes them round, and not flat, like the fact that Angela devotes her life to her father - that kind of devotion and unconditional love is nothing but admirable and something all people desire - and the clarinet and plays it beautifully. Newt is the most sympathetic - the tiny (midget) guy kills his mother with his birth, his father was distant and bizzare, and people treat his like an idiot or a child since he is handicapped, which he deals with admirablely - understanding to people who take advantage of him as well - even loving the other midget who turned out to be a Russian spy who was after only his Ice-9. (the Cold War setting influences the book- the arms race is what created the atomic bomb and the reason Hoenickker is allowed to play with the idea of how to freeze the water in mud.)The most brilliant part of this book is that Vonnegut gives you so much with so little. This makes it an excellent place for reading comprehension passages because the headings tells you what to look for and focus in on to find the meaning of the exchange. The themes are that war is ridiculous and brutal (like always), human nature is selfish and will lead to our own destruction, the human need to lie to ourselves because the truth of our brutish and difficult life is too depressing to allow us to want to go on.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Cat's Cradle is a satirical science fiction novel which manages to pack a powerful punch. The themes of nuclear terror, the complications of science, American imperialism, global capitalism and the role of religion in public life are still relevant today. The storyline centers on a young writer's quest to research the history of the atomic bomb, which leads to a political and apocalyptic showdown on the shores of a Island near Peru. This story is told with humor but really makes you think. Vonnegut allows us to view the world from an entirely different perspective. I am not really a fan of science fiction but I really did enjoy this book so much that I look forward to reading more of his books. I would highly recommend to fans of science fiction or philosophy and humor.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      My reread of Vonnegut continues with one of my favorites by him. His structure and storytelling were brilliant. I am reading his books in the order he published them and you can really see him settling into his style in this book.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      The Cat's in the Cradle. The silver spoon. The moon. All that.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      This was one of my all time favorite audiobooks! The narrator is perfect for the book. He reminds me of Humphrey Bogart. He is really believable as the protagonist of the story. The interview with the author at the end was an unexpected and delightful addition. I highly recommend!
    • 5/5
      This dystopia story of how intelligence without accountability to social connections, such as family, and friends, can have a very negative impact on the future. A must read for any of the gifted among us, but very likely not the most fun book you will read.

      Some of the bocanon quotes are keepers, definitely have future snark potential.
    • 3/5
      I know this one came first, but having read Galapagos first, I kind of felt like Cat's Cradle was just a rehash, and I could sort of see where it was going. This also had a lot of the same themes and made a lot of the same points as a lot of his other books, and I think I'm just burned out on Vonnegut. I probably would have enjoyed this immensely had I read this before Galapagos, Breakfast of Champions, and Timequake.In theory, I think I actually liked Cat's Cradle better than Galapagos, but the latter is way out of left field and more to my taste. I definitely prefer the linear plot in Cat's Cradle, though.Cat's Cradle also had its share of ridiculous content, to be sure. Bokonism, a made-up religion, is used throughout to illustrate several points. An apocalypse comes at the end of the novel in one of the silliest scenarios I've ever seen, but if the technology existed, it would certainly be a plausible scenario. The characters also have their share of eccentricities, but this time around they were a bit too abrasive for my tastes.I also just felt restless the entire time I was reading it, which I'll admit is likely because I let any sort of greater point fly over my head. Much of the beginning of the book talks about research for a book the narrator wound up not writing, and much of the information gathered, with the exception of Ice-Nine and the introduction of the three siblings, winds up not having much bearing on the actual plot. It is entertaining though, the scientist was probably my favorite character due to his complete disregard of other people.
    • 4/5
      Every time I read Vonnegut, I expect something weird, and I always underestimate how weird it will be. His absurd satirical style can be kind of exhausting at times, but entertaining nonetheless. This was a really interesting read.

      His satirical takes on science, politics, religion, and mutually assured destruction were entertaining, and pretty on the nose. The culture he creates in San Lorenzo, and the religion he creates in Bokononism were fascinating. I found myself engrossed in these things. I was kind of wishing the Books of Bokononism were real so I could read more about it.

      The plot itself isn't really anything to write home about (pun intended). However the main driving narrative device for this is that it's a book, about a book, about a book, which is kind of hilarious. I wish there would have been a little more after the Ice-9 incident, however I realize that the point is that it happened, not what happens afterwards.
    • 3/5
      I'm half tempted to read up on this book to figure out some things that puzzled me. But I won't. I'll just let it dwell in the back part of my mind until those things make sense. Then I'll come back here and write a review like I knew all the time. It's not that I don't understand what happened, and a large part of it has to do with religion, but there's something I haven't put together quite yet.
    • 5/5
      Kurt Vonnegut is simply the best. In the words of Bokonon...
    • 3/5
      This was a MUCH better story than the first book I read by the author, & I'm glad I took the chance on reading it. Without giving too much away, a journalist decides to write a book on a man who worked on the atom bomb. Through a strange series of events, he finds himself on the tiny island of San Lorenzo with an odd cast of characters. Bokonon is the "mad priest", who invented his own religion, & represents good. "Papa" is the island's king, emperor, dictator, ultimate ruler, what have you, & represents evil. The man who he originally wanted to write the book about has died, & the missing son has become the second in command of the ruler Papa. However, the scientist also experimented with freezing properties before he died, & created a rather vicious thing called ice nine. The properties of ice nine, as revealed in the book, are frightening, & seemed even more frightening to me because the transmission seems plausible when he describes it.This book has more twists & turns in it's short cover to cover span than the Autobahn, & it's very entertaining reading as well.Remember this phrase though, you'll see it pop up..."see the cat? See the cradle?"
    • 5/5
      The first Vonnegut I ever read, and still my favorite.
    • 5/5
      I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It put me in mind of Tom Robbins, which is always a good thing as he's one of my top 3 favorite authors of all time. I just love the kind of style used, with the sort of biting satiric humor and whatnot... And I found the ending flawless. Which is difficult, endings are one of the things I am most critical of, it's hard to get them just right, and it's rare for an ending to leave me properly satisfied. But this one? Simply perfect. I will definitely have to start reading more Vonnegut.
    • 4/5
      A weird and wonderful read! The main character starts the story trying to write a book about the atom bomb and somehow along the way becomes president of a small island! Quite a tale! Throw in some ice-9 and it's a recipe for disaster! Crazy enough to make me want to become a Bokononist! "No damn cat, and no damn cradle."
    • 3/5
      I've read a couple of Vonnegut books before and I really enjoyed them. To say Vonnegut is quirky might either be a compliment or not taking it far enough. First off, this is a quick read. Also, it's a fun read. The characters are unique and even the main character is likable and that's sometimes hard to portray in 1st person writing styles. When I looked online to see the synopsis of what the book was about, every description tells you more about Vonnegut and what he's alluding to rather than what the book is actually about. That's because this book is kind of hard to describe. There is a main story here for sure. However, the hardest part of reading this book is actually to understand what to get out of it. I think there's some commentary on religion and the Cold War (literally in this book). But, with reading Vonnegut's other books that I have, I knew what he wanted me to take away from it. Here, that's a little harder. I'm sure that undercuts me as a reader rather than Vonnegut as an author. Still, I had fun reading it and it would be interesting to see what other people took away from it. Final Grade - C
    • 5/5
      It's Vonnegut at his best---provocative, cruel, honest, inane, eloquent, facile. What can you say?
    • 4/5
      This book asks the question; "Is it possible to make a weapon worse than the atomic bomb?" Kurt Vonnegut does an excellent job in this book looking at a fictional scientist that was the "father of the atomic bomb". He manages to create a new weapon that surpasses the devastation of the atomic bomb and a new religion that makes everyone question what god has in store for them. The main character "John" searches for answers about the scientist while questioning his own beliefs about religion. Great book, an easy read, very enjoyable!
    • 4/5
      An amazing novel about war, religion and human beings. The narrator is researching Felix Hoenikker, a scientist who worked on the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima. After tracking down Hoenikker's grown children, the narrator learns that the scientist was eccentric and uninterested in humanity. He was playing cat's cradle with a piece of string on the day the bomb was dropped."No wonder kids grow up crazy. A cat's cradle is nothing but a bunch of X's between somebody's hands, and little kids look and look and look at all those X's . . .""And?""No damn cat, and no damn cradle." (p. 165-166)Hoenikker also created ice-nine on a whim, when someone from the military complained to him about the difficulty armed forces had in the mud. Ice-nine turns out to be a terrible weapon, capable of bringing about the end of the world, and Hoenikker's three children all have a tiny piece of it. The narrator ends up on the small island of San Lorenzo, where Hoenikker's oldest son has been installed as a general and head science advisor for their local tyrant. San Lorenzo is a fascinating study of the balance of good and evil. Their ruler is a tyrant and the people are forbidden to follow the teachings of the holy man outlaw, Bokonon. So, of course, everyone on the island is a closet Bokononist, including the tyrant! The great play of the struggle between good vs. evil is meant to distract them from their impoverished lives. "Bokononism" itself is interesting - a religion that proclaims right up front that it's nothing but lies! It manages to be a hilarious satire of religion and somehow nuanced and uncannily deep at the same time. Cat's Cradle is a great satire of human society, religion, and war. And I can't help thinking that the Ambassador's cutting and brilliant speech from "Chapter 114: When I Felt the Bullet Enter My Heart" should be read at every world war remembrance type event:"I do not say that children at war do not die like men, if they have to die. To their everlasting honor and our everlasting shame, they do die like men . . . but they are murdered children all the same. . . . . we might best spend the day despising what killed them: which is to say, the stupidity and viciousness of mankind. "Perhaps, when we remember wars, we should take off our clothes and paint ourselves blue and go on all fours and grunt like pigs. That would surely be more appropriate than noble oratory and shows of flags and well-oiled guns." (p. 254)
    • 3/5
      Incredibly descriptive, just wasn't really my cup of tea as to where the story was going all along.
    • 3/5
      My first Kurt Vonnegut book left me kind of disappointed after everything I'd read about his works. I admit the overall idea of Cat's Cradle was good but at times I was bored and I felt like the author went off on brief tangents that really had little to do with the main idea. I enjoyed the battle of science vs religion feeling and was left with the message that there will never be a clear victor in that epic battle. In all, I found this book not unbearable to read...but neither did I find it worthy of another read.
    • 4/5
      This book is a hilarious send-up of irresponsible scientists. Especially funny were the early descriptions of Dr. Felix Hoenikker, inventor of the A-bomb and ice-nine. Vonnegut there launches a masterful satire of the supposedly innocent and harmless scientist who, full of child-like curiosity, tries to evade the adult burden of moral responsibility by not inquiring into the potential applications of his inventions. In the case of Dr. Hoenikker, the evasion appears to have been complete -- the narrator finds Hoenikker's old lab to be full of childish, dime-store toys.The figure of the irresponsible tinkerer is later skewered in the form of Dr. Hoenikker's older son, Franklin Hoenikker. Though not really a scientist, Frank is adept at technical work. He declines an offer of political power in San Lorenzo (an impoverished island republic) in order to oversee the island's technical operations. This prompts the narrator to muse about the ‘abrupt abdication of Frank from all human affairs’ (ch. 100). Later, a character says, ‘My agreeing to be boss had freed Frank to do what he wanted to do more than anything else, to do what his father had done: to receive honors and creature comforts while escaping human responsibilities.’ (ch. 100) Like his father before him (and like the island's ex-Nazi physician), Frank aspires to be an amoral tool at the disposal of the powers that be -- whatever those powers may be.Vonnegut extends his critique beyond scientists to science itself. His message seems to be that while science is indeed the only road to knowledge, it cannot yield truths of a moral or spiritual nature. Indeed, one might add that it is in the very nature of science not even to address such matters, for its empirical methods require dispassionate, value-neutral inquiry, and it is hard to see how moral or spiritual questions can even be broached, let alone resolved, in this manner.This interpretation of Vonnegut is borne out by at least a couple of passages in Cat's Cradle.First, in a bar-room exchange early in the story, a prominent scientist is reported to have said that science can end our troubles and 'discover the basic secret of life.' (ch. 11) The bartender adds that according to the local newspaper, scientists have now discovered this secret. But the discovery is not the grand revelation that we were led to expect. After some effort in trying to recall the details of the news report, the bartender recalls that the secret is 'protein'.Second, near the end of the book, Frank's entomological inquiries prompt the narrator's recollection of a passage from The Books of Bokonon (a religious text), which runs as follows:‘Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before. … He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way.’ (ch. 124)The suggestion is that while Frank may indeed 'learn something', his inquiries won't yield any real wisdom (or moral-spiritual knowledge).Science is thus limited, Vonnegut implies, but remains the only road to knowledge. Nothing else fills the epistemic void that it leaves; for nothing, religion included, can answer truthfully the questions from which science shies away. Bokononism, the religion outlined in the novel, acknowledges this with its paradoxical claim that Bokononism itself is 'shameless lies.' (ch. 4; cf. ch. 78 and ch. 98)Nevertheless, Vonnegut apparently sees religion as performing a valuable function as long as it is humble enough to acknowledge the paradoxical and distorting nature of its own proclamations (which leads to some vexing questions about the status of the above Bokononist quotation). It's all well and good to say with Wittgenstein, 'Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent,' but (Vonnegut seems to say) whereof one cannot but speak, thereof one may hold forth even if only in a self-consciously paradoxical fashion.In support of this last interpretation of Vonnegut, he once pointed out that back when Marx dubbed religion the opiate of the masses, opium was generally the only available pain-killer; so Marx's idea might today be better expressed by calling religion the Aspirin of the masses. And what's wrong with Aspirin? Here’s another video, this one of Vonnegut talking specifically about Cat’s Cradle.
    • 4/5
      A quirky apocalyptic tale as only Vonnegut could write. Full of odd characters and strange situations. And why is it called "Cat's
      Cradle?" Well, you will have to read it to fimd out, as well as to learn about Bokononism and ice-nine.
    • 4/5
      I surprised myself with how much I enjoyed this book, as I previously struggled to get through Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five. (Perhaps Vonnegut's books are meant to be binge-read over a day and a half?!?) A few times while reading I glanced back at the original copyright date and I can't help but wonder if reading this novel would have been a completely different experience in the 1960s. The atomic bomb, disastrous weapons, and the internal politics of a dictatorship loom large in this book, giving it a bit of a Cold War feel. Overall, this made for interesting reading and one I will enjoy discussing in a book club.
    • 4/5
      Bizarre.Of course, I could have also went with biting, dark, witty, ironic, or any other number of adjectives to describe Vonnegut's fourth novel. All considered, however, bizarre works best.In Cat's Cradle, the lead character Jonah set out to write a book about what important Americans were doing on the day the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. In researching his book, he converts from Christianity to a newly minted religion, Bokonism. He discovers that one of the bomb's Fathers, Dr. Hoenikker, also created a far more potent weapon that is now in the hands of his eccentric children. He lands on a privately owned island/Country where Bokonism was founded and, although every person on the Island is a Bokonist, the religion is outlawed. Cat's Cradle builds to an apocalyptic finale complete with ... well, read and find out.The best part of reading Vonnegut is his trademark ironic edge. Take this exchange between Jonah and Marvin Breed, monument seller (51): "You can laugh at that stone, if you want to," said Marvin Breed, "but those kids got more consolation out of that than anything else money could have bought. ... "It must have cost a lot." "Nobel Prize money bought it. ..." "Dynamite money," I marveled, thinking of the violence of dynamite and the absolute repose of a tombstone. ... "What?" "Nobel invented dynamite." "Well, I guess it takes all kids ..." Had I been a Bokonist then, pondering the miraculously intricate chain of events that had brought dynamite money to that particular tombstone company, I might have whispered, "Busy, busy, busy." Busy, busy, busy, is what we Bokonists whisper whenever we think of how complicated and unpredictable the machinery of life really is. But all I could say as a Christian then was, "Life is sure funny sometimes."Like all of Vonnegut's books, if you speed through them to enjoy a plot you'll likely be disappointed. If you take the time to think through the layers of sarcasm and irony, his works have serious depth.
    • 5/5
      This was a really good book! Weird, as Vonnegut always is, but poignant too. He makes his points really well, and the book is a really fast and interesting read. Towards the end it really gets...touching, even moving, without losing its sense of the absurd, or becoming any less entertaining. Excellent book.