The late Kurt Vonnegut was one of twentieth century America’s greatest authors. A veteran of World War II and survivor of the allied firebombing of Dresden, his war novel Slaughterhouse Five was—and remains—a widely-read classic. Published in 1973, the brilliantly sarcastic Breakfast of Champions pokes fun at everything.
"This is a tale of a meeting of two lonesome, skinny, fairly old white men on a planet which was dying fast. . ." (p. 7)
Author Kilgore Trout doesn’t have doodley-squat. The little money his fledgling Sci-Fi stories earn is so meager that he can't really consider himself a writer. In fact in order to pay the rent on his basement apartment, he installs windows for a construction company. On account of his writings rarely being published, Kilgore Trout doesn't have too many readers. In his entire life, he’s only received one piece of fan mail until the day a letter arrives inviting him to speak at a convention in Midland City. Meanwhile Dwayne Hoover, a resident of Midland City, is “fabulously well-to-do”. He lives in a dream house on four acres of land with his dog Sparky and, despite his steadily creeping insanity, keeps getting richer owning and managing his chain of car dealerships. Dwayne is going crazy because of bad chemicals in his brain; bad chemicals and bad ideas. His bad ideas are notions that the stories he’s read by Kilgore Trout are the truth.
Kilgore Trout is so poor that he has to hitchhike his way to Midland City. On the way he's attacked by some bandits calling themselves the Pluto Gang, after which he has to stay in the hospital a few days. Meanwhile Dwayne stays busy maintaining his routine affairs including a liason he keeps with his secretary Patty Keene who hopes that sleeping with Dwayne will make her troubles disappear. Kilgore and Dwayne are destined to meet at the bar of the Holiday Inn in Midland City where, coincidentally, Dwayne’s son George (a.k.a. “Bunny”) plays the piano. The author Kurt Vonnegut happens to be in attendance and is at the same bar when Dwayne and Kilgore meet, ordering martinis from a cocktail waitress whose toast--"Breakfast of Champions"--is served up with each drink.
So comprises the insidiously wacky world of Kurt Vonnegut and his caustically pessimistic wit in this off-the-wall novel strewn with characteristic anomalies. It's irregularity that makes this book a classic, an irreverent flouting of all literary parameters. Even the title, Breakfast of Champions, is itself a mocking epithet of the copyrighted General Mills logo. It's not a normal--proper--novel, or even dimensionally-correct (Vonnegut as both author and character simultaneously) but that's the whole point. What's going on? It's not terribly important. The mode of expression is the intention; the reflected conscious of the story what the author aims at rather than anything to do with the plot. Stylistically almost mirroring the ramblings of a lunatic, the book's blunt subtleties, interweaving characters and quirky sequence of events all affect its disposition as a satirically dark undermining of societal conventions. (FIC VONNEGUT)
"This is a tale of a meeting of two lonesome, skinny, fairly old white men on a planet which was dying fast. . ." (p. 7)
Author Kilgore Trout doesn’t have doodley-squat. The little money his fledgling Sci-Fi stories earn is so meager that he can't really consider himself a writer. In fact in order to pay the rent on his basement apartment, he installs windows for a construction company. On account of his writings rarely being published, Kilgore Trout doesn't have too many readers. In his entire life, he’s only received one piece of fan mail until the day a letter arrives inviting him to speak at a convention in Midland City. Meanwhile Dwayne Hoover, a resident of Midland City, is “fabulously well-to-do”. He lives in a dream house on four acres of land with his dog Sparky and, despite his steadily creeping insanity, keeps getting richer owning and managing his chain of car dealerships. Dwayne is going crazy because of bad chemicals in his brain; bad chemicals and bad ideas. His bad ideas are notions that the stories he’s read by Kilgore Trout are the truth.
Kilgore Trout is so poor that he has to hitchhike his way to Midland City. On the way he's attacked by some bandits calling themselves the Pluto Gang, after which he has to stay in the hospital a few days. Meanwhile Dwayne stays busy maintaining his routine affairs including a liason he keeps with his secretary Patty Keene who hopes that sleeping with Dwayne will make her troubles disappear. Kilgore and Dwayne are destined to meet at the bar of the Holiday Inn in Midland City where, coincidentally, Dwayne’s son George (a.k.a. “Bunny”) plays the piano. The author Kurt Vonnegut happens to be in attendance and is at the same bar when Dwayne and Kilgore meet, ordering martinis from a cocktail waitress whose toast--"Breakfast of Champions"--is served up with each drink.
So comprises the insidiously wacky world of Kurt Vonnegut and his caustically pessimistic wit in this off-the-wall novel strewn with characteristic anomalies. It's irregularity that makes this book a classic, an irreverent flouting of all literary parameters. Even the title, Breakfast of Champions, is itself a mocking epithet of the copyrighted General Mills logo. It's not a normal--proper--novel, or even dimensionally-correct (Vonnegut as both author and character simultaneously) but that's the whole point. What's going on? It's not terribly important. The mode of expression is the intention; the reflected conscious of the story what the author aims at rather than anything to do with the plot. Stylistically almost mirroring the ramblings of a lunatic, the book's blunt subtleties, interweaving characters and quirky sequence of events all affect its disposition as a satirically dark undermining of societal conventions. (FIC VONNEGUT)
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