At my suggestion, my book club chose Cat's Cradle for the February selection. I was nervous about it, because although it's my utmost favorite book, several people I've recommended it to have hated it.

The reactions of the book club members spanned a wide spectrum. Those who disliked it mostly didn't care for the scifi elements and the lack of character depth. Those who enjoyed it thought it raised interesting questions about morality, religion, government, and the human condition. The two of us who loved it the most had both first read it at about age 15 (about 20 years ago for me). Everyone liked it more in retrospect after talking about it.

Since it has been nearly ten years since the last time I read it, I brought more to it this time, and I enjoyed it as much as I always have. I found some new favorite passages, including the very timely "The highest possible form of treason is to say that Americans aren't loved wherever they go, whatever they do." I better appreciated how McCabe and Bokonon got lost in their play-acting, and how much government is in the business of giving people meaningless things to talk about and fight over so that they don't notice the horrible conditions they live in. For the first time, I noticed Vonnegut's subtle musings about free will.

Cat's Cradle is a deceptively simple book. The plot is easy to follow and the chapters are mostly just a few paragraphs each. It has, however, a tremendous depth. It paints a humanist viewpoint in a hilariously satirical manner. Every time I read it, I laugh out loud at every second or third page, and I regularly marvel at the terse, subversive cleverness of Vonnegut's writing.