December 14, 2008
"Don't be a fool! Close this book at once!"
That's the warning from the title page of "The Book of Bokonon," the sacred text from the made-up religion that is referred to and quoted in various places in the Kurt Vonnegut novel "Cat's Cradle." This website collects all the quotations and, to the extent possible, puts them in order.
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8 comments:
Lautreamont
No good for everyone to read the pages which follow; only the few may relish this bitter fruit without danger. So, timid soul, before further penetration of such uncharted steppes, retrace your steps, do not advance. Hear my words well: retrace your steps, do not advance, resemble the eyes of a son who respectfully looks away when faced with an august maternal gaze; or, rather, a horizon chevron of chilly cranes which in winter with much meditation fly powerfully through the silence, full sail, toward a specific spot on the skyline, whence springs a strange strong wind--sudden herald of the storm. The oldest crane, forming by herself the spearhead's tip, sees this, and shakes her head like a rational person, causing her beak to click, uneasy (as I would be in her place), while her old neck, denuded of feathers and contemporaneous with three generations of cranes, cranes in peevish waves which give warning of the ever-approaching tempest. Calmly, after surveying all sides several times with her experienced eyes, cautiously, the leader (for it's she who has the privilege of displaying her tail-plumage to her less intelligent companions), with the vigilant cry of a doleful sentry, to repel the common enemy, deftly swerves the apex of the geometric figure (perhaps a triangle, but impossible to see the third side traced in space by these curious birds of passage), now port, now starboard, like a clever captain; and manoeuvring with wings apparently no larger than a sparrow's, she takes then, being no booby, another--safer and more philosophical--course.
O, Heaven and Bliss!!!
Mr. Wallingford, you magnificent bastard!!
So stunning an inspired accomplishment shall not go unrewarded!!!
So are the readers here a karass, or is this blog just one giant granfalloon?
Clearly, a karass!
Babies full of rabies
The internets are a granfalloon; blog Althouse a karass.
_A Series of Unfortunate Events_ goes on at length about how it's too depressing and one shouldn't read it. (I might have messed up the title of that.)
But my favorite in the genre BY FAR is "The Monster at the End of this Book" staring Grover.
DON'T TURN THE PAGE!!
God I hate Vonnegut.
I read that book in high school and I was depressed for the next 4 years. Yah, I know - the mark of a good writer - he made an impact.
Well - I never read Vonnegut since - so it was quite an impact...
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