Cat's Cradle

PART A

One major theme throughout Cat's Cradle was the war between science and religion and the negative impacts of that fight on humanity as a whole. Science, in an effort to be 'better' than religion, came up with ice-9, a super-weapon cabable of destroying the world. And religion, in an attempt to one-up science, encouraged the survivors of science's weapon to kill themselves. In Cat's Cradle, the race between science and relgion harmed many and helped none.

PART B

And I remembered The Fourteenth Book of Bokonon, which I had read in its entirety the night before. The Fourteenth Book is entitled, "What Can a Thoughtful Man Hope for Mankind on Earth, Given the Experience of the Past Million Years?"

It doesn't take long to read The Fourteenth Book. It consists of one word and a period.

This is it:

"Nothing." (page 164)

This is an example of how loyal Bokonists are. Bokononism is illegal in San Lorenzo, but almost every single citizen practices Bokononism anyway. Bokonon tells his followers that they essentially have no hope, that, based on the experience of the last million years, mankind will never receive anything while on Earth, but the Bokononists follow him faithfully to their end, when Bokonon himself suggests that they kill themselves and they all faithfully comply.

PART C

I really enjoyed this book. I liked the style of Cat’s Cradle- the short little anecdotes were amusing and easily held my interest. It also made it easy to read the book- I could stop or start almost anywhere, and if I got confused I could just read the last anecdote and be perfectly fine again, unlike some books where I would have to read a few dozen pages to accomplish the same thing. Cat’s Cradle was interesting and thought-provoking, contained a fascinating mix of science and religion- an age old battle, but armed with new and intriguing weapons in this book- and was overall very fun and easy to read.