“God made mud.
God got lonesome.
So God said to some of the mud, "Sit up!"
"See all I've made," said God, "the hills, the sea, the
sky, the stars."
And I was some of the mud that got to sit up and look
around.
Lucky me, lucky mud.
I, mud, sat up and saw what a nice job God had done.
Nice going, God.
Nobody but you could have done it, God! I certainly
couldn't have.
I feel very unimportant compared to You.
The only way I can feel the least bit important is to
think of all the mud that didn't even get to sit up and
look around.
I got so much, and most mud got so little.
Thank you for the honor!
Now mud lies down again and goes to sleep.
What memories for mud to have!
What interesting other kinds of sitting-up mud I met!
I loved everything I saw!
Good night.
I will go to heaven now.
I can hardly wait...
To find out for certain what my wampeter was...
And who was in my karass...
And all the good things our karass did for you.
Amen.”
In the first line of Cat's Cradle, the narrator invites us to
"Call me Jonah. My parents did, or nearly did. They called me John." Anyone with a semester of freshman lit or a subscription to Classics Illustrated will immediately recognize
the reference to Melville's Moby Dick, which opens with "Call me Ishmael." But what does Vonnegut hope to accomplish with this? In Moby (the novel, not the bald techno artist), Ishmael serves as witness to the increasingly insane pursuit of Moby Dick by Captain Ahab, a quest that can be seen as representative of man's immortal -- and some would say, just as futile -- quest for truth. "Jonah" also alludes to the Biblical Jonah, who was swallowed whole by a whale (literally a "great fish") as punishment for disobeying God. Once released from the belly of the beast, Jonah has learned his lesson and is more than willing to go about God's Good Work. John spends Cat's Cradle in an Ahab-esque quest to find the whole story of Dr. Felix Hoenikker and kin. As the novel progresses, that quest becomes more and more a quest for truth or meaning. Once he learns of the existence of Ice-9 -- the isotope of water that is solid at room temperature and contaminates any other water it touches -- and that each of Dr. Hoenikker's children is in possession of some, John makes it his quest to find them. It is never clear what he intends to do if his search succeeds. Ishmael watched as his captain foolishly pursued the whale that had taken his leg, a pursuit that in the end destroyed him. For Jonah, the whale came to him. The message seems to be that
whether we choose to chase the truth or run from it, it will inevitably turn around and swallow us whole. Damned if you do, damned if you don't is a philosophy Vonnegut seems to particularly enjoyყველგან მობიი დიკიაააა
This post has been edited by AnEeEeE=]] on 11 Feb 2016, 14:03 'The way I see it, every life is a pile of good things and bad things. The good things don’t always soften the bad things, but vice versa the bad things don’t always spoil the good things and make them unimportant.'
11th doctor
კურტ ვონეგუტი Kurt Vonnegut, დიდი ამერიკელი
