Nate’s Blog

We have less than a week to finish the project and i am scambling to finish.  As of now I have all of my criticisms and annotation written but it wasn’t easy.  I had a hard time finding legit articles to criticize and eventually had to go to Oakland’s library and copy an article from a book.  I feel as if the criticisms were pretty easy to write, and i actually learned a lot from reading the scholarly articles on the novel.  Also, the site that Evan put on his blog about the differnet critical approaches really helped me.  Just wanted to post my progress.

Before spring break i went to Oakland’s Library to look for criticisms and backgrounds.  I found a few scholarly articles and read them.  I am having a tough time starting to write the criticisms though.  I feel as if i am behind since I haven’t written anything and spring break is almost over.

I have a feeling that the articles that I have are more of overviews of Cat’s Cradle instead of a certain idea of the novel.  If anyone has found a good place to find articles other than the Oakland library, please let me know.  Thanks, now i have to get to writing.

After Mr. Kreinbring was talking about these reports killing the author’s of the novels, and how Kurt Vonnegut died last year, I decided to look up the tribute to him that PBS put together.  It is very interesting and starts out with Vonnegut discussing how he is angry that cigarettes haven’t killed him yet.  Through this interview his personality shines through.  He is very outspoken, which is also reflected in his writing.  At one point he calls President Bush a “twit”.  It is very interesting seeing the person behind the story that I am reading.  I hope you will check this video out.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdANElmRU6k#

I picked up Cat’s Cradle yesterday, and I’m already 46 chapters( 100 pages) into it.  The way that Vonnegut writes is very interesting, and keeps pulling me in to read more.  Each chapter is only about 2-3 pages long, and the title pretty much explains what it is about.  Vonnegut writes with a kind of humor that allows him to kind of make fun of religion and science.  But, the most interesting part of the book thus far is the way that he interwines made-up words from a fake religion to control what happens.  Through the religion of “Bokononism” he uses words such as Karass, sinookas, and wampeter  to describe certain events and lead up to the establishment of this religion that thrives on the Republic of San Lorenzo.  He also uses scripture from the holy book of this religion to impart a kind of wisdom that is also humorous at the same time.  One quote that really hit me about this point was, “Angela would be bundling us up, treating us exactly the same.  Only I was going to kindergarten; Frank was going to junior high; and Father was going to work on the atomic bomb” (Vonnegut 15). 

Another interesting aspect of the novel is the deceased Felix Hoenikker, the “father” of the atomic bomb.  He describes him as one would a child.  In his research he only approaches things that interest him, like turtles.  He is easily distracted, can’t care for his family, and only seems to think of himself.  He is in no way evil or diabloical, which seems to contradict his inventions, the a-bomb and ice-nine. 

So far I have been hooked by the writing of Vonnegut, and I haven’t even gotten into the meat of the story.  If anyone is thinking about reading Vonnegut, I would urge you to do it.  If anyone was wonder, the name of the novel comes from what Felix Hoenikker was making the day the atomic bomb hit Horoshima.  Here is a link to the directions of how to make it.  http://www.metacafe.com/watch/439431/how_to_make_a_cats_cradle_from_a_piece_of_string/

After finding out that we are going to read Slaughterhouse Five later in the year, I looked for other novels written by Vonnegut.  I found Cat’s Cradle and Breakfast of Champions.  Cat’s Cradle looks interesting because it mixes the issue of science and technology, with a weird religion twist.  This is when they explore an island with a dictator and a bogus religion.  I’m going to start reading it now.  Here is a link to Vonnegut’s wikipedia page, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Vonnegut

I started my search for a good novel to do my project on by looking over classics online.  One that was particularly interesting to me was Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut.  I’m not sure if we are going to be reading it is class later in the year though.  The idea of mixing a soldier’s account of the war and time travel seems cool to me, and by what i’ve read the writing isn’t bad either.