Cat’s Cradle

I have read more books by Kurt Vonnegut than any other author.  I guess I enjoy the way he painted a wacky view of the way people interact in societies.  He somehow even makes human atrocities seem like they take place in a safe, cartoonish, alternate reality where the author and reader can both analyze things from a safe distance.  No topic seems off-limits.  Much in the way Quentin Tarantino uses levels of violence in some of his films that I would find off-putting if another director/writer were presenting it, Vonnegut seems to have had the ability to present any topic in a humorous, non-offensive manner.

This book deals with an apocalyptic substance created by a reclusive scientist shortly before his demise.  This substance is called Ice Nine.  Ice Nine was initially created at the behest of the military in order to instantly make marshy or swampy ground easily traversable by crystallizing all the water in it with a single “seed” of Ice Nine.   The problem with the stuff, however, is that it worked too well.  The crystalizing process would carry itself through every adjoining water molecule.  In other words, if it was placed in a swamp, it would crystalize the swamp, the creek that fed it, and any rivers, lakes, and oceans that were also connected to it.  Given that people are comprised primarily of water, they were apt to crystalize as well when coming into contact with the substance.

For better or for worse, this existence of this substance never seems to actually be known by the military.  The only known samples are held by the adult children of the deceased creator, Dr. Hoenikker.  Something like Ice Nine is going to be very difficult to ensure lack of contact with bodies of water, but Dr. Hoenikker’s children tote shards of it around in thermos bottles.  In the end, Hoenikker’s children end up on the fictitious island of San Lorenzo.  Islands are land masses surrounded entirely by water, so are probably the worst place to bring Ice Nine, right?  In a ceremonial display of the island’s military might, or lack thereof, and in celebration of its triumph over a fictitious religion, some of the Ice Nine ends up in the ocean.  The sequence of events that leads to the Ice Nine ending up in the ocean is an entire chapter of hilarious misfortune that leads to the presumable end of the world as we know it.

Overall, this was a great book, but I would definitely rank it below Slaughterhouse Five, Breakfast of Champions, and Player Piano.  If you are new to his work, I would definitely start with Slaughterhouse Five.  Cat’s Cradle was a little slow in building the story, but the final chapters are some of Vonnegut’s best work.   As a side note, I used to listen to a guitarist named Joe Satriani quite a bit in the early 1990’s.  He had an instrumental song that I enjoyed called Ice Nine.  The song was recorded in 1987.  Obviously this song predated the internet by quite a bit, so I never had any idea of the song title’s origin.  Now I know!