Kelsey’s Reviews > Cat's Cradle > Status Update

...world ended. It seems to be a commentary on how religion is used to control people and how it is easily manipulated for selfish gains (as well as used by the ignorant for hope) (again I'm not saying religious people are all ignorant, I myself am somewhat religious, it just can be used in that way by people who need to cling to something). In all, it felt like a cry for absurdism and a lack of understanding of...

...of this book was the religion, and the idea that people need religion and will cling to things they sometimes think (know?) to be fake or that don't make sense just so they have something to keep them afloat. It seemed to me as though Bokonon's teachings just got more and more insane and incomprehensible as the book went on, and I don't think it's a coincidence that the narrator only became a Bokonist after the...

...terrified people in the past were of life as they know it being destroyed and countries being led by terrifying evil people allows me to see that really the modern day may seem like the worst time in history but it's kind of always been like this. Every generation thinks they're living in the worst of times and are we really or do we just have a romantacized view of the past? The other very interesting aspect...

...destruction of the world via some doomsday device would come from the carelessness of some idiots rather than a psycho leader is chilling and honestly quite more probable. It's easy to forget that he was living through the Cold War and the destruction of the world through nuclear war seemed a very real possibility. In a way the hopelessness of that actually gives me more hope for the future. Hearing how...

...such an absurd magical realism trip of a book and the incoherence with the Bokonist sayings and the simplification and the seemingly one-dimensional characters really added to that. You got a sense that there was so much more complicated stuff going on under the surface but you will never truly know. So down to the big picture. I read a review that said that the Vonnegut's (terrifying) theory that the...

this was... confusing? But in a really good way. In true Bokonist fashion I am going to state some things, who knows if they're truths: I really enjoyed the structure of this book with its little short chapters, it felt both quick-paced but very cohesive. There was no real full circle moment unless you count ice-nine. So many things were left unsaid or unexplained and I'm 100& certain that was purposeful. This was...

ice-nine finally made a real appearance but there's not much book left hmm

yeah it's all making more sense now yet not at all (which I'm learning is the point)

Everything is just so absurd. I know that he may not be an absurdist in philosophical technicality but that's the best word to describe just what everything is

"My God-life! Who can understand even one little minute of it?" "Don't try, just pretend you understand"
My first thought was oh my God he would absolutely love Albert Camus.
Just looked it up and apparently Vonnegut was very fond of Camus and in fact Cat's Cradle is in some (abstract) ways considered an existentialist counterpart to Camus' absurdist Myth of Sisyphus
I'm so glad I can pick up on things like that