Cat's Cradle

Just in time for the posthumous essay collection, The Guardian gives Cat's Cradle a second look.

Vonnegut's good jokes are bad jokes, and vice versa. They are good jokes because they are clever and often painfully sharp; they are bad jokes because they can seem unpardonably glib.

But what needs to be understood is that Vonnegut's own fit of laughter is as much a reflection of his historical situation and subject matter as of his own personality and style.

As an American prisoner of war in Germany during the second world war, Vonnegut had witnessed the firebombing of Dresden . . .

Comments

[William Patrick Wend]

I saw that article the other day as well. Cat's Cradle was one of my favorite Vonnegut novels in high school. I need to give it another read sometime soon.

I am listening to the new collection in the car next. Rip Torn is the reader...the excerpt I listened to when I downloaded it from EMusic sounded really good.

[John Self]

This Guardian article is the introduction to the new Penguin Modern Classics edition in the UK, which in fact I just read last week. I was delighted to see that the book stood up, as I'd last (and first) read it in my late teens and wasn't sure it would stand the test of (slightly greater) maturity...