Week 5: Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle

First published in 1963, Cat's Cradle was the first novel to bring Kurt Vonnegut to the attention of wider audiences, even though it would take several years to achieve that popularity.

Though Vonnegut disdained the "science fiction" label, this is a book which is firmly rooted in the realm of science, and much of its technological inspiration is drawn from the author's time as a public relations agent at the General Electric complex in Schenectady, NY (which he'd transform into the fictional city of Illium). At G.E., scientists were hired to do "pure research" — i.e. to work on whatever pet projects might interest them — and Vonnegut's job was to interview them in search of human interest stories. One scientist in particular, Nobel Prize-winner Irving Langmuir, would serve as the foundation of Dr. Felix Hoenikker, who sets the novel's action in motion.

Aside from science, the other main force driving the novel is faith, in the form of the fictional religion Bokononism, through which Vonnegut is able to trace the role of religion in society and the balance between church and state. The University of Chicago turned down Vonnegut's original master's thesis in Anthropology, but years later, in 1971, they'd award him his degree on the strength of Cat's Cradle as an anthropological investigation. To keep some of the Bokononist terms straight, you might want to check out the Wikipedia page on Bokononism.

Here's the reading schedule for the novel:

• Monday, February 2nd: Ch. 1, "The Day the World Ended," to Ch. 66, "The Strongest Thing There Is"
• Wednesday, February 4th: Ch. 67, "Hy-u-o-ook-kuh," to Ch. 94, "The Highest Mountain"
  
• Friday, February 6th: Ch. 95, "I See the Hook," to Ch. 127, "The End"