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Cat’s Cradle (Masterplots II: American Fiction Series, Revised Edition)

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The Novel

Cat’s Cradle is a remarkably discursive book, full of loose ends, unexplained events, and characters who appear in focus for a moment only to vanish without apology. It does center, however, on one single object: the sliver of ice-nine created by Dr. Felix Hoenikker and divided after his death by his three children, only to bring about the end of the world almost simultaneously with the end of the book.

In Vonnegut’s theory, ice is only one of the many possible ways in which water can crystallize. If there were other ways, ice of different...

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