Image Study

Boko-maru is a Bokononist religious ritual that consists of two people putting their feet together in order to allow their souls to mingle (Get it? Sole-to-sole). It is considered by the San Lorenzan people to be as personal and intimate as we consider sex to be. From a practical standpoint, this obviously serves no purpose and achieves nothing. However, Vonnegut uses this to essentially embody his main argument: the sole purpose of religion is to make people feel happy and fulfilled. If it comforts the Bokononists, why not?

Ice-nine is an extremely important plot element in Cat’s Cradle. As a person interested in things related to science, I was greatly intrigued by the concept of ice-nine, and did some more research about it on my own (ice-nine cannot exist, of course, but there are other forms of ice with different properties that can exist at lower temperatures and pressures such as ice-II). Anyway, with its potential for mass devastation and its description in the following passage, ice nine obviously parallels the atomic bombs being developed during the Cold War:

From what Frank had said before he slammed the door, I gathered that the Republic of San Lorenzo and the three Hoenikkers weren’t the only ones who had ice-nine. Apparently the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics had it, too. The United States had obtained it through Angela’s husband, whose plant in Indianapolis was understandably surrounded by electrified fences and homicidal German shepherds. And Soviet Russia had come by it through Newt’s little Zinka, that winsome troll of Ukrainian ballet. (p.244)

During the cold war of course, both the United States and the Soviet Union carried larges stores of nuclear weapons. The total destructive power that each side carried actually ensured peace due to the threat of M.A.D. (mutually assured destruction), similar to the threat that ice-nine poses. Interestingly, the like with ice-nine in Cat’s Cradle, the Soviet Union had obtained classified research on nuclear weapons through spies in the U.S. as well. At the end of the book, after some of the ice-nine fell into the ocean and the world froze over, most life on San Lorenzo (and presumably the Earth) had died. However, John discovered that ants were pretty much the only insects to have survived:

The experiment had solved in short order the mystery of how ants could survive in a waterless world. As far as I know, they were the only insects that did survive, and they did it by forming with their bodies tight balls around grains of ice-nine. They would generate enough heat at the center to kill half their number and produce one bead of dew. The dew was drinkable. The corpses were edible. (p.280)

Although impressive, I believe that Vonnegut is condemning, rather than espousing, the ants’ ability to survive. The ants survived because they live a meager existence. Their entire life is devoted first and foremost to the colony. Sure, teamwork and cooperation are qualities to be respected and admired, but while humanism emphasizes one’s individual existence and experiences in life, ants are like the antithesis of humanism – their individual lives mean next to nothing.

Although inhuman, the ability of ants to instinctively coordinate the entire colony into a single functional entity is truly incredible. It’s something I’ve never seen before in any other examples in nature. I’ve attached a video below that demonstrates this phenomenon:

Character Study

There are many important characters in the novel, but I would say the most important ones are John (the narrator), Bokonon (who represents religion/lies), the Hoenikkers (who represent scientists/truth), and Mona (John’s love interest).

John, or Jonah, is the main voice of the novel. Despite his central role, he is actually the most “normal” character as well. All of the other characters in the novel have their own flaws and shortcomings, which Vonnegut had given them for specific reasons, but John on the other hand is a typical person that can relate easily to the reader. One of the things that he focuses on is his connection with Bokononism. By the end of the novel, he considers himself a Bokononist, but while telling his story, he often refers to Bokononist concepts and quotes to convey an idea.

“Bokonon tells us: A lover’s a liar, To himself he lies. The truthful are loveless, Like oysters their eyes!”So my instructions are clear, I suppose. I am to remember my Mona as having been sublime.” (p.232) 

“I walked away from Frank, just as The Books of Bokonon advised me to do.” (p.281)

Bokonon “was a Negro, born an Episcopalian and a British subject on the island of Tobago.” Bokonon is a fairly eccentric and obscure character throughout the novel, never explicitly seen until the end, but nevertheless plays a fundamental role as the founder and leader of the Bokononist faith. His prophetic teachings, found in the Books of Bokonon (the holy scripture of Bokononism), are scattered throughout the novel in various quotes and calypsos (West Indian music in syncopated African rhythm).

Bokonon has a very pessimistic outlook on the human condition. He proposes that truth has little purpose in the grand scheme of things, as the reality of mankind is harsh and cruel. Instead, he tends to look at things on a grand, cosmic scale, and considers our memories during our time on Earth to be the one thing we should take with us and be thankful for. In that sense, lies may serve us much better. I think this one quote from his Fourteenth Book really sums up his perspective:

“The Fourteenth Book is entitled, “What Can a Thoughtful Man Hope for Mankind on Earth, Given the Experience of the Past Million Years?” It doesn’t take long to read The Fourteenth Book. It consists of one word and a period.
This is it: “Nothing.” (p.245)

Dr. Asa Breed is the scientist who presided over Dr. Felix Hoenikker’s work and research. He is the one who John mostly talks to in the beginning of the novel in order to get information about Felix Hoenikker. Dr. Asa Breed represents everything that Vonnegut satirizes about the scientific community: their genius and potential for truly amazing scientific discoveries combined with their complete lack of basic morals and responsibility. In one passage, Dr. Breed is talking to John about Felix’s work on ice-nine. He describes it as a brilliant concept that could effectively solve the problem that the Marine general originally came to him about. However, he doesn’t stop once to consider the possible ramifications of using such a substance, namely the inevitable freezing of every water supply on earth and the subsequent death of all life.

He raised a finger and winked at me. “But suppose, young man, that one Marine had with him a tiny capsule containing a seed of ice-nine, a new way for the atoms of water to stack and lock, to freeze. If that Marine threw that seed into the nearest puddle …?” 

“The puddle would freeze?” I guessed. 

“And all the muck around the puddle?” 

“It would freeze?” 

“And all the puddles in the frozen muck?” 

“They would freeze?” 

“And the pools and the streams in the frozen muck?” 

“They would freeze?”“You bet they would!” he cried. 

“And the United States Marines would rise from the swamp and march on!” (p.47)

Dr. Felix Hoenikker was one of the contributing scientists on the Manhattan Project and the intellectual “genius” behind ice-nine. Like Asa Breed, Felix is portrayed as lacking in morals and responsibility, but has an even more exaggerated childlike state of mind. He has absolutely no regard for long-term consequences and views everything as a game. On the day that the first atomic bomb was tested, Felix just sat at home playing “cat’s cradle” on a loop of string. In his own Nobel Prize acceptance speech, he says:

“Ladies and Gentlemen. I stand before you now because I never stopped dawdling like an eight-year-old on a spring morning on his way to school. Anything can make me stop and look and wonder, and sometimes learn. I am a very happy man. Thank you.” (p.11)

In a letter response to John, Newt Hoenikker talks about his father:

“Father spoke up…He said, ‘I wonder about turtles.’…’After the turtle incident, Father got so interested in turtles that he stopped working on the atom bomb…So one night they went into his laboratory and stole the turtles and the aquarium. Father never said a word about the disappearance of the turtles. He just came to work the next day and looked for things to play with and think about, and everything there was to play with and think about had something to do with the bomb.” (p.15)

We can see that the implications of what Felix does is of little importance to him. He treats everything as a game. He’ll work on whatever is interesting to him with little emotional investment involved. However, Felix was just as unfeeling toward his own family as he was toward the turtles. In this quote, we can see that Felix is actually quite despicable:

“And, in that same miserable family, there’s that great big, gawky girl, over six feet tall. That man, who’s so famous for having a great mind, he pulled that girl out of high school in her sophomore year so he could go on having some woman take care of him. All she had going for her was the clarinet she’d played in the Ilium High School band, the Marching Hundred.“After she left school,” said Breed, “nobody ever asked her out. She didn’t have any friends, and the old man never even thought to give her any money to go anywhere.” (p.71)

The following passage essentially sums up Felix’s character:

“I suppose it’s high treason and ungrateful and ignorant and backward and anti-intellectual to call a dead man as famous as Felix Hoenikker a son of a bitch. I know all about how harmless and gentle and dreamy he was supposed to be, how he’d never hurt a fly, how he didn’t care about money and power and fancy clothes and automobiles and things, how he wasn’t like the rest of us, how he was better than the rest of us, how he was so innocent he was practically a Jesus—except for the Son of God part …”“But,” he said, “but how the hell innocent is a man who helps make a thing like an atomic bomb? And how can you say a man had a good mind when he couldn’t even bother to do anything when the best-hearted, most beautiful woman in the world, his own wife, was dying for lack of love and understanding …”He shuddered, “Sometimes I wonder if he wasn’t born dead. I never met a man who was less interested in the living. Sometimes I think that’s the trouble with the world: too many people in high places who are stone-cold dead.”  (p.67)

Frank Hoenikker, like his father, lacks social skills and a basic human capacity for empathy. As a child, he stayed to himself and put bugs into jars forcing them to fight. One day Angela found him and asked what he was doing, to which he responded: ‘Experimenting.’

“That’s what Frank always used to say when people asked him what he thought he was doing. He always said, ‘Experimenting.’” (p.15)

Frank’s cold and calculating nature, combined with his desire for control led him to seek a position of power in San Lorenzo, which he obtained by giving up ice-nine and potentially endangering the world.

Near the end of the novel, Frank is in line to become San Lorenzo’s next president once Papa Monzano dies, but instead asks John to take his place and provide the public image, which Frank stays occupied with the “technical” aspects of leadership. John comments:

“And I realized with chagrin that my agreeing to be boss had freed Frank to do what he wanted to do more than anything else, to do what his father had done: to receive honors and creature comforts while escaping human responsibilities. He was accomplishing this by going down a spiritual oubliette.” (p.224)

All of the Hoenikkers are guilty of pursuing their own selfish desires without considering the potential consequences of their actions for the human race. All of them had traded ice-nine, with all of its potential dangers, for personal gain. When Angela confronts Frank about giving “Papa” Manzano his chip of ice-nine for his position as Major General, Frank responds:

“I bought myself a job, just the way you bought yourself a tomcat husband, just the way Newt bought himself a week on Cape Cod with a Russian midget!” (p.243)

Mona Aamons Monzano is the unusually beautiful adopted daughter of Papa Manzano (dictator of San Lorenzo). She becomes the nation’s sex symbol as a result of her beauty, and John falls in love with her. However, she is entirely superficial and does not understand true love or basic human emotions. She is a devout follower of Bokononism and claims that she “loves everyone”. Her love is not the result of true devotion to another human being, but rather something that she has “learned” to profess. In the following passage, John asks Mona not to love anyone else (since they are getting married):

“I don’t want you to do it with anybody but me from now on,” I declared.Tears filled her eyes. She adored her promiscuity; was angered that I should try to make her feel shame.  “I make people happy. Love is good, not bad.” (p.207)

Rhetoric Study

Like many of his other works, Cat’s Cradle demonstrates Vonnegut’s mastery of satire and dark humor. In this post, I’ll explore a couple of examples.

On the Island of San Lorenzo, John is told that the “greatest national holiday” is The Day of the Hundred Martyrs to Democracy. John inquires as to what the holiday actually celebrates:

The driver told me that San Lorenzo had declared war on Germany and Japan an hour after Pearl Harbor was attacked. San Lorenzo conscripted a hundred men to fight on the side of democracy. These hundred men were put on a ship bound for the United States, where they were to be armed and trained. The ship was sunk by a German submarine right outside of Bolivar harbor. “Dose, sore,” he said, “yeeara lo hoon-yera mora-toorz tut zamoo-cratz-ya.” “Those, sir,” he’d said in dialect, “are the Hundred Martyrs to Democracy.” (p.149)

In this example of dark humor, John learns that San Lorenzo’s greatest national holiday is a celebration of its most abysmal military failure. Of course, Vonnegut also has a deeper satirical purpose in questioning our automatic respect for those who have “died in service”. In the above passage, the hundred men didn’t save any lives, defeat any enemies, or do anything that could even be considered even remotely heroic. They were hardly even soldiers, not yet trained or armed. They didn’t even volunteer to “fight on the side of democracy”, but rather forcefully conscripted against their will. And then their ship blew up and they died. Is that really something to celebrate? While we should be thankful for the service of all who fight for our country, we shouldn’t automatically assume that every man who was K.I.A. was a hero. He could easily have been an extremely unwilling draftee who died due to recklessness or laziness. Heck, he could even be just a terrible person all around. Should we really celebrate him just because he died, even if it was an unwilling sacrifice, without any honor or sense of selflessness?

Vonnegut exercises little discretion when it comes to touchy topics:

“Jesus Christ?”“Oh,” said Castle. “Him.” He shrugged. “People have to talk about something just to keep their voice boxes in working order, so they’ll have good voice boxes in case there’s ever anything really meaningful to say.”“I see.” (p.169)

In another passage, Vonnegut attempts to describe how worthless San Lorenzo is:

“When France claimed San Lorenzo in 1682,” wrote Castle, “no Spaniards complained. When Denmark claimed San Lorenzo in 1699, no Frenchmen complained. When the Dutch claimed San Lorenzo in 1704, no Danes complained. When England claimed San Lorenzo in 1706, no Dutchmen complained. When Spain reclaimed San Lorenzo in 1720, no Englishmen complained. When, in 1786, African Negroes took command of a British slave ship, ran it ashore on San Lorenzo, and proclaimed San Lorenzo an independent nation, an empire with an emperor, in fact, no Spaniards complained. (p.125)

I thought it was funny in a way when I first read it. Here are some other descriptions of San Lorenzo for context:

Everybody was bound to fail, for San Lorenzo was as unproductive as an equal area in the Sahara or the Polar Icecap. At the same time, it had as dense a population as could be found anywhere, India and China not excluded. (p.133)

Another quote that I thought was funny:

“Do people still die on the hook?”“It’s inevitably fatal.”“I mean,” I said, “does ‘Papa’ really have people executed that way?” (p.175)

Here’s one more example of dark humor. In this passage, Phillip Castle is talking about his experiences as a child witnessing the bubonic plague kill everyone around him on San Lorenzo:

“And Father started giggling,” Castle continued. “He couldn’t stop. He walked out into the night with his flashlight. He was still giggling. He was making the flashlight beam dance over all the dead people stacked outside. He put his hand on my head, and do you know what that marvelous man said to me?” asked Castle.“Nope.”“ ‘Son,’ my father said to me, ‘someday this will all be yours.’” (p.162)

Vonnegut’s effectiveness lies in the simplicity and straightforwardness of his prose. In Cat’s Cradle, Vonnegut takes simplicity one step further – most of the chapters are only one to three pages long. While it may seem trivial to fit 127 chapters into less than 300 pages, I’ve found that shorter chapters do in fact give the book a faster pace. Normally, when you read a book, you may stop at the end of a particular chapter because you know that the next one will take a while to get through. With Cat’s Cradle however, you can simply keep reading since you know the next chapter is only one or two more pages… until you’ve finished the book. Shorter chapters also just make logical sense. Vonnegut restricts each chapter to a single topic, only taking as much space as much space as he needs, whether it’s a half a page or ten. In short, the format made the overall reading experience enjoyable, but I digress.

Because Vonnegut’s prose is fairly simple, there are few complex rhetorical structures to be found in this novel. Rarely do we see intricate extended metaphors or long paragraphs of vivid imagery. However, Vonnegut does effectively convey his points using a unique rhetorical strategy – his large bank of Bokononist terminology. One of Vonnegut’s points is that religion today is often overly-complex to the point of becoming irrelevant to our lives. What better way to make this point than to create such a religion with its own set of superfluous terminology?

Themes (continued)

Vonnegut also places a great deal of emphasis on humanism, an outlook or system of thought attaching prime importance to human rather than divine or supernatural matters. In Vonnegut’s eyes, the most sacred thing in the universe is human life, and everything about it, including our capacity for emotions, empathy, and experiences:

What is sacred to Bokononism?" I asked after a while. 

"Not even God, as near as I can tell." 

"Nothing?" 

"Just one thing."I made some guesses. "The ocean? The sun?" 

"Man," said Frank. "That's all. Just man." (p.211)

This concept of humanism is contrasted sharply with the scientists in the novel, and more generally the scientific pursuit of truth.  As John says in the beginning of the book: “My book is going to emphasize the human rather than the technical side of the bomb” (p.7) In doing research for his book, John interviews various people at the Research Laboratory of the General Forge and Foundry Company:

“There was one where he bet I couldn’t tell him anything that was absolutely true. So I said to him, ‘God is love.’” 

“And what did he say?” 

“He said, ‘What is God? What is love?’” (p.54)

Felix Hoenikker and many of the other scientists throughout the novel are portrayed as cold, calculating, and unfeeling. They are not truly mean – it’s just that they have absolutely no regard for the rest of the human race and no sense of moral responsibility. They are incapable of empathy or love. In a sense, they are inhuman. By contrast, Felix Hoenikker’s daughter, Angela Hoenikker is caring and empathetic:

“Anyway,” said Angela, “when we got back home, we found him in the chair.” She shook her head. “I don’t think he suffered any. He just looked asleep. He couldn’t have looked like that if there’d been the least bit of pain.” (p.115)

From a scientific point of view, dying is dying. The body shuts down and the person is just gone. His memories are gone; his soul doesn’t exist anymore. If there was anytime at all to feel pain, it would be those last few minutes because it’s going to completely end soon anyway. Angela’s consideration of her father’s comfort just before death is of course a very “humanist” way of thought. After Angela dies an “ideal” death at the end of the book by being immortalized into a frozen statue when she touched her clarinet (which was covered in ice nine) to her mouth, her brother Newt comments to John: "Well, maybe you can find some neat way to die, too," (p.285)

The following quote is fairly ironic:

“I am a very bad scientist. I will do anything to make a human being feel better, even if it's unscientific. No scientist worthy of the name could say such a thing." (p.219)

Despite what he says, this scientist is actually the most worthy scientist in the book due to his consideration for the wellbeing of other human beings. Felix Hoenikker, despite being a brilliant scientist, is flawed as a human being in almost every other way:

“… but how the hell innocent is a man who helps make a thing like an atomic bomb? And how can you say a man had a good mind when he couldn’t even bother to do anything when the best-hearted, most beautiful woman in the world, his own wife, was dying for lack of love and understanding …” (p.68)

Themes

Are truths inherently good and lies inherently bad? This is the question that Vonnegut explores through Cats Cradle. This seemingly obvious question goes beyond the usefulness of mere “white lies”. Instead, Vonnegut begs us to consider the grand purpose of truth and lies as it pertains to the meaning of life in general. Such an argument inevitably forces us to consider the roles of religion and science in our society.

"New knowledge is the most valuable commodity on earth. The more truth we have to work with, the richer we become.” (p.41)

A seemingly valid statement, right? As generic as it is, I think it’s a viewpoint that many of us would be ok with agreeing with. However, the narrator, John, responds:

Had I been a Bokononist then, that statement would have made me howl. (p.41)

This is because Bokononism is a religion that is quite literally founded upon lies. The first sentence in The Books of Bokonon is this: “All of the true things I am about to tell you are shameless lies.” But this is the case with most religions today. That’s not to say that religions outright claim lying as their main tenet, but most religions, like Bokononism, are founded upon unfounded beliefs about life and how the world began. While Bokononism does admit to lying, its core messages can be compared to those of any other religions. Its emphasis on lying serves to draw the reader’s attention to the contrast between the related, but separate, institutions of religion and science. Both seek to explain the universe, but Vonnegut’s argument is that religion does so for the benefit of humans, while science does so purely for “truth”.

Put that way, I suppose Vonnegut’s argument makes a lot of sense. What exactly is the good of truth? On a smaller scale, truth leads to scientific discoveries and technological developments that improve our quality of life, but these things are materialistic. I think this is a case of “you can’t miss what you’ve had”. If a religion told us what was possible and what we wanted to hear and allowed us to believe what we wanted to believe, we would live much happier lives. Without pursuing truth and understanding any scientific truths of our universe, we would continue on living our blissfully ignorant lives. Humanity may never actually get anywhere or accomplish anything, but nevertheless, in our own heads, our lives would be more fulfilling and meaningful. This is evident in the extreme situation on the Island of San Lorenzo:

Well, when it became evident that no governmental or economic reform was going to make the people much less miserable, the religion became the one real instrument of hope. Truth was the enemy of the people, because the truth was so terrible, so Bokonon made it his business to provide the people with better and better lies. (p.172)

Of course, truth has important applications in our real world, namely ensuring a stable society with a functional government. A society with nothing but religious zeal would quickly disintegrate into anarchy, as was the case in San Lorenzo. Although a society based on lies is idealistic, it’s an interesting concept to consider.

In our society, truth is always regarded as the ultimate goal, knowledge with utmost importance, scientists with utmost respect. However, throughout the novel, Vonnegut trivializes the role of truth. In the following passage, Vonnegut describes the “scientific” meaning of life:

“‘He said science was going to discover the basic secret of life someday,’ the Bartender put in. He scratched his head and frowned. ‘Didn’t I read in the paper the other day where they’d finally found out what it was?’‘I missed that,’ I murmured.
‘I saw that,’ said Sandra.  ‘About two days ago.’‘That’s right,’ said the bartender.‘What is the secret of life?’ I asked.
‘I forget,’ said Sandra.‘Protein,’  the bartender declared. ‘They found out something about protein.’
‘Yeah,’ said Sandra, ‘that’s it.’” (p.25)

This is a very good answer from a scientific point of view. We can say that life is defined by the ability to reproduce and perform all of the functions needed to adapt to the environment and survive. All living organisms, including one-celled bacteria share a common characteristic – DNA (or RNA for extremely primitive organisms). When most people think of DNA, they think of a genetic code that contains the “essence” of what the organism is, it’s identity, the key that makes the organism somehow “magically” alive. However, upon further examination, genetic code is simply an extremely long physical template along which molecules called amino acids match up in a particular order (defined by the genes). These amino acids are then linked together to form proteins. That’s essentially the only function that DNA has – to provide a blueprint for making all of the proteins that a particular organism needs in order to build its body and stay alive. Different organisms need different proteins, and therefore have different DNA. From a scientific standpoint, proteins are quite literally the “secret of life”. But of course it’s not. It’s the secret to our physical existence, but not to our consciousness, understanding, or experiences.

“I think you’ll find,” said Dr. Breed, “that every-body does about the same amount of thinking. Scientists simply think about things in one way, and other people think about things in others.” (p.33)

Dr. Asa Breed, Felix Hoenikker’s supervisor, represents everything that Vonnegut criticizes about scientists. They approach everything in the world from an objective, inhuman point of view. They tend to explain everything with science, with “truth”, but of course truth has no greater meaning other than it is correct, and it is what it is. Here is an exchange between Miss Faust (Dr. Breed’s secretary) and John:

“Dr. Breed keeps telling me the main thing with Dr. Hoenikker was truth.” 

“You don’t seem to agree.” 

“I don’t know whether I agree or not. I just have trouble understanding how truth, all by itself, could be enough for a person.” 

Miss Faust was ripe for Bokononism. (p.54)

Also, consider the following passage:

“Magic,” declared Miss Pefko. 

“I’m sorry to hear a member of the Laboratory family using that brackish, medieval word,” said Dr. Breed. “Every one of those exhibits explains itself. They’re designed so as not to be mystifying. They’re the very antithesis of magic.” 

“The very what of magic?” 

“The exact opposite of magic.” 

“You couldn’t prove it by me.” (p.36)

I think what Miss Pefko is actually saying is that she doesn’t want the exhibits to be proven to be un-magical. “Magical” by definition, really just refers to something that cannot be explained scientifically (and therefore cannot truly exist). Well then, by that definition, I suppose things we don’t understand can appear magical to us, even if it’s not the “truth”. If I were to bring a light bulb (better yet, a colored light bulb) back in time to prehistoric times, the cavemen would probably think it was pretty magical and revere me as a God. Of course, I think that being the caveman would also be quite something. I imagine the level of fascination the caveman would have probably doesn’t exist anymore in our scientific world today. We’ve come to expect that everything can be achieved by science eventually. Scientific explanations may satisfy curiosity, but they definitely dull the “magic” behind many things. As Bokonon preaches, knowing the truth serves no real purpose other than knowing the truth. As a kid, when Santa Clause and magic is real, life is much more interesting. However, when one becomes an adult, life becomes filled with wisdom and disappointment:

“Maturity,” Bokonon tells us, “is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter can be said to remedy anything.” (p.198)

The book’s title is explained in the following passage and is connected with the prevailing theme of truth:

Newt remained curled in the chair. He held out his painty hands as though a cat’s cradle were strung between them. “No wonder kids grow up crazy. A cat’s cradle is nothing but a bunch of X’s between somebody’s hands, and little kids look and look and look at all those X’s …”“And?”“No damn cat, and no damn cradle.” (p.166)

Fifth Post

Alright, so Bokononism as actually such a complex religion that I decided to make a quick blog dedicated to some info about Bokononism. First off, here is a list of Bokononist terminology that is used throughout the book:

• boko-maru: The mingling of awareness. A Bokononist ritual during which two people press the soles of their bare feet together. Bokononists believe it is impossible to be sole-to-sole with another person without loving that person, provided the feet of both persons are clean and nicely tended. 
• busy, busy, busy: What bokononists whisper whenever they think of how complicated and unpredictable the machinery of life really is. 
• duffle: The destiny of thousands upon thousands of persons when placed in the hands of a stuppa. 
• duprass: A karass composed of only two persons. 
• dynamic tension: Theory that good societies can be built only by pitting good against evil, and by keeping the tension between the two high at all times. Derived from a theory of Charles Atlas, that muscles can be built without bar bells or spring exercisers, by simply pitting one set of muscles against another. 
• foma: Harmless untruths. Lies. 
• granfalloon: A seeming team that is meaningless in terms of the ways God gets things done. Textbook examples include the false karass, the Communist party, the Daughters of the American Revolution, the General Electric Company, the International Order of Odd Fellows and any nation anytime anywhere. 
• kan-kan: The instrument that brings someone into their particular karass. 
• karass: A team which unknowingly executes God's Will. Bokononists believe that all humanity is divided into such teams. 
• pool-pah: Shit storm. Wrath of God. 
• saroon: To aquiesce to the seeming demands of one's vin-dit. 
• sin-wat: One who wants 'all' of somebody's love. 
• sinookas: The tendrils of one's life. 
• stuppa: A fogbound child. 
• vin-dit: A sudden, very personal shove in the direction of Bokononism. 
• wampeter: The pivot of a karass. Anything can be a wampeter: a tree, a rock, an animal, an idea, a book, a melody, the Holy Grail. At any given time a karass actually has two wampeters - one waxing in importance, one waning. 
• wrang-wrang: A person who steers people away from a line of speculation by reducing that line, with the example of the wrang-wrang's own life, to an absurdity. 
• zah-mah-ki-bo: Fate, inevitable destiny.

I also found this site online. It’s basically a compilation of all the various verses and calypsos (songs) that can be found in the Books of Bokonon. Since Vonnegut only gives us bits and pieces and never the entire Books of Bokonon, I’m fairly sure that this site has the most comprehensive version available.

Here’s something else that’s pretty cool. A rock band from the 1970s called Ambrosia took one of the calypsos and turned it into an actual song, crediting Vonnegut as one of the writers. The Calypso, called the “Fifty-third Calypso”, is talking about the Bokononist concept of a karass. I’ve attached a video below. Here are the lyrics (the bolded parts are the actual calypso):

AMBROSIA
"Nice, Nice, Very Nice"

Oh a sleeping drunkard Up in Central Park
Or the lion hunter In the jungle dark

Or the Chinese dentist Or the British Queen
They all fit together In the same machine

Nice, nice, very nice
Nice, nice, very nice
So many people in the same device

Oh a whirling dervish And a dancing bear
Or a Ginger Rogers and a Fred Astaire

Or a teenage rocker Or the girls in France
Yes, we all are partners in this cosmic dance

Nice, nice, very nice
Nice, nice, very nice
So many people in the same device

I wanted all things to make sense
So we'd be happy instead of tense

Oh a sleeping drunkard Up in Central Park
Or the lion hunter In the jungle dark

Or the Chinese dentist Or the British Queen
They all fit together In the same machine

Nice, nice, very nice
Nice, nice, very nice
So many people in the same device
So many people in the same device