Wow! Cat’s Cradle is just as good now as it was all those years ago.
Grade: A+
Cat’s Cradle is a very fast read. I got through it in two nights. I was surprised at how much I remembered, including the fact that one of the secondary characters is a professional indexer who claims to be able to glean character traits of an author just be reading his or her index. She says, “Never index your own book.” I think there’s something in that. I believe you can learn things about people by examining how they categorize the stuff of life. And that’s probably why I remembered her character—I was afraid that she was right!
Kurt Vonnegut is often called a humorist or a satirist, but almost always with either “black” or “dark” as a caveat. Cat’s Cradle is an amusing book, but not a happy one. Of the four I’ve read so far during this marathon, it’s the most downbeat, but it also highlights some of the most interesting quirks of human nature. It suits my sense of humor and it makes me think. It’s a keeper.