Thursday, January 5, 2012

Cats Cradle and Ice-nine

Ice-nine. An object that is frequently mentioned in the main character's past with an unrelenting distaste. I believe that this crystal will be very important to the story itself, and the whole world (in the book) quite possibly. Ice-nine is a crystal developed by a deceased father of the secondary characters and to the first nuclear bomb. It freezes any liquid it touches and turns the liquid into more ice-nine. The drastic feature of this crystal is that it never stops, and if unleashed onto a body of water that in someway connects to the ocean, all rivers, the entire sea, and even "rain that drops to the ground" would become ice-nine. It has the capability to become the most malicious weapon of mass destruction. The father, before he died, split up the ice-nine between his three children. The same children whose path intertwines with the mainn charactor's so much, that it leads me to have a faint suspicion that he himself might come to be in possession of some of this dreadful mineral.

The first time ice-nine is mentioned is on pages 42-43, when the main character talks to an associate of "Father" about "Father." The main character is at this time trying to write a documentry on "the human aspect" of creating the nuclear bomb. The associate tell's a story of when a marine general interupted "Father's" lunch break to ask him if there was a way to solidify mud so that the marines could trek across it with more ease and efficiency then wadding through it. This is where "Father" makes up the idea of ice-nine to get the general to go away. After that, "Father" decides to make ice-nine. The associate does not know that "Father" made it. The only people who do know at that current time are his three children who become very important as the story progresses. The main character of the future (the one who is supposedly writing the book, aka the fake author) dedicates two pages talking about how ice-nine is real.

The next time it is mentioned is when the fake author is on a plane to San Lorenzo, and he meets Newton and Angela, the youngest son and eldest daughter of "Father." They talk and chat of thing irreverent to ice-nine, but at the end the author mentions "that the son of a bitch had a piece of ice-nine in his thermos bottle in his luggage, and so did his miserable sister, while under us was God's own amount of water, the Caribbean Sea [pg. 111]." The main charecter does not hate Newton at all. Newton is a friendly 20-something year old midget. He said the words "son of a bitch" most likely in either a playful, or scoldful way (scoldful being because he was so careless with it, the thermos was all that was protecting humanity, and all living things on earth).

The main character would not speak of ice-nine with such anger and passion if it was of no significance. I expect ice-nine to make its grand appearance, threatening all of humanity soon.

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