F13 Book Club Week One-Two: Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut

[Miasma]

I haven't read enough modern literature to know if something is original or not.  The book's pretty old, while I agree it's not original in the present day for all I know this might be the guy who first started putting humor into a doomsday novel.  Maybe people like Douglas Adams got their inspiration from this and built on it.

Sort of like how if someone were to read an Agatha Christie book now and at the end say "that was unoriginal and terribly clichéd".  The problem with that line of thinking is that she actually invented those clichés and back in the day it was new and fresh.

But as I said I have no idea if that is the case for Vonnegut.

Edit: A quick wiki (if that can be trusted) of Adams lists Vonnegut as one of his influences.
Edit2: I apologize for using the term "back in the day", I re-watched a couple seasons of The Wire over the weekend and it is apparently affecting my speech patterns .

[lamaros]

Thing is, many of Christie's books are good despite the fact (I have read many of them). :) You can do something first and do it well. Anyway I don't want to be negative, I'd rather be critical, so my comaplints will wait for the time I can provide more explination.

On the M.A. thing I read a little from http://maroon.uchicago.edu/online_edition/news/2007/04/13/alumnus-vonnegut-dead-at-84/ (the link given at wikipedia):

The University later accepted Cat’s Cradle as his thesis and awarded him his A.M. in 1971. He commented to Playboy that “this was not an honorary degree but an earned one, given on the basis of what the faculty committee called the anthropological basis of my novels."

So that explains that.

[MaceVanHoffen]

Bad poetry and silly theology/philosophy are only funny if done really well and in moderation. A whole book of it? Not so great.

That's pretty much my impression, though I'm only halfway through.  I like what he's trying to do.  There's just other authors that do it better.

[Miasma]

Reading some more of his biography it says he was a prisoner of war in Dresden when it was fire bombed.  My grandfather was one of the bomber pilots on that attack, he got shot down and became a POW after the raid.  I thought that was kind of interesting since the book is about the web of connections and such.  I'd say the link is more of a granfalloon than karass though .

[Margalis]

Is this the book club or the whiny bitch club?

Jesus Christ I could maybe take it if lamaros wasn't simulataneously talking up Agatha Christie of all people.

I can't wait until lamaros gets to pick a book - Tom Clancy, Dan Brown, Clive Cussler - so many wonderful choices!

[lamaros]

Is this the book club or the whiny bitch club?

Never been in a book club before?  It's going to be a whiny bitch club and/or a knitting circle. (And I did say I'd hold off the whinge for now as it's unsubstantiated without including spoilers.)

Also, how does whingy book pretensions translate in championing the drek of Clancy and Brown (I'll admit to liking some earlier Cussler--as pulp)? If I'm going to have a go at something for being vapid yet pretentious it makes no sense that I'd suggest something that is merely vapid (Cussler), more vapid and pretentious (Brown), or shit (Clancy) in its place.

I will accept your criticism of Agatha generally on snob grounds (but it seems that this book club isn't going to be reading Joyce, Lowry, or the like), but to imply she wasn't entertaining at what she did or that some--note, we're not typically including the Marple or Poirot books here--of her books were genuinely good, is just silly.

[cmlancas]

Lamaros, here's an analogy for you: Joyce::Modernism as Vonnegut::Sci Fi. Secondly, 20th century modernism lost the vote. I didn't even get a chance to assign Joyce.

Sorry if you didn't like the book. Maybe we should have assigned Finnegan's Wake as a first reading for the book club; I'm sure that'd have been successful!

I rather like Vonnegut's black humor.

WARNING! SEMI-SPOILER AHEAD: Anyway, I think the feeling of    or  is what you should get. The character should be vapid, sometimes clueless entities. That is the point. Vonnegut is challenging your concept of the general person and exposing the harsh possibilities of humankind's shortcomings. I'd argue that's a theme. Now, if you don't like the writing style, fair enough. However, I believe it is disingenuous to an author to bash a text because it doesn't fit your stylistic tastes. Rather, I think you should say, "Well, I see what he did there, but I didn't like how he did it."

[lamaros]

Hey, I think it's a good book for discussion. If we were just going to pick books we think everyone would like then I doubt we'd be able to pick anything. It's certainly got elements that people will respond to in different ways, regardless of the fact that some might find those elements poorly executed (which is my main contention). That's why I didn't go in to much detail with my dislikes of the book, because it's something that is better brought out over a specific discussion of the novel rather than as general point. So, I'm going to hold off replying to your provocation a couple of days still. 

Re: Finnegan's Wake. So first I get accused by Margalis as someone who loves trash and now I'm a snob?  You can't win! (People might be willing to read Portrait maybe, or at the very least Dubliners.)

(Also, I think I was wrong when I said I'd tried reading Vonnegut before, I was thinking of J.G Ballard. Now I'm having trouble trying to work out which of the two I prefer)

Re: Style. I think that in certain cases the deficienfy of style can really ruin the theme, can also cover up for a deficiency of theme, or.. etc, etc. Afterall, the style communicates too.

[Margalis]

The husband was actually still alive, although he looked totally different following surgery, and dropped a brick on her head from the roof as she looked out the window. 

I think I'm just amazed because this is the first time I've ever met someone who liked Christie and wasn't a middle-aged woman.

Seriously though, if you like Christie you should try John Dickson Carr AKA Carter Dickson, the "master of the locked room." Unlike Christie his plot resolutions make sense instead of coming from left-field from a minor character who was only mentioned in one paragraph.

When you read the plot resolution you think to yourself "hmm, I totally should have figured this out!" instead of "the fuck? Fuck you Agatha!"

[lamaros]

This digression is excused by the fact we're spoiler free for a few days, yes?

I've read a few different authors of crime and mystery novels--not sure if Dickson Carr was one of them, I'll have to check--but in pretty much all of them the resolutions are contrived in one way or the other. Some by relying on things that are possible but highly improbable, some by not providing the clues to the reader but only to the characters, some by deliberately confusing the reader with other clues and only incidental mentioning the real ones, etc etc... or just by being so bloody obvious that there is no surprise at the end at all (which more than anything else undermines the genre). I don't remember reading many that are genuinely solvable before the author reveals the murderer and yet still surprising. As such I appreciate the way they're written as being as important as how clever they may be.

Many of Christie's resolutions tend to be of the unexpected reveal at the end, where you are just hit with something out of nowhere, but she favors the deliberate misleading of the reader also. I read one the other week (on holiday, can't remember the title offhand) where she parades a whole group of likely candidates in front of you for the whole book before pulling a minor trick at the end to confuse you, then produces the real villain. The solution is believable, being not in the detail she explicitly describes (this is why the narrators of such books are rarely the ones who solve the puzzles themselves--this is the role of Poirot's man and Dr. Watson) but in the detail more flippantly or generally presented. Looking back you can identify the clues, had you stopped to think about it and didn't buy in to the false trails, that make the solution reasonable.

And while it's a little annoying to be tricked, the fun thing (for me) about Christie is that she writes with enough humor, wit and pleasure that you get engaged in the novel and race through it without stopping to try and work it out like a problem. Because, as I said, when all you have is a problem then I generally find it boringly simple, or frustratingly implausible.

That said, some of Agatha's books are more of the "Fuck you!" type. These are the by-the-numbers jobs she trots out (she did write a lot of books afterall) where the actual story and characters are not intersting enough to decorate the flaws. There ones  tend to rely more on the "something out of nowhere" trick than the "answer is believable, but not presented in a way the reader can solve before it's stated" type. But despite the fact that many of her books are like this, many are good fun easy reads, and that's why I like them!

[Margalis]

I've read a few different authors of crime and mystery novels--not sure if Dickson Carr was one of them, I'll have to check--but in pretty much all of them the resolutions are contrived in one way or the other. Some by relying on things that are possible but highly improbable, some by not providing the clues to the reader but only to the characters, some by deliberately confusing the reader with other clues and only incidental mentioning the real ones, etc etc... or just by being so bloody obvious that there is no surprise at the end at all (which more than anything else undermines the genre). I don't remember reading many that are genuinely solvable before the author reveals the murderer and yet still surprising. As such I appreciate the way they're written as being as important as how clever they may be.

The great thing about Carr is that his mysteries are very solvable, but not totally obvious. (Although I suppose that can vary) He even gives the reader little diagrams with accurate timelines and such. It isn't at all contrived. You get all the facts and the resolution makes sense. Maybe you are good at figuring them out but I wasn't. (I read them a long time ago, perhaps I would be better now)

Did you recognize what book I spoiled in my previous post? I think I got all the details right. That was the book that made me put down Christie forever.

[lamaros]

No I can't say I have had the misfortune. It does sound like a rather bad one.

I don't actually think I've read Carr. I'm pretty sure I've read some essays about him though (well, it was about locked room mysteries, of which he seems a prominent exponent).

Edit: Egads, the errors.

[NowhereMan]

If you're sick and tired of reading bad crime novels with ridiculously prescient investigators try G.K. Chesterton's The Club of Queer Trades. Effectively I read the whole thing as a "Look I can write ridiculous mysteries that revolve around a detective able to solve crimes in a way no real human could even possibly approach to!" with a main character that solves cases by intuition. Of course if he wrote them in anything like a serious manner then they qualify as the single worst collection of mysteries I have ever read.

Someone else handed me Paul Auster's The New York Trilogy which is postmodern detective stories and didn't make much sense. Interesting if you want to see someone who's clearly just playing around with the conventions of the genre and somehow manages to write 3 detective stories that may or may not be detective stories.

[Samwise]

I'm curious whether Vonnegut was influenced by Stranger in a Strange Land at all.  Bokononism struck me as a cross between the Church of Mike (or whatever it was) and Zen.

[cmlancas]

Both books were published within the same two years. I'll hit up MLA international bibliography to see if there are any articles juxtaposing the two. 

[cmlancas]

If you like crime drama or noir, read Chandler. Enough said. 

[lamaros]

If you like crime drama or noir, read Chandler. Enough said. 

Yeah. One should make a bit of a distinction between crime/noir and detective/mystery. Agatha certainly isn't the former.

[Rendakor]

Just finished this; liked it more than SH5, the only other Vonnegut I've read. The beginning was slow, but once the setting moved to the island, I started to enjoy it. Will hold off on further comments due to which ends tomorrow, amirite?

[Bokonon]

I'm a bit partial to this book, obviously, and personally think it should be the general public's first introduction to Vonnegut, as opposed to SH5. I think so, because this book still largely written as a conventional novel, more or less. I think it's better to take each chapter as a constructed joke. I think Vonnegut was definitely starting to play around with novel structure, and this book plays to his existing strengths (Slapsticky dark humor), as opposed to later books that has him poking at all sorts of conventions. I think the novel is a bit prescient, in that it predicts the sort of friction between science and religion that we see increasingly in our politics (here in the US at least). Of course it is interesting that he doesn't let either side off the hook.

 In this way it's very much against the grain of the Positivist/Modernist themes/ideology that ran through much of the science-fiction of the 50s and 60s

[Samwise]

It's the 17th, so I think we're now free to comment at will.

I agree with what Boko said above about the book going against the usual sci-fi grain.  The question of whether there are some things science just shouldn't mess with is an old one, but works that play with that theme usually have SOME redeeming aspect to whatever horror science has unleashed.  Even Frankenstein's monster had a few positive qualities.  Ice-9, on the other hand, is pretty much unarguably a bad idea that should never have been implemented and should have been destroyed by the kids as soon as they realized what their insane father had done.  It's the most stark example I've seen of someone being too clever for their own good.

The aspect of the book I found more interesting was the extended joke(?) of finding out how the narrator acquired his enlightened Bokononist outlook and why he's writing this book.  The punchline being that the whole book has been a suicide note that nobody will be left to read.  I find this funny in a horribly bleak sort of way  -- from the way the narrator talks about Bokononism throughout the entire book it sounds like it's made him a happier person and I kept waiting to find out why, and it turns out that all it's done is inspire him to commit suicide.  It's like one of those long 4chan copypastas that ends with the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme.  Or something.

[cmlancas]

Good! The extended joke (or any extended metaphor/theme/line) through a book is usually called a motif. I agree. I especially enjoy his black humor and I figured most on this board would as well.

 

[NowhereMan]

I did quite enjoy the religion/science comparison. The fact that despite the protestations of the research director it was clear that people were treating science in precisely the same mysterious way they revered religions was a nice touch. The ultimate failure of religion to provide any comfort after the destruction wrought by science was also dark but amusing, everyone gathered around looking to Bokonon for salvation and simply being told to kill themselves. Everything just falls apart as a genuine way of helping people.

The attitude to truth in the novel was also very Nietzschean, the whole theme of Bokononism that lies can be genuinely good things for people. I can't quite figure out if that part was a critique of religion in general or some sort of statement about human nature.

[cmlancas]

Let's look to some critical articles for help:

Here's one illuminating the religious irony of Harry Hoenikker:

Judaism:
http://www.filedump.net/dumped/vonnegut11200602631.pdf
Bibliographical Information: Doloff, Steven; Explicator, 2004 Fall; 63 (1): 56-57. (For those of you new to literary criticism, The Explicator is a big deal as far as publications go.)

Confucianism:
Bibliographical Information: Byun, Jong-min; The Journal of English Language and Literature, 1991 Winter; 37 (4): 973-81 (I can't find it on the web for ya'll, look it up yourself in a library if you care to.)

Christianity:
http://www.filedump.net/dumped/vonnegut21200602950.pdf
Bibliographical Information: Doxey, William S.; Explicator, 1979 Summer; 37 (4): 6.

So, in response to your question, Yes.

Edit: Also, I think the statement about human nature is something you might need to come up with on your own. That'd be a good topic for a paper if you were looking to write one -- the extension of Bokononism from religion to natural status of humanity. (If it is defensible).

[Bokonon]

On a separate note, I find the best conceived chapter/joke in the book is the one with John and the Illium Works Director on the commute to the plant (talking about the gallows that used to be on the site of the plant). It's also a classic case of foreshadowing as well. It's a bit cliche by today's standards, but was the chapter that first had me going, "I see what you did there."

[lamaros]

Seeing how I am at work (and rather tired) I'm going to hold off from my inevitably long and pretensiously critical response to the book for now, but I will address a couple of points other people have said so far (the paring down of quotes is to signify the comments I am addressing, not Brucing):

While I'm not entirely sure about what Boko said, my memory of 50/60s SF being a bit hazy, I find it very hard to agree with the suggestion that CC (I'm not going to type out Cat's Cradle every time I want to reference it) gains anything from going against the grain. After all, it's 2008 now and we're unable to judge it from that context. Instead I think it's better to look at what the book itself presents, and in this sense I think it's a bit cliche.

The question of whether there are some things science just shouldn't mess with is an old one, but works that play with that theme usually have SOME redeeming aspect to whatever horror science has unleashed.

Religion/Science is not really an old one in terms of literature. I would argue that it's a pretty recent one, and, that beign the case CC is taking part in a recent discussion. However it never seems to address that discussion, being for the most part self referential. The reference to science and religion are there, yes, but not the references to other discussions of science and religion. Or maybe I'm just missing them (I hope cmlancas will help me out if I am).

Instead the references to literature I picked up on were to things such as Moby Dick (obviously) and Catcher In The Rye. (There are, I'm sure, many others I missed in my quick reading.) But what point did these references serve? I havn't read Moby Dick yet so I'm struggling with that one, but the CitR reference seemed even more pontless. Is all this is just there for the sake of itself? The comedy derived from such was limited at best.

As for the bleak outlook the book might present, I felt ambivalent. The themes were too far stretched (science/religion, cold war, love, literature, etc) for such a short and sparely presented novel to gain any depth of feeling or expression. All the observations seemed surface level--like so much foma designed only to generate a cult audience; a granfalloon that imagines itself a karass that goes around repeating the words like they are in a secret club of enlightenment--and, spare the silliness, glib. I felt no pressing need to listen to Vonnegut.

Even Frankenstein's monster had a few positive qualities.  Ice-9, on the other hand, is pretty much unarguably a bad idea that should never have been implemented and should have been destroyed by the kids as soon as they realized what their insane father had done.  It's the most stark example I've seen of someone being too clever for their own good.

Ah, but if you just read it as a farce (and how can you read it otherwise) you get the emphasis on the fiction, not the science, so the concept of Ice-9 wasn't (for me, obviously) so much a substance but an idea and only an idea. It was outside the realm of reality. Being such, how are we meant to relate it's story with some kind of significance? The comparison to the atom bom is flawed, and if not a comment on that then what is it a comment on?

The aspect of the book I found more interesting was the extended joke(?) of finding out how the narrator acquired his enlightened Bokononist outlook and why he's writing this book.  The punchline being that the whole book has been a suicide note that nobody will be left to read.

It thought it was neat, but a little bit too convenient. I think it better when tricks such as this not only amuse and surprise you but also make you readdress the greater part of what you have just read. In this cast I felt that aspect to be minor, the revelation that he dies doesn't really adjust the novel substantialy. Nor does it confer a bleakness. He is not the last man on earth, nor woman, and his suicide doesn't wipe out the human race. If anything this just serves to underline how everything else he's written is so insipid. He's just another daft cultist.

[Samwise]

Religion/Science is not really an old one in terms of literature.

Good point -- I was speaking more in terms of sci-fi.  Also, not so much religion/science as the question of whether it's ever appropriate to put boundaries on pure research/discovery/thought.

Ice-9 is obviously only an idea; I don't think it's meant to represent the atom bomb (the a-bomb itself is discussed in the first few chapters of the book, so why bother with a metaphor for it?), but to represent a possible outcome of the line of thinking that science doesn't necessarily need to concern itself with the applications of its work.  What I read him as saying is: all right, these guys who made the A-bomb pretty much did it without thinking too hard about what it is they were doing, but it turned out to be more or less a good thing.  Fine and dandy, but what if the next thing they make is a hell of a lot more dangerous?  Hence the character of Dr. Whatsis blathering about the beauty of "pure research" while strenuously denying that such a thing as ice-nine could ever exist.

[lamaros]

Yeah, it's obviously not a direct metaphor, but nonetheless I think it is meant to represent the atom bomb. The idea that you invent something without being considerate of it's implications is the biggest grudge CC hold's up to science, a grudge that a couple of characters explicitly express in relation to the atom bomb (wassisname's son, etc). And this is the essence of Hoenikker (never mind the Jewish references, I think his name implies he is an expansionist pimp), to live in the moment of investigation only.

I don't think this is a fair comparison to make, though. No things can truly judge the consequences of their actions, but that doesn't imply they are necessarily inconsiderate of them. To rail against science as being indifferent or uncaring is absurd. Science is practced by people, and Hoenikker is not representitive of that.

It's like V dliberatly distinguishes between science, humanity and religion in order to castigate and reconcile them, but the distinguishing he attacks he is responsible for presenting. It's a silly slight of hand that misrepresents something in order to attack it, and I think that is what is being done here in many ways.

[Margalis]

First, saying that something is cliche because it helped establish certain trends and themes is absurd. By that logic Beowulf, Tolkein, Homer and anyone else is cliche. Canterbury Tales is cliche because Hyperion is another take on it? You say that we can't evaluate writings in their original context but that is not true. We can. Or at least I and and others can - maybe you can't. But that's your failing.

I don't think this is a fair comparison to make, though. No things can truly judge the consequences of their actions, but that doesn't imply they are necessarily inconsiderate of them. To rail against science as being indifferent or uncaring is absurd. Science is practced by people, and Hoenikker is not representitive of that.

Sometimes I go on Amazon and look at reviews of religious fiction. What I've discovered is that many religious people view all fiction as plain allegory. They assume that the good characters are all ciphers for the author and that the author endorses all their actions and beliefs. That's why they rate up horrible poorly-written books as long as they have a good Christian protagonist, and why Harry Potter books are evil. They view all fiction as plain endorsement.

You seem to be guilty of the same. It's far too simple to say that Cat's Cradle and Vonnegut "rail against science." All your comments indicate a very literal reading where you want to distill the "meaning" of the book into a couple of sentences. For example:

The comparison to the atom bom is flawed, and if not a comment on that then what is it a comment on?

It sounds like you are asking for very simplistic meaning to be handed to you.

He is not the last man on earth, nor woman, and his suicide doesn't wipe out the human race.

And here it sounds like you want it to wrapped up in a Hollywood-style ending. You view the revelation as some sort of Sixth Sense style twist. You complain of cliche yet you ask for one.

Cat's Cradle is not a direct commentary on the atomic bomb. It takes some of the thought behind the atomic bomb and carries it to one possible conclusion. Scientists working just to work without thought to greater implications, subtly guided by people who *are* very much thinking about the greater implications. Claiming that it is supposed to be a direct comparison or extension to the bomb is silly, especially given Vonnegut's history as a POW.

The book is not really anti-science or anti-religion, more so anti-humanity. It seems like a contradiction given that Vonnegut was a humanist, but he recognizing the good in people doesn't preclude one from recognizing the bad. Vonnegut does not put much faith in science or religion, but that's not because he is anti-technology or anti-religious, some sort of atheist neo-luddite. Religion and science are both tools used by humans -- often to ill-effect.

I think it was Vonnegut himself who said that he wrote about the worst in people so that humanity would be motivated to do better.

Flannery O’Connor on the Meaning of a Story:

When you can state the theme of a story, when you can separate it from the story itself, then you can be sure the story is not a very good one. The meaning of a story has to be embodied in it, has to be made concrete in it. A story is a way to say something that can’t be said any other way, and it takes every word in the story to say what the meaning is. You tell a story because a statement would be inadequate. When anybody asks what a story is about, the only proper thing is to tell him to read the story. The meaning of fiction is not abstract meaning but experienced meaning, and the purpose of making statements about the meaning of a story is only to help you to experience that meaning more fully.

It discourages me when I see people who think that an entire novel can and should be summarized in a sentence or two. It makes me wonder why people bother reading at all.

I'm not saying it is wrong to talk about themes and meanings. But the desire for extreme oversimplification is a very bad thing, not only when talking about a book but when reading it. Rather than concern yourself with what simple message the author is trying to get across just read the book. Good authors are not *trying* to get across simple messages, that is what transparent hack writers do. Plainly allegorical fiction is the worst sort. Good fiction comes from the author letting the plot and characters unfold in unplanned ways, revealing complex and contradictory themes.

Edit: Even trying to summarize the book's message on religion is difficult. On one hand you could take away "religion is based on lies" or on the other "religion gives people hope and meaning." To me one of the broad themes of the book is that people layer artifice over reality into an attempt to create meaning where none exists. Religion is just one example of that.

[cmlancas]

This is a freakin' long post. I'm sorry. However, it's necessary because we covered a long range of topics in lamaros's post.

Seeing how I am at work (and rather tired) I'm going to hold off from my inevitably long and pretensiously critical response to the book for now, but I will address a couple of points other people have said so far (the paring down of quotes is to signify the comments I am addressing, not Brucing):

While I'm not entirely sure about what Boko said, my memory of 50/60s SF being a bit hazy, I find it very hard to agree with the suggestion that CC (I'm not going to type out Cat's Cradle every time I want to reference it) gains anything from going against the grain. After all, it's 2008 now and we're unable to judge it from that context. Instead I think it's better to look at what the book itself presents, and in this sense I think it's a bit cliche.

Maybe. Some people would argue this. They're called new historicists.

Religion/Science is not really an old one in terms of literature. I would argue that it's a pretty recent one, and, that beign the case CC is taking part in a recent discussion. However it never seems to address that discussion, being for the most part self referential. The reference to science and religion are there, yes, but not the references to other discussions of science and religion. Or maybe I'm just missing them (I hope cmlancas will help me out if I am).

Read the critical articles. Academia disagrees with you very intensely. I think you'd have a hard time arguing with them; their cases are very strong.

Instead the references to literature I picked up on were to things such as Moby Dick (obviously) and Catcher In The Rye. (There are, I'm sure, many others I missed in my quick reading.) But what point did these references serve? I havn't read Moby Dick yet so I'm struggling with that one, but the CitR reference seemed even more pontless. Is all this is just there for the sake of itself? The comedy derived from such was limited at best.

As for the bleak outlook the book might present, I felt ambivalent. The themes were too far stretched (science/religion, cold war, love, literature, etc) for such a short and sparely presented novel to gain any depth of feeling or expression. All the observations seemed surface level--like so much foma designed only to generate a cult audience; a granfalloon that imagines itself a karass that goes around repeating the words like they are in a secret club of enlightenment--and, spare the silliness, glib. I felt no pressing need to listen to Vonnegut.

Really? It's okay if you didn't like it, but I really think that the theme of futility reflected in the writing/symbols/motifs is genius. Perhaps I'm wrong. However, "sparely presented" is tough to argue. It slaps you in the face -- I think that's why there's a little hesitancy on your part. Also, a "cult audience"? How could Vonnegut have known that he was writing for a cult audience? :o

Even Frankenstein's monster had a few positive qualities.  Ice-9, on the other hand, is pretty much unarguably a bad idea that should never have been implemented and should have been destroyed by the kids as soon as they realized what their insane father had done.  It's the most stark example I've seen of someone being too clever for their own good.

Ah, but if you just read it as a farce (and how can you read it otherwise) you get the emphasis on the fiction, not the science, so the concept of Ice-9 wasn't (for me, obviously) so much a substance but an idea and only an idea. It was outside the realm of reality. Being such, how are we meant to relate it's story with some kind of significance? The comparison to the atom bom is flawed, and if not a comment on that then what is it a comment on?

Uh, the theme is that humans didn't know the ends of the supposed progress they were making. Ice-9 on a surface level in the book is a substance. Metaphorically speaking, it is supposed to be an idea. (Here you're right) It is a comment; that humans don't know what the fuck they could be doing through science. (Something much more poignant today would be global warming. What if a study came out tomorrow that thoroughly trashed GW and showed it was an elaborate hoax?)

I think it better when tricks such as this not only amuse and surprise you but also make you readdress the greater part of what you have just read. In this cast I felt that aspect to be minor, the revelation that he dies doesn't really adjust the novel substantialy. Nor does it confer a bleakness. He is not the last man on earth, nor woman, and his suicide doesn't wipe out the human race. If anything this just serves to underline how everything else he's written is so insipid. He's just another daft cultist.

Sometimes a book might not please your tastes, but it is better (in my mind) to think "I see what he did there, just not in my style" than to refer to a classic work of literature as "insipid." There are reasons why people read this text on the collegiate level.  Oh, and it does offer a bleakness. A very, very bleak future for humankind and the sciences. I'm sorry if it went over your head.

in ur post fixin ur quote tags - Samwise

[cmlancas]

The book is not really anti-science or anti-religion, more so anti-humanity. It seems like a contradiction given that Vonnegut was a humanist, but he recognizing the good in people doesn't preclude one from recognizing the bad. Vonnegut does not put much faith in science or religion, but that's not because he is anti-technology or anti-religious, some sort of atheist neo-luddite. Religion and science are both tools used by humans -- often to ill-effect.

Love this post. Margalis, are you teaching this book currently or something? 

[lamaros]

Oh dear.

It is 2008, not 1963. We cannot judge this book as one would have in 1963. Moreover it is silly to try and judge it by pretending it's 1963. I did not say this book was original, so to assume there is some inconsistency in saying it was at once original and yet a cliche is stupid misrepresentation. I said that despite the fact that this book may have been going agains SF trends of the 50's and early 60's that that limited context was not itself a virtue. That if the book has virtues they are better look at in a wider context, or on the merit of the book itself. I don't think that running against the stream in a very limited timeframe and genre is enough in itself.

Something is cliche when it takes from other trends and themes and adds nothing too them. This is what it means and this is how I was using the word. I made no reference to Tolkien, Homer, Caucher, etc. But please, feel free to make shit up to sound like you have a point.

I'm not saying it is wrong to talk about themes and meanings. But the desire for extreme oversimplification is a very bad thing, not only when talking about a book but when reading it. Rather than concern yourself with what simple message the author is trying to get across just read the book.

Thank you for the permission to talk about themes and meanings. Thank you also for the permission to respond to the comments of others when they talk about said themes and meanings. But please follow you own advice next time and concern yourself with what I am saying and not what you want me to say.

It's not too simple to say that CC rails against science. It does. It also rails against religion and humanity. It does more than that, or at least it wants to, but that doesn't change the fact that on simple terms those things are present.

My comments indicate a very literal intrepretation for a few reasons:

1. I was responing to what Samwise said.
2. I don't have my book to hand and I'm not going to go into textual detail without refering to the text.
3. I think the book is very serface level in its observations. I feel that for all the deep meanings you can plie on it if you wish, the points are communicated simple and somewhat ineptly.

The comparison to the atom bomb and science are flawed and, being flawed, lose the significance they might otherwise hold. That does not mean that Ice-9 has no other points of interest or that CC doesn't talk about science in other respects. It just means that it's flawed, as the primary way in which these relationships develop is through the atom bomb. The atom bomb is what Hoenikker worked on and it's the book the narrator is initialy trying to writing. The relationship with the atom bomb is central to CC and if this relationship is flawed or fanciful then the book loses much of it's meaning.

In response to your brucing this is what I actually said:

It thought it was neat, but a little bit too convenient. I think it better when tricks such as this not only amuse and surprise you but also make you readdress the greater part of what you have just read. In this cast I felt that aspect to be minor, the revelation that he dies doesn't really adjust the novel substantialy. Nor does it confer a bleakness. He is not the last man on earth, nor woman, and his suicide doesn't wipe out the human race. If anything this just serves to underline how everything else he's written is so insipid. He's just another daft cultist.

I am not asking for a cliche. Surely describing something as 'convenient' makes reference to the fact that it offered little variation, not challenged expectations. Perhaps it didn't. That is what was meant.

Samwise refered to the bleakness of the end. I replied that I didn't find it so. What might be read as bleak, this series of suicides and the ending of the world, takes place against a backdrop of other survivors. There is no indication that it actually is the end of the world, nor is the final death a tragic. A man on the mountain immortalise while thumbing his nose to the heavans is a comic image for me, not a bleak one.

Scientists working just to work without thought to greater implications, subtly guided by people who *are* very much thinking about the greater implications. Claiming that it is supposed to be a direct comparison or extension to the bomb is silly, especially given Vonnegut's history as a POW.

You accuse me of a literal reading, yet when I refer to these scientests as simple drawings removed from reality, flawed ones insofar as reality is, you make a contention. Are we to assume that between your blind acceptance of V's scientists and my contention I'm the one being literal?

Please explain how you think V's history as a POW pertains to this discussion. Your reference is obtuse.

The book is not really anti-science or anti-religion, more so anti-humanity. It seems like a contradiction given that Vonnegut was a humanist, but he recognizing the good in people doesn't preclude one from recognizing the bad. Vonnegut does not put much faith in science or religion, but that's not because he is anti-technology or anti-religious, some sort of atheist neo-luddite. Religion and science are both tools used by humans -- often to ill-effect.

It's like V dliberatly distinguishes between science, humanity and religion in order to castigate and reconcile them, but the distinguishing he attacks he is responsible for presenting. It's a silly slight of hand that misrepresents something in order to attack it, and I think that is what is being done here in many ways.

What you said was just a stupidly long way of saying what I said. But without the criticism of V's method of doing so.

[cmlancas]

It is 2008, not 1963. We cannot judge this book as one would have in 1963.

You are blatantly ignoring a HUGE PART OF LITERARY CRITICISM DURING THE LAST FIFTY YEARS.

STOP NOW!

Thanks. And yes you can. Go look up the definition of the new historicist theory of literary criticism.

Edit: Don't confuse "for" and "during", dumbass! 

[lamaros]

Trimming out my quotes to cut this down to size.

Maybe. Some people would argue this. They're called new historicists.

Link to what this terms means? I'm not down.

Read the critical articles. Academia disagrees with you very intensely. I think you'd have a hard time arguing with them; their cases are very strong.

Read them before I replied. What I mean is that it refers to religion, and refers to science. But makes no reference to other works that have talked about the relationship between religion and science. Clearer?

Really? It's okay if you didn't like it, but I really think that the theme of futility reflected in the writing/symbols/motifs is genius. Perhaps I'm wrong. However, "sparely presented" is tough to argue. It slaps you in the face -- I think that's why there's a little hesitancy on your part. Also, a "cult audience"? How could Vonnegut have known that he was writing for a cult audience? :o

By sparse I mean he introduces one topic or point and then jumps quickly to the next. It's a constant series of introductions, without much explicit examination. Which is not inherently bad, I just feel that the whole doesn't play out to crate this 'examination space' in the holes that are left. To me they just remain holes.

All cult things have their buzzwords and such, in jokes, etc. I think CC goes out of its way to present them. It's like 1984 without the plot.

Uh, the theme is that humans didn't know the ends of the supposed progress they were making. Ice-9 on a surface level in the book is a substance. Metaphorically speaking, it is supposed to be an idea. (Here you're right) It is a comment; that humans don't know what the fuck they could be doing through science. (Something much more poignant today would be global warming. What if a study came out tomorrow that thoroughly trashed GW and showed it was an elaborate hoax?)

But humans never know. Not just with science but with nearly anything. I think he's taken a universal concept and pushed it in to a very literal and silly box which only contrains discussion and understanding of it. So we don't know the end of our actions. Of course not, we never do. All we do is act and guess. If you want to talk about this aspect of life then I feel you have to do more than just point it out. Tell us something about it, how it's beautiful or absurd or funny or frighting. But simply pointing it out and running it to a farcical SF conclusion does nothing for me.

Sometimes a book might not please your tastes, but it is better (in my mind) to think "I see what he did there, just not in my style" than to refer to a classic work of literature as "insipid." There are reasons why people read this text on the collegiate level.  Oh, and it does offer a bleakness. A very, very bleak future for humankind and the sciences. I'm sorry if it went over your head.

I refered to the narrator as insipid, not V.

I read Harry Potter at a College Level. You can read anything at a College level. That doesn't mean you can't criticise it.

RE: Bleakness. No, I don't think it's bleak at all. See what I put to Margalis above on that topic. It's funny and humanistic (is that a word!), not bleak.

EDIT: Fixed a bad typo that confused the meaning. Left the others.

[lamaros]

You are blatantly ignoring a HUGE PART OF LITERARY CRITICISM DURING THE LAST FIFTY YEARS.

STOP NOW!

Thanks. And yes you can. Go look up the definition of the new historicist theory of literary criticism.

It boggles me how much you think it matters that you have to agree with other critics. It's ok to have your own opinion.

Re: "Don't confuse "for" and "during", dumbass!  " What bit are you refering to here? I'm not doing much proofreading as I'm at work.

[cmlancas]

Oh, the dumbass part was to myself.

However, no, in the realm of literary criticism, not really. You can choose not to use that approach, but you can't deny that it is a valid tool of interpreting literature people have used for decades.

This is in response to "we're unable to judge it from [V's zeitgeist]."