In Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle, I believe that Vonnegut compares Bokononism to Christianity. The books of Bokonon are related to the books of the Bible. In this novel the idea of Bokononism is never thoroughly defined but we gain a definition by watching Jonah convert from a Christian to a Bokononist. Bokononism is a religion based on lies.

The "Calypsos" say:

I wanted all things

To seem to make some sense,

So we all could be happy, yes,

Instead of tense.

And I made up lies

So that they fit nice,

And I made this sad world

A par-a-dise.

Bokononist are always in the right place at the right time and whatever happens is how it's meant to be. You just live life and follow wherever your path may lead you and that's the right way. Bokononism has no point! So, to say that Bokononism is "like" Christianity is untrue. Christianity has a point, either you follow the Lord and go to heaven for eternity or you go to hell. This may seem completely absurd to some people but it's my opinion, you're all entitled to your own.

Religion, Smiligion.

Is it just me, or did anyone else feel as if Vonnegut entirely destroyed any credibility religion had? Throughout the book He emphasizes that the main purpose of religon is to make the people who believe "feel" that their lives have meaning and purpose. "Truth" plays no real part in religion, but it is the illusion of truth and meaning that religion actually provides. There is parallelism throughout the book between the books of Bokonon and the books of the bible. The books of Bokonon are based on lies, and dare I say that Vonnegut was trying to insinuate that the books of the bible were based on lies as well. I personally believe that the bible was never meant to be taken seriously. God didnt really create all of this in 6 days and if you were to look up the meaning of the names Adam and Eve you would find out that Adam-- is hebrew for "man" and Eva-- is hebrew for "mother of the race." It was human's dire need for substance and the search for "truth" that made them take the bible into literal terms.

pootee-phweet?

I may be a bit of a Vonnegut junkie (and I say a bit because I know there are some serious Vonnegut fans compared to whom I am barely considered an avid reader). Needless to say I have read numerous of Vonngeut's works (9 to be more or less exact) including Slaughterhouse-Five, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, and now Cat's Cradle.

In Cat's Cradle, the protagonist is in utter shock after seeing the effect of ice-nine and "dreams for a moment of dropping to the platform, of springin up from it in a breath-taking swan dive, of folding my arms, of knifing downward into a blood-warm eternity with never a splash" (260). The call of a bird-"pootee-phweet?" recalls him to reality. This questioning bird shows up in other Vonnegut books. In God Bless You Mr. Rosewater, the bird calling "Poo-tee-weet" to Eliot has a similar recalling effect. The bird call snaps Eliot out of his year long 'day dream' of sorts. In Slaughterhouse-Five, the bird calls "Poo-tee-weet?" to Billy Pilgrim as he discovers World War II in Europe is over and he stood in the abandoned silence.

This bird's call appears in all 3 books which were published within 6 years of each other. Cat's Cradle came first which is why I think the bird's call is spelled a bit differently than in the other two. Which ever way you spell it, the bird's questioning call comes during a major shift in the story, calling its attention to both the reader and the protagonist.

One of the best parts of Vonnegut is that the more of him you read, the more you pick up on in and from each book... now if only Kilgore Trout had been in the protagonist's karass...

See the cat? See the cradle?

After finishing Cat's Cradle I couldn't stop thinking about the quote above that appeared more than once in the novel. Newt said this phrase several times referring to situations in which the truth would've been evidently clear but due to human nature was ignored. One of the first times was when we heard of an unhappy marriage. A man was a drunk, came home with lipstick on every night and his wife was very upset. John expressed surprise that the marriage was unhappy and Newt said the phrase above. It was said again when Newt was devaluing the institution of religion. The entire rest of the novel this phrase couldn't leave my mind, all I could think was how can we not see what is so true right in front of us? Newt could see it, twice, and some how most humans either chose or are subconsciously unaware of the lies we incorporate into our lives every day. A wife tells herself she's happy, a million people pray to God. Are we all insane? Do we all see the lie, the cat and the cradle? I think I see it everyday, but being human I ignore it, as I'm sure most people do. As we grow older we realize that it's much easier to be happy believing a lie than depressed believing the truth. This bring me to another part of the novel I can't forget. When Newt is explaining is painting to John/Jonah. Cat's cradle has been a game for hundreds of years, and Newt goes on to say children must go insane because there's no cat or cradle. Being a psych major I tend to focus a lot on perception and child versus adult interpretation, the mention of a child's view point really began to interest me. Do children see the lies? Is it because they are innocent and don't know that the truth is sometimes "wrong?" In this way should adults try to revert back to childhood? I can't answer any of these questions but they stayed through me the rest of the book and I hope some day I understand why we don't all "see the cat or the cradle."

Mayonaise

My favorite chapter in this book has to be the one with the title stated above. I've only read one other Kurt Vonnegut novel (Slaughterhouse Five) and am really intrigued by the complete randomness that he incorporates into his books, whether it be the afore mentioned chapter title named in honor of one of America's favorite condiments, the creation of a fictitious religion in "Cat's Cradle", or the alien abduction and subsequent human-testing on the main character Billy Pilgrim in "Slaughterhouse Five". I have to wonder what was going on in Vonnegut's head when he sat down and mapped out his novels, but at the same time give the man all the credit in the world for being a literary genius. If any of us were to remotely attempt to try and pull the things he did, we would just look beyond stupid. But somehow, for Vonnegut, it just works.

Live by the foma..

When I first read the quote "Live by the foma that make you brave and kind and healthy and happy" before starting "Cat's Cradle", it resonated in my head not only to the book itself, but to life in general. Our perceptions make up our own realities, and yet our perceptions cannot always be seen as "truth" since no one views the same situation exactly as you do. Does this mean that the situation in your eyes is any more or less truthful than another person's viewpoint? I started thinking about what the word "truth" really means, and I could not find a clear definition. If everything is perception, what is truth? Is "truth" different for everyone? Does that mean anything is true? Is everything a lie? Are the any real facts? Is belief all that matters? I also thought of the mantra "Fake it until you make it" and how many people I know, myself included, have used that mantra in many situations. All these questions and thoughts popped into my mind, and as I read "Cat's Cradle" I wondered what inspired Vonnegut to write this novel. Perhaps he also was wondering about truth and lies as I was when I began reading. But does that really matter? I enjoyed the book mostly because I finished the book wondering about life.