Cat’s Cradle

Sasha
The novel I read as my third quarter classic was Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut. The writing is well crafted and the plot is fast moving. However while the novel is delightfully written, there is very little emphasis placed on characters and their development. They almost seem to be put in as an after thought, more there to help the plot along than for their own sake. What is interesting about this is that unlike many authors whose characters have no development because they are not very good at what they do, this lack of character development comes off as completely intentional and in fact works very well for the story and for Vonnegut’s style.
In the novel it is very hard to become attached to any of the characters and to really feel them as human beings. This should make it hard to relate to the novel, but what it does instead is make you read for the plot itself and not for the characters. Instead, it feels almost like the plot itself is the character that you watch develop.
The novel is told from the first person, but in an oddly disconnected way. While the narrator is part of the events of the book, his telling seems oddly removed and his presence does not seem to have any real effect on what happens.
It seems that all of these unusual writing techniques would not make the novel an enjoyable one, but Vonnegut’s writing is so clever and so unique that the reader cannot help but be completely drawn into the story and feeling like the monumental occurrences that take place in the novel effect this world as well.