nicanical
Cat's Cradle is organized into 127 short chapters, many being maybe 500 words or less. Chapters in the first half are mostly self-contained vignettes about Felix Hoenniker, an important figure in the story. These read like an endless string of tangents so that I was glad when they were behind me. After, the story moves to San Lorenzo and concerns itself with the narrator's experiences there—and becomes more enjoyable as a result, because the narrator is a more sympathetic character than Felix.
Given its themes and setting, Cat's Cradle is ostensibly an allegory for the Cold War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the doctrine of mutual assured destruction. The full impact of this was lost on me because I read this book fifty years on from those events. I am also pessimistic about our species' capacity to learn from its mistakes, so any cautionary lessons get a shrug from me.
I still look forward to rereading this book for the pleasantly digestible chapters, the satire, and the subtle humor.
Cat's Cradle is organized into 127 short chapters, many being maybe 500 words or less. Chapters in the first half are mostly self-contained vignettes about Felix Hoenniker, an important figure in the story. These read like an endless string of tangents so that I was glad when they were behind me. After, the story moves to San Lorenzo and concerns itself with the narrator's experiences there—and becomes more enjoyable as a result, because the narrator is a more sympathetic character than Felix.
Given its themes and setting, Cat's Cradle is ostensibly an allegory for the Cold War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the doctrine of mutual assured destruction. The full impact of this was lost on me because I read this book fifty years on from those events. I am also pessimistic about our species' capacity to learn from its mistakes, so any cautionary lessons get a shrug from me.
I still look forward to rereading this book for the pleasantly digestible chapters, the satire, and the subtle humor.
