April 2022

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. - Truth, Lies and the Meaning of Life.

April 24th, Documentary: 3:00-5:15 / Discussion: 5:30-7pm

This month we are reading Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle (1963). It has been described as a "satirical postmodern novel with science fiction elements", but I think it is best to approach it free of any preconceived notions or expectations. As it turns out, the documentary Unstuck in Time, which recounts Vonnegut's extraordinary life and his friendship with Robert B. Weide, the filmmaker who set out to document it, will be available on FilmIn as of April 22nd. I thought it might be fun for us to watch it together, before the discussion. What's more, if some of you are up for it we could have lunch together at la Miranda and make a day of it.

There is a lot more going on in Cat's Cradle than initilally meets the eye. The following questions are intended to shed some light on the references that might otherwise remain obscure upon a first reading. However, it is not necessary to be an expert on philosophy, religion or mythology . to enjoy the book. My intention is simply to provide some food for thought.


Bokononism is the fictional religion practiced by many of the characters in Kurt Vonnegut's novel Cat's Cradle. It is based on living by the untruths that make one happy, called foma.


All of the true things that I am about to tell you are shameless lies.

— Bokonon


What is the truth, but a lie agreed upon.

— Friedrich Nietzsche


Unannounced changes in life's itinerary are like dancing lessons from God.

— Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.


I would believe only in a God that knows how to dance.

— Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra


HUMOR. Kurt Vonnegut is a premier satirist. What are some of the ways that Vonnegut makes fun of religion, greed, businessmen, the military and Americans in general? What are some of the institutions that are satirized in Cat's Cradle? How does Vonnegut use black humour to expose the absurdity of the state of things?

LITERARY REFERENCES. The first line of the novel, “Call me Jonah” is a reference to both the Bible and Moby Dick (which begins with the line “Call me Ishmael”). What do Vonnegut’s allusions to works of literature (for example Homer's Iliad and Odyssey) add to the experience of reading the novel?


NUCLEAR DESTRUCTION. Cat's Cradle is concerned with nuclearism and thoughts of apocalyptic destruction. John's non-fiction book, The Day the World Ended, was originally about the day the hydrogen bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. What is the subject of Cat's Cradle, and how do the two topics relate to one another? What is the ultimate cause of the end of the world? What does this suggest about human nature?


SCIENCE AND ETHICS. Felix Hoenikker is like Robert Oppenheimer in that he, too, develops terrible weapons without any concern for their consequences. After the explosion at the nuclear test site, a scientist turns to Felix and says, "Science has now known sin." To which Felix replies, "What is sin?" Can or should science be a totally amoral pursuit? What meaning can sin have if the universe is amoral, or if "good" and "evil" are simply constructs (or lies?) invented by human beings to give a sense of order to an otherwise chaotic, meaningless existence?


TRUTH AND LIES. In Cat's Cradle, Vonnegut attacks the idea that truth is innately desirable and good - an idea that is all pervasive in our culture, particularly within the two major competing philosophies of religion and science. What is your own opinion about the importance of truth? Do you agree with Vonnegut? Is there any lesson to be gleaned from this questioning of what is true?


RELIGION AND HAPPINESS. Vonnegut describes religion as a useful lie. Julian Castle explains, "Religion became the one real instrument of hope. Truth was the enemy of the people, because the truth was so terrible, so Bokonon made it his business to provide the people with better and better lies." Because of Bokonon's lies, "people didn't have to pay as much attention to the awful truth... the happiness of the people grew." When the desired end is happiness, is the use of lies to reach this end justifiable?


POSITIVISM. Positivism is the belief that the only real kind of knowledge is scientific knowledge. According to Dr Breed "the trouble with the world is that people are still superstitious instead of scientific (...) if everybody would study science more, there wouldn't be all the trouble there is." Do you agree with this statement? Miss Faust, on the other hand, admits "I just have trouble understanding how truth, all by itself, could be enough for a person." How and when is truth not enough?


MAGIC AND WONDER. Felix admits that, as a scientist, he is filled with wonder at the world around him; science, for him, is a playful kind of thing that he engages in because of his wonder. And yet, his attitude towards the wondrous is to demystify it, to explain and master it in scientific terms. Why are wonder and magic important? Is science, as you understand it, the destruction of wonder, the antithesis of magic, or is it the heightening of wonder?


MUSIC OF THE SPHERES. Emily Hoenikker is initially attracted to Felix because "his mind was tuned to the biggest music there was, the music of the stars". Here, Vonnegut is referring to the ancient idea that everything is part of a cosmic harmony. Why does Vonnegut evoke this image? How might Felix's attunement to the celestial spheres and Angela's shamanistic-musical trance shed some light on aspects of reality that are left out of the scientific-positivistic account of the world that motivates men like Dr. Breed? How might the Bokononist explain these musical experiences?


BOKO-MARU. The Bokononistic equivalent of sex, boko-maru, is a union of two souls achieved by placing the soles of two people's feet together. Why is it significant that "souls" and "soles" are homophones?


DYNAMIC TENSION. What do you think of the Bokononist viewpoint that “good societies could be built only by pitting good against evil, and by keeping the tension between the two high at all times"? How was this “Dynamic Tension” maintained on San Lorenzo? Why ought one not, according to Bokonon, seek to eradicate evil entirely? Do you see any similarities with Friedrich Nietzsche's ideas concerning dynamic tension in the soul?


SOCIAL ENGINEERING. How is San Lorenzo portrayed as a utopia? What does Vonnegut see as the primary problem(s) with utopian social engineering? To answer this question you might also want to have a look at the short story Harrison Bergeron (see below).


BAKUNIN. The pseudonym Bokonon may be an allusion to Russian anarchist thinker Mikhail Bakunin, whose most famous work, God and the State is very critical of Christianity and of religion in general, but from a materialist perpective. According to Bakunin, "Religion is a collective insanity" and "a divine falsehood is more powerful than any human truth." Why might Vonnegut have chosen to refer to Bakunin, who denied religious concepts of a supernatural sphere and advocated for a materialist explanation of natural phenomena?


NIHILISM. The idea of being able determine our own destiny hinges on the assumption that we live in a sensible, predictable, meaningful universe. But do we? Or are we living in absurdity and constantly creating our own meanings? Among philosophers, Nietzsche is most often associated with nihilism. For him, there is no objective order or structure in the world except what we give it. Chapter 36 discusses John's rejection of nihilism. Why does he reject it? How does Bokononism differ from nihilism?


ART. In The Birth of Tragedy Nietzsche seeks to affirm existence, with all of its suffering and ultimate pointlessness, as a work of art. According to Nietzsche, "Our salvation lies not in knowing, but in creating," that is, by transfiguring life into art, understood broadly as artifice, mythology, performance. Similarly, in Cat's Cradle Julian Castle explains how through the use of lies, "life became a work of art." What is the relation between lies, art, and happiness in Cat's Cradle? Is art good because it tells us the truth about the goodness of existence or because it lies to us, and hides the "awful truth" of existence, making life bearable?


CAT'S CRADLE. Newt tells us that "For maybe a hundred thousand years or more, grown-ups have been waving tangles of string in their children's faces... No wonder kids grow up crazy. A cat's cradle is nothing but a bunch of X's between somebody's hands, and little kids look and look and look at all those X's... No damn cat, and no damn cradle." What is the significance of the image of the cat's cradle throughout the book? Why did Vonnegut choose it as the title of his novel?


Several of Vonnegut's short stories have been made into movies. I would like to suggest the following two, both from his 1968 collection Welcome to the Monkey House. "Harrison Bergeron" is interesting because it deals with the topic of an experiment in utopian social engineering gone awry, and "Who Am I This Time?" because it touches on the theme of truth, lies and identity.

Harrison Bergeron (text)

The film takes place in a dystopian future in which the US government mandates total egalitarianism in all things, by having everyone attach wearable mind "handicapping" devices to their heads and showing only mind numbing shows on TV. The story centers on a high school student named Harrison Bergeron whose extreme intelligence makes him something of a pariah. He is ultimately recruited by a secret organization whose purpose is to operate the functions of society that cannot be handled by the unintelligent.

Who Am I This Time? (text)

Susan Sarandon and Christopher Walken star as Helene and Harry in a 1982 production of Kurt Vonnegut's short story "Who Am I This Time?" Harry is the shy, reserved star in community theatre who only becomes sociable when he is deep in a role. Helene is new to the town and auditions for a role in the next production of "A Streetcar Named Desire." Helene falls in love with Harry's on-stage persona.

Watching "Who Am I This Time" brought to mind this very short story by Richard Brautigan, from his collection Revenge of the Lawn.

An Unlimited Supply of 35 Millimeter Film, by Richard Brautigan

People cannot figure out why he is with her. They don't understand. He's so good-looking and she's so plain. "What does he see in her?" they ask themselves and each other. They know it's not her cooking because she's not a good cook. About the only thing that she can cook is a halfway decent meat loaf. She makes it every Tuesday night and he has a meat loaf sandwich in his lunch on Wednesday. Years pass. They stay together while their friends break up.

The beginning answer, as in so many of these things, lies in the bed where they make love. She becomes the theater where he shows films of his sexual dreams. Her body is like soft rows of living theater seats leading to a vagina that is the warm screen of his imagination where he makes love to all the women that he sees and wants like passing quicksilver movies, but she doesn't know a thing about it.

All she knows is that she loves him very much and he always pleases her and makes her feel good. She gets excited around four o'clock in the afternoon because she knows that he will be home from work at five.

He has made love to hundreds of different women inside of her. She makes all his dreams come true as she lies there like a simple contented theater in his touching, thinking only of him.

"What does he see in her?" people go on asking themselves and each other. They should know better. The final answer is very simple. It's all in his head.

Counterculture Trivia

  • In his 1971 novel Another Roadside Attraction, Tom Robbins refers to Cat's Cradle stating, "In Bokonon, it is written that 'peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God.'" Tom Robbins is another very funny writer who you might enjoy if you like Vonnegut.

  • The Grateful Dead's publishing company, Ice Nine, was named after the fictional substance. Between 1983 and 1985, the band's leader Jerry Garcia worked with the scriptwriter and comedian Tom Davis on a screenplay based on the book. The film was never produced.