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September 16,2005

Busy, Busy, Busy (Some facts about Bokononism)

Kurt Vonnegut

It had been a guilt that I did not finish a book in Beijing for all the night times that I spent in my little quiet room, and for most of the time, I chose to indulge myself in my newly discovered English magazines—That’s Beijing and City Weekend, for their glamorous pictures and the high-pound slippery papers.  Even more so, they are fun to read and laxative in the bathroom!  Yeah, I know they are for foreign FOBs coming into this ancient city, consuming the city’s luxurious orientalism and with various columnist expressing twisted views on sensitive topics that really get on your nerves, but nevertheless, they are FREE, what else can you ask more?  Read it and throw it away!  So, the book that I really did finish (starting half in the midway till end) during my stay in China was Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle.  While it is commented a must read on Amazon, I found the story, written by this writer of beat generation, intriguing not because of the fact that it’s about surreal story plot on atomic bomb inventor and the mysterious Ice-9, but about a religion, created by a black man, in which everything started out by a man named Jonah or John writing a book called The Day the World Ended.


Some facts about Bokononism

 

Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut(1963)

 

1.      Bokononism: The name may come from a similar phonics of Johnathan

2.      Humanity is organized into teams, teams that do God’s Will without ever discovering what they are doing.  Such a team is called a karass by Bokonon, and the instrument, the kan-kan, that brought one into one’s own particular karass.

3.      duprass is a karass composed of only two persons.  A true duprass can’t be invaded not even by children born of such a union.

4.      Granfalloon is a false karass, a seeming team that is meaningless in terms of the ways God gets things done.

5.      Wampeter is the pivot of a karass, around which the souls of the members of the karass revolve.

6.      Peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God.

7.      Busy, busy, busy.  Bokononists whisper whenever they think of how complicated and unpredictable the machinery of life really is.

8.      “Calypsos”—A Bokononist poem

I wanted all things

To seem to make some sense,

So we all could be happy, yes,

Instead of tense.

And I made up lies

So that they all fit nice,

And I made this sad world

A par-a-dise.

9.      A poem appeared in The Books of Bokonon:

So I said good-bye to government,

And I gave my reason:

That a really good religion

Is a form of treason

10.Boko-maru is the last rite of Bokononist Church, performed by placing one’s sole to other’s sole.  Soul to Soul.

11.  zah-mah-ki-bo means “Fate—inevitable destiny”

 

For more information: Please refer to The Books of Bokonon and Cat’s Cradle on Vonnegutweb

And ps, I’m not a religious zealot, but only a fan of sci-fic.


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