Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was written around the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, but the threat of a nuclear holocaust is ever present in today’s world with anally-retentive mad mullahs, hyper-libidinal but microcephalic dicktators waving their I see bee ems as defiant compensatory gestures. However, rather than the nuclear peril, this book describes the end not with a bang, but with an eternal freeze brought on by an isomer of water - ICE-9.
Here is a glossary as a ready reckoner for terms used by Bokonon:

Boko-maru - the supreme act of worship of the Bokononists, which is an intimate act consisting of prolonged physical contact between the naked soles of the feet of two persons.
Borasisi – Sun.
Busy, busy, busy - words Bokononists whisper upon witnessing an example of how interconnected everything is.
Duffle - the destiny of thousands of people placed on one stuppa.
Duprass - a karass that consists of only two people, who always die within a week of each other.
Foma - harmless untruths; lies that bring one comfort.
Granfalloon - a false karass; i.e., a group of people who imagine they have a connection that does not really exist.
Karass - a group of people who, often unknowingly, are working together to do God's will. The people can be thought of as like the fingers that support a Cat's Cradle.
Now I will destroy the whole world... - What a Bokononist says before committing suicide.
Pabu – Moon
Pool-pah - wrath of God or "shit storm"
Saroon - to acquiesce to a vin-dit
Sin-wat - a person who wants all of somebody's love for him/herself
Stuppa - a fogbound child (i.e. an idiot)
Vin-dit - a sudden shove in the direction of Bokononism
Wampeter - the central, perhaps unknown, motivation of a karass
Wrang-wrang - Someone who steers a Bokononist away from their line of perception

Whereas the neologisms in A Clockwork Orange have lexical origins from Russian or have a sort of perverse logic about them (devotchka, the old in and out appy polly logies, bruiseboys, chepooka, guttiwuts, lubbilubbing), the terms of Bokonoism are Carrollian – whimsical, poetic, nonsensical yet imbued with a sublime beauty and depth. However, with the incomprehensible dialect of San Lorenzo – the spiritual home of Bokononism – in translating “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” Kurt Vonnegut Jr. surpasses both Anthony Burgess and Lewis Carroll

Tsvent-kiul, tsvent-kiul, lett-pool store,
Ko jy tsvantoor bat voo yore,
Put-shinik on lo shee zo brath,
Kam oon teetron on lo nath,
Tsvent-kiul, tsvent-kiul, lett-pool store,
Ko jy tsvantoor bat voo yore.

Nonetheless, for all its weirdness, the language is not a patch on the neologistic portmanteau words of Finnegans Wake.
Archetypal vintage Vonnegut - both thought provoking, as well as enjoyable.

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