October '13 Reading: Cat's Cradle by Vonnegut

[Scheherazade]

In October, we will be reading Cat's Cradle by Vonnegut.

Please your share and thoughts in this thread.

[neveragain]

After reading the first seven chapters, the story seems interesting. The father's indifference towards his family is a bit funny, yet annoying when you deeply think about it. I laughed when I read the part he tipped his wife leaving her a quarter and a dime and three pennies after he had breakfast. It was painfully funny.

Also, I look forward to knowing more about Frank who seems to be evil .

[neilgee]

Thanx neveragain, I was under the misconception that the father was based on Albert Einstein but I've just found out he is based on the chemist and physicist Irving Langmuir who won the Nobel prize for chemistry in 1932 and who worked with Kurt Vonnegut's brother Bernard.

Talking about what we found funny I'm not finding the father too hilarious (he sounds like he has Aspergus syndrome) but when the elevator man Mr Knowles said "This here's a research laboratory. Re-search means look again, don't it? Means they're looking for something they found once and it got away somehow, and now they got to research for it? How come they got to build a building like this, with mayonnaise elevators and all, and fill it with all these crazy people? What is it they're trying to find again? Who lost what?.." I hooted.

It's a nice example too of Vonnegut's general irreverence towards the powers that be and how he sees the world being run around him.

Frank Hoenikker has just been confirmed as still alive at the beginning of chapter 37 so you only have another 30 chapters to read before you get to him

[neveragain]

Nice insights Neilgee

Concerning the father, I still consider his unexpected actions funny (though he seems to be having Asperger's Syndrome) and I miss him because is not there up to chapter 55 where I stopped reading.

As for the elevator man Mr Knowles, I have a different hunch about his dialogue, maybe I'm giving it too much weight . I feel that him talking about the re-searching about something was there but got lost is related to the search for the"TRUTH" which Mr Breed is talking about. Mr Breed and Flex Hoeinkker are both mocking religion. They want to look for the "essence of life" which isn't related to the superstition people name God.

Up to know, I guess the novel doesn't unravel much about its end. Every couple of chapters, you meet new characters that are disgusting.

Looking forward to finishing it before I go back to next week

As far as Frank goes, he despises his father but acts in the same manner, I guess. I'll see what goes on with him in the following chapters.

[neilgee]

As far as Frank goes, he despises his father but acts in the same manner, I guess. I'll see what goes on with him in the following chapters.

Hi again neveragain

Doesn't the sister/daughter also resemble the father? It's a sign of a bad childhood I think when someone is so unsympathetic to the feelings of others and sees their own parent(s) as perfection personified. This is the way children sometimes survive, if there is no emotion coming back from the parent they see them as somehow above "emotion" and try to be like that themselves.

You have overtaken me I think - can't be sure without checking the kindle to see where I'm up to but it's in the bedroom where my wife is asleep so don't want to disturb her - anyway I'm about half way through. Guess the chapters didn't take you long because they are short!

It's interesting what you make of Mr Knowles, shows you are thinking much more deeply about the novel than I was at that stage. I take it on board as a totally plausible theory, yes it makes sense. Vonnegut is an almost compelling storyteller, I mean he's not amongst the best yet something does make you read on even when the plot seems plain implausible, he's better than the average sci-fi writer but then he's not really a sci-fi writer, you're always aware that there's more than that going on.

Where are you going back to, neveragain? University I presume!

[neilgee]

I liked this book a lot when I originally read it in the 1980's (in my twenties) but when I read it again in 2013 because it came up as book of the month I found Vonnegut's 1963 work did not work for me anymore. It's hard to say why, Vonnegut was an intriguing author but his sleepy narrator (sleepy in the sense of seeming to have limited willpower to affect what happens around him) coupled with a bizarre plot that seemed irrelevant to anything that's going on in the world left me a little cold this time around. Maybe V is an author more suited to young readers.

[Scheherazade]

I am reading it now and enjoying it very much.

[Scheherazade]

... but his sleepy narrator (sleepy in the sense of seeming to have limited willpower to affect what happens around him) coupled with a bizarre plot that seemed irrelevant to anything that's going on in the world left me a little cold this time around.

I don't think I would call the narrator "sleepy". He did not take an uninterested attitude. The narrator and Philip were the only characters I liked in the book.

[neveragain]

Hi again neveragain



Where are you going back to, neveragain? University I presume!

Both work and university. I teach in the morning and go to university in the afternoon for 2 days a week to get my master in education

[neveragain]

After finishing it, I guess it's an average one.

I guess Vonnegut was heavily affected by the World Wars. Vonnegut is terrified by the arms race and the manufacturing of sophisticated, mass-destructive weapons.