[Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.] is a Cosmic Fool, a clown who laughs at the world's failings and sorrows (and tries to tease, cajole and seduce us into laughing at them, too), rather than be overwhelmed by them (though sometimes it is touch and go). His satirical commentaries on business, war, politics, machine technology, organized religion, and organizations in general expose the foibles and inhumanities of a society of which he is always highly critical. Yet his satire and cosmic pessimism are paradoxically countered by his humor, gentleness and kindness, as well as his comic energy and individual optimism. (p. 3)

Faced with a world defined by Emersonian or Jungian polarities (what he calls in Cat's Cradle "Dynamic Tension," or Bokonon's "sense of a priceless equilibrium between good and evil" [one could add to his list nature and history, freedom and determinism, love and indifference, individuality and conformity, reality and illusion...