Reviews with content warning for Racism - Cat's Cradle

Reviews tagging 'Racism'

Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut

17 reviews

sunn_bleach's review against another edition

dark funny reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Another one of those revisits from the mid-2010s when I was getting deeper into adult reading. I felt middling upon first reading "Cat's Cradle" in around 2015 or 2016. Upon this read, I get it a lot more, albeit it's still not my favorite Vonnegut. The parallels to MAD and nuclear warfare are more obvious, though it's clearly meant to be so - the man is angry. Vonnegut writes imperfect and unlikeable characters yet usually separate that from the author's voice (masterful in "Breakfast of Champions"), but here it's hard to separate the pseudo-nameless narrator from Vonnegut's own voice in the native sexualization and overuse of "midget". One can always say he's aware of this - especially since Newt gets it more than anyone else - but it's still jarring. The banana republic satire is similarly confused, at once sardonic toward the USA's involvement in the rape and pillage of those countries while also kind of playing it straight with McCabe and Bokonon.

Yet, as with some other mixed opinion reads this year, I still liked it. The ultimate "fuck you" to God at the end and mordant tendency toward fatalism is incredible. I had a friend who in his early 20s called himself a "Bokononist", and I see why.

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sumnerbrook's review against another edition

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challenging dark funny reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

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abmochapman's review against another edition

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slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

this was mid, nihilism is overrated, and i think i do deadpan comedy better than vonnegut.

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sreddous's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark funny mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

It's really, really hard to write a "generally emotionally-neutral observer" main protagonist who just kind of describes what's going on around them.

Kurt Vonnegut's "deadpan" sense of humor is so efficient for the really difficult and dark topics he writes about. I loved it in Galapagos, and I love it here -- I'm able to really absorb the genuinely beautiful prose and quotations and dialogue because I sort of do feel like I'm reading 'a religious text.' There's a strange balance of spiritual lightness with very dark and pessimistic outlooks that doesn't feel tonally-dissonant.

The plot was hard to predict, and I actually got anxious (in a good way!) once the 'final event' started happening. It's so well-paced the way that things fall one after the other, and you KNOW what's about to happen next. Great suspense, great buildup!

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wemilyebb's review against another edition

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dark funny lighthearted reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

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jordan_noel's review against another edition

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challenging dark funny reflective tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Cat’s Cradle is a dive into the modern madness of humanity and its inability to remain in a peaceful state. There are contrasts between morals and science that prompt the question of why goodness is important when our nature leads us to destroy ourselves anyway. A demolished, war-driven world seems inevitable with these characters motivated almost solely by their individual interests. The main religion of a hopeless people is openly founded on lies, and yet it is the only religion that these people so devoutly serve. There are no comforts and there are no explanations. It is only chaos.

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