Cat's Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut
Details
The opening line of Cat's Cradle (1963)--"Call me Jonah"--pays homage to both the Bible and Moby-Dick. The narrator, reluctantly admitting that actually his name is "John" (close enough?), nevertheless insists on self-identifying with the Biblical prophet: "if I had been a Sam, I would have been a Jonah still."
His flippant lie situates him closer to the Books of Bokonon--the fictional scripture of Cat's Cradle that commands one to "live by harmless untruths"--than to the Book of Jonah. But at the outset of his story, the narrator hadn't yet heard about Bokononism (or so he says). Instead, he intends to write a book about what happened on August 6, 1945: the day the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.
Cat's Cradle is dystopian science fiction in a darkly comic vein. Through 127 (short, Moby-Dick-like) chapters, the deadpan narrator discovers an apocalyptic world torn between mad science and ironic religion. The novel tarries with questions of knowledge, faith, the meaning of life, the folly of the world, and the ties that bind or unravel it. It was nominated for the 1964 Hugo Award and is often considered to be among Vonnegut's masterpieces.
Cat's Cradle:
Supplemental:
- Pink Ice episode of Stingray (1964) loosely based on Ice-Nine
- Nice, Nice, Very Nice song by Ambrosia of 53rd Calypso of Bokonan
- 53rd Calypso of Bokonan sung by Kurt Vonnegut
Extracts:
- "Call me Ishmael." (Moby-Dick, 1)
This meetup is part of the series In the Belly of the Whale.