Cat's Cradle

by Vonnegut, Kurt, Jr.

• ISBN13: 9780808520696
• ISBN10: 0808520695
• Copyright: 1999-10-01
• Publisher: Turtleback Books

Summary

"Cat's Cradle" is Vonnegut's satirical commentary on modern man and his madness. An apocalyptic tale of this planet's ultimate fate, it features a midget as the protagonist; a complete, original theology created by a calypso singer; and a vision of the future that is at once blackly fatalistic and hilariously funny.

Table of Contents

The Day the World Ended	1	(1)
Nice, Nice, Very Nice	2	(2)
Folly	4	(1)
A Tentative Tangling of Tendrils	5	(3)
Letter from a Pre-Med	8	(5)
Bug Fights	13	(5)
The Illustrious Hoenikkers	18	(1)
Newt's Thing with Zinka	19	(1)
Vice-President in Charge of Volcanoes	20	(1)
Secret Agent X-9	21	(3)
Protein	24	(1)
End of the World Delight	25	(2)
The Jumping-off Place	27	(3)
When Automobiles Had Cut-Glass Vases	30	(2)
Merry Christmas	32	(3)
Back to Kindergarten	35	(2)
The Girl Pool	37	(2)
The Most Valuable Commodity on Earth	39	(3)
No More Mud	42	(2)
Ice-Nine	44	(3)
The Marines March on	47	(1)
Member of the Yellow Press	48	(2)
The Last Batch of Brownies	50	(2)
What a Wampeter is	52	(1)
The Main Thing About Dr. Hoenikker	53	(1)
What Gog is	54	(1)
Men from Mars	55	(3)
Mayonnaise	58	(2)
Gone, but not Forgotten	60	(1)
Only Sleeping	61	(2)
Another Breed	63	(1)
Dynamite Money	64	(2)
An Ungrateful Man	66	(3)
Vin-Dit	69	(4)
Hobby Shop	73	(4)
Meow	77	(2)
A Modern Major General	79	(2)
Barracuda Capital of the World	81	(1)
Fata Morgana	82	(2)
House of Hope and Mercy	84	(2)
A Karass Built for two	86	(2)
Bicycles for Afghanistan	88	(4)
The Demonstrator	92	(4)
Communist Sympthizers	96	(2)
Why Americans are Hated	98	(1)
The Bokononist Method for Handling Caesar	99	(2)
Dynamic Tension	101	(2)
Just Like Saint Augustine	103	(1)
A Fish Pitched up by an Angry Sea	104	(5)
A Nice Midget	109	(1)
O.K., Mom	110	(4)
No Pain	114	(2)
The President of Fabri-Tek	116	(2)
Communists, Nazis, Royalists, Parachutists, and Draft Dodgers	118	(1)
Never Index Your own Book	119	(4)
A Self-Supporting Squirrel Cage	123	(2)
The Queasy Dream	125	(2)
Tyranny with a Difference	127	(2)
Fasten your Seat Belts	129	(3)
An Underprivileged Nation	132	(2)
What a Corporal Was Worth	134	(2)
Why Hazel Wasn't Scared	136	(1)
Reverent and Free	137	(2)
Peace and Plenty	139	(2)
A Good Time to Come to San Lorenzo	141	(3)
The Strongest Thing There is	144	(3)
Hy-U-O-Ook-Kuhi	147	(2)
Hoon-Yera Mora-Toorz	149	(1)
A big Mosaic	150	(3)
Tutored by Bokonon	153	(1)
The Happiness of Being an American	154	(2)
The Pissant Hilton	156	(3)
Black Death	159	(4)
Cat's Cradle	163	(3)
Give my Regards to Albert Scweitzer	166	(2)
Julian Castle Agrees with Newt that Everything is Meaningless	168	(2)
Aspirin and Boko-Maru	170	(2)
Ring of Steel	172	(2)
Why McCabe's Soul Grew Coarse	174	(2)
The Waterfall Strainers	176	(4)
A white Bride for the Son of a Pullman Porter	180	(3)
Zah-Mah-Ki-Bo	183	(2)
Dr. Schlichter Von Koenigswald Approaches the Break-Even Point	185	(2)
Blackout	187	(2)
A Pack of Foma	189	(2)
Two Little Jugs	191	(3)
The Cut of my Jib	194	(3)
Why Frank Couldn't be President	197	(2)
Duffle	199	(2)
Only one Catch	201	(2)
Mona	203	(2)
On the Poet's Celebration of his First Boko-Maru	205	(1)
How I Almost Lost my Mona	206	(4)
The Highest Mountain	210	(2)
I See the Hook	212	(1)
Bell, Book, and Chicken in a Hatbox	213	(3)
The Stinking Christian	216	(3)
Last Rites	219	(1)
Dyot Meet Mat	220	(3)
Down the Oubliette Goes Frank	223	(2)
Like my Predecessors, I Outlaw Bokonon	225	(2)
Enemies of Freedom	227	(3)
A Medical Opinion on the Effects of a Writers' Strike	230	(2)
Sulfathiazole	232	(3)
Pain-Killer	235	(2)
What Bokononists Say when they Commit Suicide	237	(2)
Feast your Eyes!	239	(1)
Frank Tells us what to do	240	(2)
Frank Defends Himself	242	(2)
The Fourteenth Book	244	(1)
Time out	245	(3)
Newt's Mother's Reticule	248	(2)
History	250	(2)
When I Felt the Bullet Enter my Heart	252	(5)
As it Happened	257	(2)
The Grand Ah-Whoom	259	(2)
Sanctuary	261	(2)
The Iron Maiden and the Oubliette	263	(4)
Mona Thanks me	267	(3)
To whom it may Concern	270	(3)
I am Slow to Answer	273	(2)
The Swiss Family Robinson	275	(1)
Of Mice and Men	276	(3)
Frank's Ant Farm	279	(3)
The Tasmanians	282	(2)
Soft Pipes, Play on	284	(2)
The end	286