Cat's Cradle Chapter 119 Summary

Mona Thanks Me

  • The chapter opens with a passage from The Book of Bokonon telling us to be what we are. Because why not.
  • John makes up a tune to go with that calypso and hums it while riding the bicycle that runs the machine that recycles the air. It's exercise that literally keeps him alive.
  • They give it three more days, a total of seven, before the two love(ish) birds head up to the surface.
  • The landscape looks like perpetual winter. Mona perhaps sums it up best when she says, "'Mother Earth—she isn't a very good mother any more'" (119.24).
  • They make a "half-hearted search for survivors" and come across a calypso written on the arch of the palace gate (119.25). It's proof that someone survived… for a while at least.