On the HahaFiction shelf
Cat's Cradle
John, who calls himself Jonah, plans to write about what prominent Americans were doing on the day the atomic bomb fell on Hiroshima. The project draws him into the lives of physicist Felix Hoenikker's children and takes him to San Lorenzo, a fictional Caribbean republic with a homegrown religion.
From the publisher’s blurb
“a vision of the future that is at once blackly fatalistic and hilariously funny”Read the full description at Dial Press
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What makes it funny?
One of the local scriptures tells of a woman who says she understands everything God does and can't read a blueprint for her Great Dane's doghouse. Bokonon suggests she ask God to talk her through it. She fires him.
The comedy at work
Jonah looks back on his research as a convert to Bokononism, so chance encounters can take on the weight of divine assignments. Vonnegut gives this theology its own vocabulary and puts one of its lessons in a calypso that finds room for a dentist and a queen.
Try this if…
Readers who like their science fiction to make trouble for big ideas will find plenty here. The physicist's legacy includes ice-nine, and the religion Jonah embraces has room for doubt about whether anyone understands what the world is doing.
Good to know
The chapters are short and change form freely. Early on, Jonah's account gives way to a song from Bokonon's scriptures, a parable, and a letter from one of the physicist's sons.
A few distinguishing details
- A religious parable about a doghouse blueprint
- An unfinished book on the day of the Hiroshima bombing
More funny contemporary
Sources & further reading
- Penguin Random House book page
Publisher
- Kirkus Reviews
Review
- Publisher's opening chapters
Reading sample
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