Cat's Cradle; a review

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️️Vonnegut's absurd humour is at full flight in "Cat's Cradle", a pastiche of comedy skits held together by Bokononism; a fictitious, self-referential religion.

The limericks that litter the novel offer much-needed breaks from the nihilism of Dr Felix Hoenikker, the comically asocial researcher whose filial apathy and pure passion for science damns the Earth. Much like "Slaughterhouse-Five"^[1], there are unsubtle hints to the fact that the novel is as much of a fable as it is a comedy.

Themes of the purpose of religion and commentary on the foolishness of mutually assured destruction abound in the text, which is set on a Cuba-esque Caribbean island, much like the events of the 1962 missile crisis. It is no coincidence that those events occurred the year before this book's publication. That is where the similarities end, however, with the brinksmanship of the missile crisis in direct contrast to the world sleepwalking to destruction in Vonnegut's novel.

No matter if you see it as a tragedy or a warning letter, the toe-wrapping and foot-curling boko-maru^[2] will have you in stitches.