Tim's Reviews > Cat's Cradle

This is a simplistic and sentimental review... and that's the only way I could possibly write one for this novel.

Every time I read a Kurt Vonnegut novel, I feel like I learned a lesson about the world. It's not always a lesson I want to learn, but Vonnegut always manages to make it a lesson worth learning, with humor and sly wink.

In Cat's Cradle, Vonnegut manages to be the most gentle pessimist I've ever read. He presents us with a world that mankind is bound to destroy with our own stupidity, and nods sadly, telling us that he likes us anyway and hopes we'll be happy. It's an angry book, it's a sad book... it's also a very loving one.

Written in a style that seems more like free form poetry than a structured novel (with 127 chapters in 287 pages) he gives us little snippets, that tell the story as a whole. Any time it seems to ramble on, something happens, either through action or dialogue, which makes the reader realize how connected everything is. There is no structure, and yet it's perfectly structured, down to the magnificent final lines.

This is not a book I can suggest for everyone. It's certainly not the place I would recommend for people to start with Vonnegut... yet it certainly fights to be my personal favorite of his books. It's a magnificent 5 out of 5.