Last night I got home from the play and was in a panic since I had forgotten about this blog and the fact that I actually had homework and other things I had to do. Luckily I realized that it was due Thursday night, and instead it was due tonight! So once again I find myself alone with a glass of water (that’s now empty) and my laptop to keep me company while randomly bursting out to songs. I might seem like I’m just rambling about pointless things, but in lieu of postmodernism I figured I might as well just say whatever is on my mind.
I have to say that Cat’s Cradle is a pretty awesome book. I love its perceived randomness and short chapters. It makes me feel accomplished when I’ve read like 20 something chapters in a row in a short period of time. Also it helps with my short attention span and inability to focus on one thing for too long. Like that one Irish dude said in the Lyotard and Postmodernism article “Things fall apart; centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.” I think that kind of sums up the whole concept of postmodernism ( “is it POSTmodernISM, postMODERNism, PoStmOdErN-ism, post-modernism or Postmodernism?” which is also in that one article with the Irish poet guy), anyways… Moving away from the whole “decoration is sin” concept of modernism into the just-put-stuff-down-yet-make-it-confusing idea of postmodernism.
So Cat’s Cradle… oh Cat’s Cradle how your seemingly random texts and short chapters amuse me. I really do like you Cat’s Cradle. Anyways, with the whole concept of postmodernism and its somewhat rough and self-gratifying edges is pretty much Cat’s Cradle. I like to compare it to Frank Gehry’s sketches, at first they just seem like random lines and squiggles, but instead they turn out to be this beautifully composed drawings of what will become a breathtaking piece of architecture… art, like Pablo Picasso once said “art is the lie that tells the truth,” it is misleading yet straightforward at the same time. Just what Bokonon says “all of the true things I am about to tell you are shameless lies.” Cat’s Cradle might seem like just a bunch of chapters strewn together that sort of fits, but upon looking at it as a whole the purpose of it comes across, just like Gehry’s sketches.
Cat’s Cradle breaks away from the traditional methods of writing; it defies the norm of the literary works before it. It separates itself from the “normal” structure and dives into literary anarchy. Small nonsensical chapters make up this delicate work of literature. The whole book is pretty much the epitome of postmodernism, even the title itself takes upon the sort of disorder of postmodernism as a whole. There’s “no dam cat, no damn cradle,” it is all just perception and can in reality be anything we want it to be, just like Newt’s painting which was perceived as a cat’s cradle and as hell.
Okay my laptop has been tripping out for the past half an hour and I’m getting slightly frightened so I’m going to stop before my laptop implodes on itself. I know it might seem like all I did was just write stuff down, but it’s all just cause my writing style has been heavily influenced my postmodernism.
Nothing is random, sooner or later a purpose appears…
