Cat's Cradle Chapter 33 Summary

An Ungrateful Man

  • John asks about Emily. Like most others in Ilium, Marvin went to high school with a Hoenikker, Emily in this case.
  • Since her father owned the music store, she played every instrument ever and did it well. Marvin fell for her so hard he tried to learn the violin, but Asa stole her away from him.
  • Oh, and she was super pretty.
  • And then Frank Hoenikker swooped in and took her away from Dr. Breed just like that.
  • Now, Marvin says it might be "high treason and ungrateful and ignorant and backward and anti-intellectual" to dislike a man like Felix Hoenikker.
  • But would such a great man help create the atomic bomb or kill a woman like Emily with a lack of love?
  • Marvin wonders if the world's ills are due to too many dead people (we're thinking emotionally dead) in high places.