“The first sentence in The Book of Bokonon is this: ‘All of the true things I am about to
tell you are shameless lies.’ My Bokonist warning is this: Anyone unable to
understand how a useful religion can be founded on lies will not understand
this book either. So be it.” (Vonnegut, 5-6).
I had originally noted this quote because it had to do
with lies, which is obviously very relevant. However, when I went back and
re-read it, I found that there was more to this paragraph than I had originally
thought. I actually found the last two sentences to be the most interesting
part. This, I felt, was Vonnegut personally speaking to his readers through
Jonah’s narration. I believe this may be a type of metanarrative and/or
metatextuality. Vonnegut is giving us this warning very early on in the novel,
on page 5. This warning reminds me of a “Please read and click Yes if you agree
to the terms and conditions” or a “Are you sure you wish to continue with this
transaction?” type of statement. I feel as if he is saying to his readers, ‘you
can still turn back now if you’re not willing to accept the lies you will be
enduring’. Vonnegut is saying to us that if we don’t understand how things,
such as Bokonism, can be founded on lies, or how some things are just
completely fictional, that we will not understand the novel Cat’s Cradle. He is implying that you
need to read this book with a different perspective, or change your perspective
if you haven’t already. I think he is saying that you need to have the
perspective of still being able to find usefulness or meaning in something
completely fiction. The “So be it”, as I see it, is Vonnegut being pretty apathetic
or passive-aggressive to the fact that this book may not be understood by
someone with the common reliance on truths.
I have some other jumbled thoughts on this theme, but
I’m going to stop now while I’m still standing and my writing still makes a
little bit of sense.
That quote had also caught my attention while I was reading. I definitely agree that it is Vonnegut himself telling us that we cannot be close-minded if we want to understand the text. It seems like he wants us to let go of our preconceptions and our own "truths" so that we can actually obtain something from reading this. I think he uses Jonah as a constant reminder to do that by including quotes that elude to that. For example, " '...the more truth we have to work with, the richer we become.' Had I been a Bokononist then, that statement would have made me howl" (41). He uses Jonah's perspective to remind us not to be hold up in our own truths which I think is very clever. That way, like you said, readers can find meaning in this piece of fiction.
ReplyDeleteI have just finished the book and read the last sentence in The Book of Bokonon. The line starts "If I were a younger man, I would write a history of human stupidity..." This makes me think that maybe Vonnegut is trying to tell us what he just did, he wrote a book about human stupidity. Or maybe it was a demonstration. Maybe Vonnegut wanted to see, even if he told us it was all a lie, would we still read it? Like Jackie pointed out, he gave us an out right there to put down the book and walk away. But none of us did, we kept reading. Did we all fall into his trap, and he's just sitting at home making tons of money of this book, while he laughs at the idiots who read it? I hope not. In his last sentence he could have been saying that we are stupid and we follow these lying religion blindly. But as the quote says above, it can be useful. Sometimes it's good to stupidly believe in something.
ReplyDeleteKC- I really like your perspective in your comment. I'm struggling to comprehend and analyze the last few lines in The Book of Bokonon, and I think you have a very good point. Bokonon is certainly referring to Jonah in that sentence. And as we have seen, Vonnegut has put pieces of himself into this story in certain ways, and has also used this book as a way to talk to his readers. So maybe Vonnegut really is calling his book one of "human stupidity". I agree with you completely in that he could be poking fun at how humans follow religions blindly and are manipulated and subjected to lies so easily.
ReplyDeleteI find this thread extremely intriguing. By the time we reach the end of Cat's Cradles, we know that Bokonon relish the idea of writing another book (had it been possible, it would have been in place of Books of Bokonon - Books of Bokonon would have been about "human stupidity" in the first place otherwise). We also know that Jonah would have finished The Day The World Ended, a Christan-factual book, had he not been exposed to Bokononism. From the first couple of chapters we know the old Jonah had quite a negative view on the whole event and, judging from the tone of the book's name, The Day The World Ended could have been about human stupidity as well. A couple of things come to mind. First, why in the hell then would Jonah convert to Bokononism when he had already seen how even the creator of that religion fail to "raise the people from misery and muck" (133)??? (Yes I know page 133 says Johnson but at the end Bokonon looks just as much a loser as his Christan self)Second, we also know that Vonnegut finished Cat's Cradles/ Jonah finished his journals (cause we're reading it), so what kind of relationship does Cat's Cradles, an existing book, have with two books that don't exist?
ReplyDeleteAnswer: dynamic tension is a lie.
If we were to read a book about human's stupidity, we would be bound to forget it sooner or later (to play on the phrase of Philip Castle on page 151. If you read my thread you'll see my argument that Castle is in fact another character Vonnegut injecting himself into. Consequently I believe we can rely on this self-indulgent son of a bitch.) So how do we remember it? By voluntary participation. And this is where Kelly's points about the readers come in nicely.
Furthermore, Books of Bokonon weren't about human stupidity; it was about alienation. It was about terms and phrases followers could use to make them feel good about themselves. In short, it was all about a feel-good solutions (pitting good against bad, for instance). It didn't even warn about human stupidity. It just "observes" (page 4). The Day The World Ended could have been about human stupidity. It could have been about this CONDITION of the human race. But by having its author Jonah converting to a religion with an emphasis on solutions, Vonnegut demonstrates how a person, as logical being, can fall into his own logical fallacy by writing off CONDITION as a PROBLEM with a SOLUTION. Jonah was an example of human stupidity. And we were too; we followed him all the way till the end. This is what Cat's Cradles is all about. By creating a reading hierarchy among these three bodies of text (Books of Bokonon, The Day The World Ended, Bokonon's alternate book) based on a logical fallacy, Cat's Cradles shows us the CONDITION of human stupidity by conditioning us into believing that human stupidity can go away. No. For nihilist Vonnegut, life isn’t all that sunshine and rainbow. Human stupidity is here to stay. The best we can do, is to become less stupid, one book at a time.