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Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut


Hu

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I read this book ages ago, but for some reason I just got the notion in my head that the main character's love interest, the daughter of the island's head of state (or something?) was asexual, and in a very positive way. I wouldn't want to give anything away for those who haven't read it, but there was definitely a certain passage right at the end that stuck with me. Can anyone with a better knowledge of the book back me up here?

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It has been years since I year the book, but she never seemed very asexual to me.

Didn't she have sex with the narrator eventually? I know that doesn't mean that she neccessarily was not asexual, but I don't recall anything in the book that indicated that she was asexual.

What lines are you thinking of?

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Well, as I remember it she was always sitting and touching feet with people, but nothing else. When the narrator does sleep with her at the end, it's described as a rather horrible sweaty thing much less meaningful than the foot-touching, and she just says something really blase like, "you know that's how babies are made, right?"

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I'll have to reread that section.

However, I always took the "that's how babies are made" line as a sign of her innocence rather than a sign of asexuality.

I always thought that the inhabitants of the island in the novel were supposed to be an example of untouched innonence (similar to Rousseau's "noble savage" or perhaps a satire of the same idea), and that the novel was about how quickly technology and civilization corrupts and destroys innoncence.

In this case, I think the character you mention was supposed to be the personification of uncontaminated humanity, and that made her seem a bit inhuman, but I don't think she was asexual.

I'll have to reread the book at some point with this in mind though.

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I guess I just read a little more into that line. The main character thought the woman was innocent, because she never showed the slightest regard for sex. He thought he had to introduce her to it (sound familiar?) But as it turned out she was perfectly conscious of what they were doing; in fact she was more aware of the implications than he was. He wasn't giving a thought to the future, which at that point in the book was shaping up to be a terrible one to bring children into.

It's the noble savage thing, but of course the savage actually turns out to be more in touch with reality than the modern man. But sex = corruption is a metaphor we can all get behind! Woohoo!

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I just stumbled on my copy of the book, so I decided to skim through it with this thread in mind.

in fact she was more aware of the implications than he was. He wasn't giving a thought to the future, which at that point in the book was shaping up to be a terrible one to bring children into.
I will not go into the sorid sex episode that followed. Suffice it to say that I was both repulsive and repulsed.

The girl was not interested in reproduction--hated the idea. Before the tussle was over, I was given full credit by her, and by myself, too, for having invented the whole bizarre, grunting, sweating episode by which new human beings were made.

Returning to my own bed, gnashing my teeth, I supposed that she honestly had no idea what love-making was all about. But then she said to me, gently, "It would be very sad to have a little baby now. Don't you agree?"

"Yes," I agreed murkily.

"Well, that's the way little babies are made, in case you didn't know."

I agree that this passage probably reads differently to an asexual than it would to most, and she does seem nearly asexual in this passage.

However, I don't think Vonnegut had asexuality in mind when he composed that passage. Throughout the book Mona has a sort of detached wisdom. I think this passage is just an extension of that wisdom. She understands that sex is inappropriate and dangerous under the circumstances, and she acts accordingly. The contrast between this scene and the earlier foot touching scene that you mention has more to do with the release of Ice 9 and the subsequent destruction of the world that occurs between these two scenes than the sex itself. It's almost a Christian pre-fall/post-fall contrast between an uncontaminated world where human tenderness and love is absolutely innocent (the foot touching) to one so desolate that even the epression of human affection (ie sex) is perverted and dangerous.

That said, this passage certainly can be used as a justification for asexuality, since it could be argued (and I think Vonnegut would agree) that the world we currently live in is not one into which we should be introducing new children.

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Cool! Thanks for looking that up, and nice analysis. Funny how well I remembered the passage after more than ten years. Vonnegut is, as always, the man.

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Vonnegut is, as always, the man.

That he is. As a_pointless_semester_lull_busywork_assignment_01 the Professor of my Contemporary American Fiction course is requiring us to recommend a book to the class for "pure enjoyment value."

Vonnegut is the only author that I read who probably wouldn't be openly booed by the other students in class, so I'm recommending his Breakfast of Champions.

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  • 1 month later...
SonicBoom830

I've always noticed that theres at least one character in Vonnegut's books that kind of echoes the inflections of most asexual behavior. Its nice for a change. Lots of literature neglects it. Well, maybe not neglect, but I haven't seen much. I'd like to

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A good friend of mine is currently reading that book, and I asked if I could read it after him.

We also read Slaughterhouse Five next year or senior year in English class.

But, anyway, my friend was telling me about how Vonnegut also has characters with these really obscure religions, and for me, at least, that's another reason to read it :lol:

It's strange, in a very general sense, I really don't like religions, but I love learning about them :?

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Okay. I finally got a copy, so I'm reading it now...

Yaaay! *pets Cat's Cradle* it's really good. I'm not so far into it, but the father, Dr. Felix Hoenikker, he's really amusing.

"I wonder about turtles."

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SonicBoom830

He wrote some other books under the name Kilgore Trout I believe. I haven't had the chance to read any, but they're most likely good.

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Actually, Kilgore Trout is a recurring character in several of Vonnegut's books (Breakfast of Champions and Timequake, and I think a few others.) He's a no-name science fiction writer whose stories are published in porno mags. The actual novel that was published under his name, Venus on the Half-Shell, was ghostwritten by Phillip Jose Farmer as a tribute.

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SonicBoom830

I'm confused. Then who wrote these?

Works by Kilgore Trout

Asleep at the Switch

Barring-gaffner of Bagnialto or This Year's Masterpiece

The Big Board

The Dancing Fool

The Era of Hopeful Monsters

First District Court of Thankyou

Gilgongo!

The Gospel from Outer Space

The Gutless Wonder

Hail to the Chief

How You Doin'?

Maniacs in the Fourth Dimension

The Money Tree

Now It Can Be Told

Oh Say Can You Smell?

The Pan-Galactic Memory Bank

The Pan-Galactic Straw Boss

The Pan-Galactic Three-Day Pass

Plague on Wheels

The Planet Gobblers

The Protocols of the Elders of Tralfamadore

The Smart Bunny

The Son of Jimmy Valentine

This Means You

2BR02B

Venus on the Half-Shell

got the list from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilgore_Trout

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Maybe he's using a character as a pseudonym? I know I do that a lot with Charlie.

Or maybe Kilgore is a character who's a writer, and those books are the books he's written in Vonnegut's books...?

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SonicBoom830

Well, I haven't actually seen anyone even selling them. So, as far as I know, the books don't even exist. I should do some research.

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bard of aven

Could be wrong, but I think all those titles are attributed to Trout in various works by Vonnegut.

boa

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So yesterday I finished Cat's Cradle.

And let me say this first, it was good. It was really really really good. :D

But I got more of an impression of the main character, not Mona, being asexual. I mean, there are two times in the book that he has sex. Both of them were described as ugly and disgusting.

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  • 2 years later...
VONNEGUT

My books are being thrown out of school libraries all over the country—because they're supposedly obscene. I've seen letters to small-town newspapers that put Slaughterhouse-Five in the same class with Deep Throat and Hustler magazine. How could anybody masturbate to Slaughterhouse-Five?

Here are some more great Vonnegut quotes.

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Kurt Vonnegut is one of my favourite authors of all time.

I think a lot of stuff in his novels seem to hint at various degrees of asexuality here and there. And there are a lot of ideas that, as an asexual, I can relate with.

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Interesting. I'll see if I can get books by this guy from the local library. JBunny, may I ask which book(s) are your fav. by him?

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oooh I love Kurt Vonnegut!! I haven't read much of his in awhile but I'll have to go back.

My favorites are Cat's Cradle and Breakfast of Champions!

I'm gonna have to reread some of them again soon, I recommend them to all!

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