Cat’s Cradle is a social commentary made of razor blades! It is maybe the sharpest, edgiest book I’ve ever read.It revolves,
at least at the beginning around the quests of the
narrator (who asked to be called Jonah, like the narrator of “Moby Dick”) as he tries to learn more about Felix Honnicker, a now deceased father of the atom bomb. What he learns is stranger than he imagined. Honniker accidentally poisoned himself with one of his own inventions Ice – 9, new way of ordering water molecules so that they freeze at room temperatures. If this stuff is ever introduced to a body of water, *poof* the water turns to Ice – 9 instantly. Honniker’s three children, who find him dead, divide the Ice – 9 and set out to find their fortunes with it.This leads, through a strange but pre-ordained set of circumstances, to all of the main characters being on a small, tropical island where the local holy man “Bokonon” has started his own
religion. It’s a religion that believes, among many other things, that we can’t understand God, and God really isn’t too worried about us.The story reaches its climax as the island’s dictator has, on his deathbed, frozen himself with Ice – 9 only to be dumped into the sea a few seconds later. *Poof* the oceans of the world are frozen and the world as we know it comes to a end. We are led to believe that life may continue for the planet but the author and even Bokonon himself poison themselves rather than live in the destroyed world.