"It's the chemical weapon for the war that rages on inside."

Anyone who knows me, knows that I am never at a loss for words, but it is when something brings me to the point of silence that I know it has done something right. When people have asked me what it is Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut is about, I have been just that, silent, at a loss for words. For some odd reason I have trouble describing what it is this book is truly about. The answer I most commonly find myself giving is, "You just have to read it to understand."

I think part of the reason I find myself having trouble describing this book to an outsider is because I have not finished the novel, but part of me also thinks it is because I do not know where to start.

In school, we are taught not to cheat. In church, we are taught that lying is a sin. At home, we are simply taught that lying is the wrong thing to do. So, one can understand my confusion when trying to describe a novel based on interpreting truth from lies, according to each individual reader. The problem lies in those outsiders who have posed the question in the first place, because they are looking at this novel from their societal driven eyes. The same eyes that see lies as a last resort to a problem, or the trickery of an unkind person.

For me, I think this novel is absolutely brilliant in its use of deception. It makes the reader think beyond their normal day-to-day experience where they accept most everything as a truth without ever thinking twice about it.

At the very beginning of this novel, Vonnegut states that, "Nothing in this book is true" and then further goes on to quote The Book of Bokonon that talks about foma which are "harmless untruths." I think a very important aspect to this novel is just that; "harmless untruths" and the different interpretations people can have of what those truly are. To some, untruths, or lies, might never be harmless. While to others, like our narrator who follows Bokononism, might base their entire lives on these harmless untruths. To people like Felix Hoenikker and Dr. Asa Breed their entire lives were based on truth, truth based in reason, science, and research. So for them, all those untruths would be far from harmless. In fact, those lies would be extremely detrimental to their line of work. Dr. Breed shows the split between his truth based world and our narrator's lie based world when he says, "'All your questions seem aimed at getting me to admit that scientists are heartless, conscienceless, narrow boobies, indifferent to the fate of the rest of the human race, or maybe not really members of the human race at all'" (39) This shows that sometimes it is difficult for those people who follow a certain path of honesty or deceit to see the others side or point of view.

The thing that irks me most about this novel though is not determining those who follow the truths versus those who follow lies. Instead, I sometimes find myself dumbfounded as to how I, as the reader, completely lose my sense of what is a truth and what is a lie in order to experience the novel more fully. All those teaching from my school, church, and home seem to be discarded with no remorse as I delve deeper into Vonnegut’s uncouth, untrustworthy world of the Cat’s Cradle.