This quick paced, post modernist, science fiction story is absolutely absurd in many great and many odd ways. Let me get my strong opinions out in the open first. The ending is insanity, which I know is the point, but we couldn't have reeled it in just a bit? We will get back to that though. The cat's cradle is not relevant to the story at all, and that is genius. We get one story towards the beginning of the novel about Felix showing Next the cat's cradle with his hands and some strings, which inevitably led to Newt crying and running away from his father. Minus the small relation between strings in a cats cradle and the invisible strings of Bokonon's karasses, this novel has absolutely nothing to do with the game cat's cradle. It's hilarious! Nothing has meaning, because Vonnegut shows us that nothing is worth creating meaning for. John's character is very interesting to me. He is a relatively normal man for most of the book, and I felt very ambivalent towards him all the way until San Lorenzo. Then he begins making the most wild choices. I mean it took barely any convincing to make this man become the leader of A COUNTRY. All Frank had to do was promise some action from the only pretty thing this country has- Mona. Felix and Frank being total weirdos made so much sense to me. Of course, Felix being the odd, socially inept man he was, made a son who was equally as weird and unable to complete basic tasks who wound up being a figurehead for a whole island. The structure of this island is worth hearty discussion. Outlawing a religion that everyone follows to give the residents a sliver of hope, but also alleviating the necessity to ever improve the country because it is never at peace. I couldn't help but think of 1984 where the Brotherhood describes the phrase, "war is peace." Orwell writes, The war, therefore, if we judge it by the standards of previous wars, is merely an imposture. […] But though it is unreal it is not meaningless. It eats up the surplus of consumable goods, and it helps to preserve the special mental atmosphere that a hierarchical society needs. War, it will be seen, is now a purely internal affair." War, in this case between religion and law, is essential to keep peace in a nation. The absurdities in this book are at times outrageous. The one consistent thing we see, that people are brought together by a shared faith, is drained of all meaning at the end where society ends is mass deaths and suicides. Vonnegut hits home HARD his idea that literally nothing is important. God I bet he's fun at parties. Killing off Mona at the end to tell us that even the most faithful will lost faith is such an ouch. Also the ritual where they shoot at all the villains of freedom was so crazy to me. It's like how people say when you lean so far left you end up circling back to the right. You hate the freedom stealers so much you end up becoming one yourself. The book of Bokonon progresses with the story, and we finish the novel with the last note to readers: humans are so stupid. Good call Bokonon. Now let's talk about my biggest grievance with the story. WORMS? REALLY? WORM TORNADOS? Maybe I am taking this description to literal. But really? When the world ends because of ice nine, there are weird mutant worm tornados? And I am not suppose to think of Sharknado the whole time while reading that? 

Closing thoughts: I really enjoyed the book's pacing and randomness that was enthralling. It was so weird and freaky that it was fun to read because you could literally never expect what was going to happen. Ritual where they rub feet together? How did Vonnegut know people in the twenty first century were going to eat that up. I think why this book doesn't score higher for me is a personal distaste for the so extremely weird stuff I start to get disconnected. I am not saying it is an inherent novel flaw, just sort of threw me off  balance. The societal commentary was really interesting to get involved in and the post modernist science fiction genre makes for some great laughs. Overall, this was fun. I tried explaining the plot of this novel to a friend and sounded like I drank an entire bottle of Benadryl. Maybe that's how you write the best science fiction? Let me know if you give it a try. 

P.S. is there any significance to the story indexing? Hazel makes a comment about indexing your own books, and I was wondering if this stories index had any alternative meanings. Just food for thought. 

P.P.S. Doing more research of Kurt Vonnegut had me laughing out loud. This is like an autobiography - minus the freakazoid worms and such. Here is a synopsis for all you research haters. Kurt was from Indiana and went to Cornell and was in the frat Newt was in. He had two siblings and was raised by his housekeeper. He went to school for biochemistry and his father was an architect. Makes sense right?! He ends up in the military and those stories are wild. He specialized in mechanical engineering, his mother committed suicide due to his absence and financial ruin, he became an intelligence scout and then was captured and taken to a prison camp. Makes tons of sense he was so anti-war, he had a rough time.