书名：Cat's Cradle猫的摇篮

难度：Lexile蓝思阅读指数790L 

作者：Kurt Vonnegut 

出版社名称：Penguin 

出版时间：2011 

语种：英文 

ISBN：9780241951606 

商品尺寸：11.1 x 1.4 x 18.1 cm 

包装：平装 

页数：224（以实物为准）★拥有其成熟风格的标志——纯粹的黑色幽默和尖锐的讽刺，抑扬顿挫的行文和富有节奏的短语的重复

★抓住了时代的情绪，并激发了一代人的想象 ★始于世界末日，也终于世界末日 Cat's Cradle《猫的摇篮》一共127小节,也就是127个笑话。人们说读这本小说，就像看一场脱口秀，包袱一个接一个，噼啪爆响。 战后在通用电气公司公关部供职期间，老冯常与各式科学家打交道。他听说了诺贝尔物理学奖得主——以心不在焉闻名的朗缪尔的一桩传奇。三十年代，H.G.威尔斯造访通用电气实验室。朗缪尔奉命接待，为此还想出一则室温结冰的科幻故事，供威尔斯做题材。威尔斯听了并不感冒。威尔斯和朗缪尔相继去世后，老冯掂量，这一单就算自己的了。由此，创作了《猫的摇篮》。朗缪尔即是书中霍尼克博士的原型。霍尼克对乌龟脊椎构造的好奇便是朗缪尔曾经大声发出的疑问。霍尼克前去领奖当天，早餐后在咖啡杯旁给太太留下小费，也是源于朗缪尔曾经的轶事。 六十年代的美国，冷战阴霾、核战威胁已让人心生莫大恐惧。冯内古特声称，要写科学也有道德意蕴在，这便是《猫的摇篮》之缘起。 All of the true things I am about to tell you are shameless lies'. Dr Felix Hoenikker, one of the founding fathers of the atomic bomb, has left a deadly legacy to the world. For he is the inventor of Ice-nine, a lethal chemical capable of freezing the entire planet. The search for its whereabouts leads to Hoenikker's three eccentric children, to a crazed dictator in the Caribbean, to madness. Will Felix Hoenikker's death wish come true? Will his last, fatal gift to humankind bring about the end that, for all of us, is nigh? Told with deadpan humour and bitter irony, Kurt Vonnegut's cult tale of global apocalypse preys on our deepest fears of witnessing the end and, worse still, surviving it... Review “One of the warmest, wisest, funniest voices to be found anywhere in fiction”(Daily Telegraph) “The time to read Vonnegut is just when you begin to suspect that the world is not what it appears to be. He is not only entertaining, he is electrocuting. You read him with enormous pleasure because he makes your hair stand on end” (New York Times) “Vonnegut has looked the world straight in the eye and never flinched” (J. G. Ballard) 这是一个寻求真相之旅。

约拿在写一本《世界末了那一日》的书。他在探访原子弹落到广岛那一天，美国的重要人物都在做什么。于是他追索到“原子弹之父”霍尼克博士的三个子女。 霍尼克是一个对现实生活和人类命运漠不关心的物理学家，在参与制造了原子弹之后，又研制出一种九号冰，能够在常温下让水分瞬间凝固。在他死后，他的三个子女分了九号冰，他们同样孤僻而冷漠，其中一人把它献给加勒比海一个岛国——圣洛伦佐共和国的统治者，换得高位。该国的统治者和宗教领袖表面上势不两立，实际上却互相利用，根本目的是要使社会处于巨大的恐怖之中。一次决心意外的飞行表演失事导致宫殿被毁坠海，散落的九号冰造成了世界的毁灭…… Cat's Cradle《猫的摇篮》是冯尼古特备受赞誉的小说，有着众多古怪而又令人难忘的角色，在幽默荒诞的故事背后，是对现代人及其疯狂的辛辣批判。冯尼古特让我们看到，当人类的愚蠢与冷漠同他们的技术能力结合起来时，会造成何等可怕的危险。 库尔特·冯内古特（Kurt Vonnegut，1922—2007）美国黑色幽默作家，美国黑色幽默文学的代表人物之一。代表作有《囚鸟》《神枪手迪克》《五号屠宰场》《没有国家的人》。他的作品以喜剧形式表现悲剧内容，在灾难、荒诞、绝望面前发出笑声。这种“黑色幽默”风格始终是冯内古特小说创作的重要特质。2007年4月11日，于曼哈顿因病逝世。

  Kurt Vonnegut was a master of contemporary American literature. His black humor, satiric voice, and incomparable imagination first captured America's attention in The Sirens of Titan in 1959 and established him as “a true artist” with Cat's Cradle in 1963. He was, as Graham Greene declared, “one of the best living American writers.” Mr. Vonnegut passed away in April 2007. Call me Jonah. My parents did, or nearly did. They called me John.

Jonah-John-if I had been a Sam, I would have been a Jonah still-not because I have been unlucky for others, but because somebody or something has compeled me to be certain places at certain times, without fail. Conveyances and motives, both conventional and bizarre, have been provided. And, according to plan, at each appointed second, at each appointed place this Jonah was there.

Listen: When I was a younger man-two wives ago, 250,000 cigarettes ago, 3,000 quarts of booze ago...

When I was a much younger man, I began to collect material for a book to be called The Day the World Ended.

The book was to be factual.

The book was to be an account of what important Americans had done on the day when the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan.

It was to be a Christian book. I was a Christian then.

I am a Bokononist now.

I would have been a Bokononist then, if there had been anyone to teach me the bittersweet lies of Bokonon. But Bokononism was unknown beyond the gravel beaches and coral knives that ring this little island in the Caribbean Sea, the Republic of San Lorenzo.

We Bokononists believe that 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 me into my own particular karass was the book I never finished, the book to be called The Day the World Ended.