The Meaning of What?

Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle ranks as one of my most initially unsatisfying reads of all time. I purposely underlined “initially” because the more I thought and reflected about the book, the more it made sense; I appreciated the novel. How one chooses to read this book reflects on its value to that individual.

If one were to read Cat’s Cradle at face value, they might experience a similar reaction to my first, quick read of the novel. It’s stupid. It has no purpose. I feel like I wasted my time reading this book. Pretty harsh words, but I thought the characters were unbelievable, events were unrealistic, and novel had no overall purpose or meaning.

What if one was to go beyond the surface? I took a deeper plunge into the novel, sparked by our Tuesday discussion. The result? I think the book is actually really clever! When Janelle paused during class on Tuesday to ask the glossy-eyed me if I was still with the class, I snapped out of my daze and apologized. However, the reason I “zoned out” in the first place was the novel had me thinking about the purpose of life—Is life meaningless (like my initial thoughts of the book)?

Cat’s Cradle focuses around Jonah’s novel: The Day the World Ended. Jonah seeks out the children of the Felix Hoenikker, the “father” of the atom bomb, to see what important people were doing during the Hiroshima bomb. Through his research, Jonah discovers Felix’s madness—the man does not care about any of the consequences of his scientific achievements. Ultimately, It was Felix’s invention of ice-nine (and not the atom bomb) that caused what I consider the end of the world.

It was mainly this idea of science without careful consideration that triggered my own reflections about life itself. This novel ends almost abruptly, with ice-nine covering the earth. It made me think how about how life is fragile; almost anything can end life at any moment. We are all just a car accident or walk in the street away from the end. Morbid, I know. Although some may view the end of this book as hopeful, I find utterly depressing. Only a few characters we know are left on earth; there is no hope for repopulation and life is truly trivial. There is literally nothing for the characters to do, except survive for the sake of living. Yet, are our lives any better? Humans create this fabricated meaning; we go to school, we get jobs, we have families… but what’s the point? It is just something for us to do.

I hate to think in this way because these reflections are really depressing. However, Vonnegut writes this existentialist tale to toy with our human emotions. Vonnegut challenges us to think deeper and to really question the idea of “meaning.” Although I initially believed this book had no substance, I truly see it as a work of art.