I would have loved to meet the narrator, Jonah, in Kurt
Vonnegut’s novel, Cat’s Cradle. By the end of Jonah’s fantastic tale, he
finds himself in a peculiar situation. After surviving a dreadful disaster with
similar effects to that of the atom bomb, he discovers few others on the island
of San Lorenzo survived the catastrophe as well. Before this devastating event
that wiped out almost the entire population of San Lorenzo and after Jonah becomes
president of the little island, the narrator begins to possess a growing need
to climb to the top of the country’s largest mountain peak, Mount McCabe. Once
informed that the mountain has never been scaled by man as well as non sacred
to the local religion, the adventurer claims that “Maybe I’ll [Jonah] climb it”
(211). After the tragic mishap to the island, it becomes Jonah’s dream to reach
the top of Mount McCabe and plant a symbol on the mountain’s peak. For this
reason, if I could present a birthday present to Jonah, I would give him a pair
of Verbera Hiker GTX Boots found only in North Face stores. It did cross my
mind that Jonah could “borrow” a pair of hiking boots from a deserted store in
the country’s capital, Bolivar. However, because San Lorenzo suffered from “misery
and muck,” I figured Jonah had a slim probability of stumbling across a North
Face store and therefore would have to climb in sub-par hiking gear (133). Once ascended
to the top of Mount McCabe in his stellar boots, Jonah planned to turn himself
to stone with the help of Felix Hoenikker’s invention, ice-nine. Every human to ever watch a movie knows that a hero, such
as Jonah, has a perfect woman to love. Even before meeting her, Jonah fell in
love with a young peach named Mona Aamons Monzano, exclaiming that she “could
make me [Jonah] far happier than any woman” (85). Mona’s fate proved identical
to Jonah’s: suicide. In order to give Jonah the strength to perform such a
feat, my second gift to him would consist of a locket to wear around his neck
with a picture of his heavenly Mona locked tightly against his heart. I hope
that these two gifts bestow the necessary gear and strength to my friend Jonah
so that he may complete his dream and fulfill his Bokononist views.
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