Despite his immense literary skill, Kurt Vonnegut, who died in April this year, was never really a household name, even in his native America. A fourth-generation German immigrant, he waited a long time for public recognition. His is not the most inspirational fiction I have read, nor is he the most skilled writer. However, Vonnegut’s uniquely bleak humour, entwined around situations bordering on the surreal and peppered with surprisingly funny and at times beautiful images, convey his thoughts memorably.

At the root of Vonnegut’s work lies a life permeated by death, destruction and bouts of depression. Following his mother’s suicide on Mother’s Day in 1944 he repeatedly tried to take his own life, writing in later years about his failed attempts. Much of his profundity on the subject of death seems to stem from this, as well as the death of his sister Alice from cancer just two days after her husband was killed in a train crash. The painful and bitter coincidences of the world did not break him however; he channelled his frustrations into his work, constructing and exploring elements that haunted him.

As an American prisoner-of-war in 1945, he survived the bombings that obliterated Dresden and its 135,000 inhabitants. Later he calmly discussed his subsequent involvement in the ‘clean-up’ efforts – a ghastly process of stripping the swiftly-rotting corpses of valuables before cremating them using flamethrowers – in interviews for The Paris Review, commenting dryly that “necessity is the mother of invention”. Yet from his horrific war experiences emerged the semi-autobiographical Slaughterhouse 5, the novel for which he is perhaps most renowned.

His earlier novel Cat’s Cradle seems in some ways to explore humanity’s fatal weaknesses and quirks more deeply. Set at the end of the world, it details mankind’s demise. While it does not involve time travel, as in Slaughterhouse 5, the novel’s retrospective viewpoint and the authority with which the narrator reminds us of imminent doom creates an irrepressible sense of a condemned world. Vonnegut addresses many complex issues in the novel, including love, religion, war and science. Yet it is his awareness of human nature and the (often necessary) existence of life’s ironies and contradictions that resonate deepest in the novel. It is unsurprising that the novel was later accepted as a dissertation for the anthropology degree he abandoned in the fifties, earning him an M.A in 1971.

Cat’s Cradle revolves around a socially-inept scientist and his equally odd children, as seen through the eyes of the narrator. The narrator is himself a member of their karass, a team of people who obliviously carry out God’s will. The scientist, Felix Hoenikker—father of the atom bomb and the far more deadly ice-nine—is an embodiment of the unconscious destructiveness of man’s search for knowledge for knowledge’s sake. In addressing Hoenikker’s excusal of himself from all social duties—fatherhood, responsibility, accountability—Vonnegut shows how easily complacency leads to destruction through the oblivious nature of such people and their vulnerability to manipulation by other, more consciously destructive, human beings.

The zah-ma-ki-bo (or inevitable destiny) of the protagonist transports the action to a tiny, barren yet overpopulated island, San Lorenzo. It is here that the rest of the pivotal karass gather, and the actions that trigger the end of the world play out. It is also here that we find some of Vonnegut’s most insightful comments on humanity. The plight of the San Lorenzans is pitiful—they are poverty-stricken, oppressed and in barren surroundings that offer them no reprieve from their plight. In a philanthropic gesture of self-sacrifice, the most recent ‘conquerors’ of the island invent a religion, Bokononism, and immediately outlaw it. In doing so they hoped to create a balance of good and evil that would occupy and distract the people of San Lorenzo from the harsh reality which they can do nothing about.

The religion of Bokonon is a perfect representation of Vonnegut’s cynical yet insightful commentary upon the mechanics of society. Not only does it critique and evaluate the function of religion within society, but it also supports the questioning of identity and obviates humankind’s tendency towards ‘granfalloons’ (the creation of false karasses based around erroneous ideals or similarities). While Vonnegut openly mocks religion, he does acknowledge its importance, albeit in his usually sarcastic tone: ‘Anyone unable to understand how a useful religion can be founded on lies will not understand this book’. This emphasis on lies and truths and his complete inversion and entanglement of the two is inescapable. We find ourselves attempting to determine the true state of affairs while also evaluating the morality of Bokononism, or indeed any religion or nation.

While intelligent insights into society are offered, the battle between the pessimistic and optimistic, as well as the rational and irrational characters, rages on. The recurring image of the cat’s cradle, which to some signifies futility and nothingness, but to others is the embodiment of imaginative invention, serves as the pivot of this debate. Again we are brought back to human nature and to the need for clear discernment amidst chaos if we are to understand life.

The novel’s relevance to the present political climate should not be underestimated: the problems Vonnegut discusses are all applicable today, notably his address of the ‘granfallooners’ who distinguish and define themselves according to ultimately meaningless labels. The lessons that can be learnt from Cat’s Cradle are immeasurably valuable, but just as important are those that can be learnt from Vonnegut himself. As in the novel, he refused to allow his experiences or his perception of the world to overshadow his life. Instead, through his dark, humorous pessimism and matter-of-fact approach he lived a self-professed ‘loving life’, never ceasing to question and evaluate the world.