Quote from the Cradle

Some of you may have noticed that my ‘Welcome to Judge Jonathan’ text has been replaced over there on the left by a killer quote of my favourite author, Kurt Vonnegut. (Don't worry, it'll be back at some point - it's too cool for me to delete it. And you all know I'm too cool for school.)

Anyway, a couple of days ago, my flatmate asked me if I had a good book for her – she was bored. I took out Cat’s Cradle without really thinking too much. It had been, I believe, almost two years since I had last read it. When asked about my favourite Vonneguts, I always used to mention Slaughterhouse 5 and Hocus Pocus, but somehow failed to mention Cat’s Cradle. God knows why I forgot just how amazing this book is - but as my flatmate chuckled, giggled and shook her head in amazement at how an author can tell what is essentially a most depressing story about the human condition (and which involves no less than the end of the world) so light-heartedly and with so much humour and - and this is what makes Vonnegut great - sheer absurdity, I remembered that this one is definitely up there with Vonnegut's best.

Now I had planned to give you a long description of the book, and get out twenty quotes from it to prove my point, but I do understand the limitations of blogging - there's only that much you can make your readers (provided you have some) do. So instead of overdoing it (and possibly ruining the book for you if you do decide to read it at some point), let me leave you with one simple quote. It's a little childish poem Vonnegut put into the mouth of a LSE-educated calypso singer-turned-guru named Bokonon. (Tell me that character alone isn't genius.)

For me, this short poem manages to describe in a few words our eternal quest to understand what is around us, to understand the world - when we all know, deep down, that we will never be able to, because our human brains try to trick us into believing there is a purpose, a meaning, for all of it. Evolution made us smart enough to suspect that all life has no purpose; but just as our brains will never fully be able to grasp the concept of infinity (or, for that matter, the true implications of a finite universe), we will never be able to fully realize what it means to live in a world without meaning or purpose. We can rationalize it; we will never understand it. And that, in a nutshell, is why man invented religion, ideologies, and perhaps most of all, I'm afraid to say, science.

Tiger got to hunt,
Bird got to fly;
Man got to sit and wonder, "Why, why, why?"

Tiger got to sleep,
Bird got to land;
Man got to tell himself he understand.

See? Now I did write half an essay on this book. Ah well, I can't help myself. Final thought: Read Cat's Cradle, or at least the Books of Bokonon (especially the final sentence).

JJtags:

• book
• review
• kurtvonnegut
• catscradle