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Cat's Cradle: A Novel |  | Author: Kurt Vonnegut
Publisher: Dell Publishing
List Price: $15.00
Buy Used: $2.76
as of 11/24/2009 06:28 CST details
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New (60) Used (136) Collectible (2) from $2.76
Seller: missionbasedbooksusa
Rating:  386 reviews
Sales Rank: 2136
Media: Paperback
Edition: 15th printing
Pages: 304
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.9
ISBN: 038533348X
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780385333481
ASIN: 038533348X
Publication Date: September 8, 1998
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com Review
Cat's Cradle, one of Vonnegut's most entertaining novels, is filled with scientists and G-men and even ordinary folks caught up in the game. These assorted characters chase each other around in search of the world's most important and dangerous substance, a new form of ice that freezes at room temperature. At one time, this novel could probably be found on the bookshelf of every college kid in America; it's still a fabulous read and a great place to start if you're young enough to have missed the first Vonnegut craze.
Product Description
One of Vonnegut's major works, this is an apocalyptic tale of the planet's ultimate fate, featuring a cast of unlikely heroes.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 386
 Consisting of a Cat's Cradle October 25, 2009
NightmareDreams (New York)
Kurt Vonnegut's creation of the Cat's Cradle is a satirical, comical and yet strikingly frightening take on the human condition and here it will, inevitably, lead us. He is extremely misleading in his simplistic, choppy, writing style that gives the opportunity for anybody and anybody who has a small amount of reading skill to pick this volume up and consume it. Though its simplicity is comforting the words spelled out in the metaphorical between-space of each line tells an entirely different tale.
Vonnegut picks apart aspects of family and love, religion and war, science and government so well that this book is absolutely worthy of reading several times over. The most important aspect that he delves into is the concept of science. Is anyone else out there frightened of science and its ability to make new and 'better' technologies at such a phenomenal rate that eventually, inevitably, somebody is going to mess it up? Ice-nine, the scientific creation that seems like it would be a work of genius is, in fact, a work of stupidity that eventually leads to destruction and chaos. Science dooms as well as heals. Seemingly, Vonnegut ties this aspect into all his other lessons. Family, love, religion, war, science and government all heals as well as dooms those associated with it. A positively fantastic story by a complicated, yet clear-as-day, author.
Telling better and better lies October 4, 2009
Allen Stenger (Alamogordo, NM USA)
This is one of Vonnegut's early novels, written a few years before Slaughterhouse-Five but already showing many of his characteristic concerns and stylistic tics. Like most of Vonnegut's books, this one has a bad attitude, in this case directed mostly at religion, with a few swipes at the military-industrial complex.
One of the narrative threads deals with a shadowy substance called ice-nine. Ice-nine was invented by a military contractor because a general "felt that one of the aspects of progress should be that Marines no longer had to fight in mud." Ice-nine is a special crystalline form of frozen water that remains solid at room temperature, and contact between it and wet water causes the wet water to crystallize also. Throwing even the smallest particle of ice-nine into a swamp or bog would cause the whole thing to solidify, and the Marines would march across the former obstacle. The narrator realizes immediately that if ice-nine ever was used, it would continue its crystalline chain-reaction until all the water in the world was solid.
The other narrative thread deals with the hypothetical impoverished Caribbean island of San Lorenzo, and the hypothetical religion of Bokononism embraced by its natives. Two Americans, McCabe and Johnson, were shipwrecked on San Lorenzo long ago and invented the religion to soothe the people's misery. Johnson (pronounced "Bokonon" by the natives) is the religion's prophet, namesake, and front man. "Truth was the enemy of the people, because the truth was so terrible, so Bokonon made it his business to provide the people with better and better lies."
This is one of Vonnegut's funniest books, although most of the humor is in the form of one-liners (or at least one-paragraphers) rather than being inherent in the characters or the situation. The tone of the book gradually turns grim towards the end, partly because it encompasses the near-end of the world caused by the escape of ice-nine, but the book also just seems to run out of steam.
 Cat's Cradle September 11, 2009
Avid Reader (RI)
Great buying experience. Book arrived when promised and in great condition - as promised. Cheaper than book store!
 Dr Strangelove x 10 July 13, 2009
J. Normand (Minneapolis, MN)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Ive read through Cat's Cradle twice and I'm convinced that Mr Vonnegut was either insane or is good at convincing the reader that he is. The characters in the story are certifiable. And the leadup to the climax is a trip through the rediculous and surreal. That may very well was his intention, however the result is a book this is every much jarring to try and get through.
funny and thought-provoking, but a bit disappointing June 30, 2009
Kelsey May Dangelo (Vermont)
Clever, humorous, satirical tale about the end of the world and the bumbling characters (including the three children of a mad scientist) in a South American dictatorship that cause it to come into being through turning all the world's water into ice. Philosophical and psychological, incredibly insightful into mankind's existence. Grade: B+
Showing reviews 1-5 of 386
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