Chapter 49. He was enchanted by the mystery of coming ashore naked on an unfamiliar island. He resolved to let the adventure run its full course, resolved to see just how far a man might go, emerging naked from salt water.

Bokonon Glossary*
Foma: Harmless untruths
Granfalloon: ''a false karass, [...] a seeming team that [is] meaningless in terms of the ways God gets things done.''
Karrass: ''team [of people] that do[es] God's Will without ever discovering what they are doing.''
Wampeter: ''the pivot of a karass, around which the souls of the members of the karass revolve.''

*see Eugene Wallingford's Books of Bokonon online

	Grab your very own copy of Cat's Cradle from Amazon.com.
	1963 NY Times review of Cat's Cradle by Terry Southern
	Magill Book Review's synopsis
	The Books of Bokonon online
	Account of the band Ambrosia's working a Cat's Cradle chapter into their first album and Vonnegut's subsequent letter praising Ambrosia's song.

Subject: Something Interesting...
Date: 22 Mar 1997
From: jules10110@aol.com 
Newsgroups: alt.books.kurt-vonnegut

Hello to all of the members of my karass. I've just finished a 10 page term paper on KV. It was the most fun I've had writing a term paper, specifically because I could dwell on the wisdom and overall goodness of Vonnegut's prose. Here is something I found in my secondary research that I thought was interesting. It was in ''Two or Three Things I Know about Vonnegut's Imagination'' by Tim Hildebrand in The Vonnegut Statement: '''Now you folks come on and be happy, come on and be happy.' That's a quote from a speech delivered by Lyndon Baines Johnson, in St. Louis, October 21, 1964. Bokonon's real name: Lionel Boyd Johnson.''

Cat's Cradle
1963

© Gale Research
Contemporary Authors, 49. ''If one single point must be chosen for the transition of Vonnegut from 'cult figure' to 'popular author' it would most probably be a statement by Graham Greene calling the author's 1963 novel Cat's Cradle 'one of the three best novels of the year by one of the most able living writers.' Cat's Cradle is as autobiographical as any of Vonnegut's work up to that point. The Hoenikker family of the novel closely parallels Vonnegut's own family, consisting of an elder son who is a scientist, a tall middle daughter, and a younger son who joins Delta Upsilon. The narrator is again a writer who, in this case, is working on a book called The Day the World Ended, about the bombing of Hiroshima. Since its publication, Cat's Cradle has consistently appeared on high school and college reading lists; [Peter J.] Reed says that it might be the most widely-read of Vonnegut's novels among young people. He explains that 'to ''the counter-culture'' it should appeal as a book which counters almost every aspect of the culture of our society. To a generation which delights in the 'put on,' parody and artifice, often as the most meaningful expressions of deeply held convictions in a world which they see as prone to distortion, Cat's Cradle's play with language, symbol and artifice should find accord.'''

Early editions of Cat's Cradle
NEW YORK: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1963.
LONDON: Victor Gollancz, 1963.
NEW YORK: Dell, 1965, 1970.
TORONTO: S.J. Reginald Saunders, 1964.
LONDON: Penguin, 1965.
MILAN: Rizzoli, 1968 (Ghiaccio-Nove, trans. Roberta Rambelli).
TOKYO: Hayakawa Shobô, 1968 (Neko No Yurikago, trans. Itô Norio).
HAMBURG: Hoffman und Campe, 1969.
COPENHAGEN: Stig Verdelkaers, 1969 (Da verden gik under, trans. Arne Herløv Petersen).
FRANCE: Edition du Seuil, 1970.
CZECHOSLOVAKIA: Mlada fronta, 1970.
SPAIN: Editorial Novaro, 1970.
MOSCOW: Holodaya gvardiya, 1970 (Kolybel' dlya Koshki, trans. Rita Rait-Kovalyova).
AMSTERDAM: Meulanhoff, 1971.
NEW YORK: Delacorte/Seymour Lawrence, 1971.

Chapter 76. Julian Castle and Angela went to Newt's painting. Castle made a pinhole of a curled index finger, squinted at the painting through it.

''What do you think of it?'' I asked him.

''It's black. What is it -- hell?''

''It means whatever it means,'' said Newt.

''Then it's hell,'' snarled Castle.

''I was told a moment ago that it was a cat's cradle,'' I said.

''Inside information always helps,'' said Castle.

''I don't think it's very nice,'' Angela complained. ''I think it's ugly, but I don't know anything about modern art. Sometimes I wish Newt would take lessons, so he could know for sure if he was doing something or not.''

''Self-taught, are you?'' Julian Castle asked Newt.

''Isn't everybody?'' New inquired.

''Very good answer.'' Castle was respectful.

BOOK:  Cat's Cradle · NY Times Review · Synopsis RELATED:  Complete Writings · Critical Bilbiography · Dramatic Works Frequently Asked Questions

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