Cat’s Cradle

About the book

John, a narrator seeking to document what prominent Americans did on the day Hiroshima was bombed, travels to the impoverished Caribbean island of San Lorenzo. He encounters the eccentric children of Felix Hoenikker, a cold-hearted physicist who co-created the atomic bomb and invented ice-nine, a chemical capable of freezing the world’s oceans instantly. On the island, John discovers Bokononism, a cynical religion based on comfortable lies, practiced by people living under the absurd dictatorship of "Papa" Monzano. The plot culminates in an accidental global catastrophe triggered by a single crystal of ice-nine.

Readers who enjoy dark satire and nihilism appreciate Vonnegut’s skeptical view of human progress and organized belief systems. This audience values the marriage of scientific disaster with dry wit. A reader finishes the book with a perspective on the inherent danger of technical brilliance uncoupled from morality. They walk away recognizing the ways people use fabricated narratives to survive the cruelty of an indifferent and terminal universe.

Details

Published

1963

Language

EN