Book Review: Breakfast of Champions shows us the author seeming to feel a thousand years old as he tries to explain the world to himself as much as to the reader. In this, his seventh novel, Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007) seems to have surrendered, overwhelmed by a country intent on destroying everything of value. He may've been clinically depressed. It was 1973. Vonnegut puts himself in the book as a character and is sometimes surprised by what occurs: "I had come to the Arts Festival incognito. I was there to watch a confrontation between two human beings I had created ... I was not eager to be recognized." At times he writes the book as we read it. All very postmodern and meta. Vonnegut also includes pieces of his own life, such as a fear of insanity (his mother committed suicide). But what seems like the pinball plot we've come to expect from Vonnegut and resembles his typical satire, is actually a discussion of philosophy. He draws upon philosophies expressed in prior books such as Slaughterhouse Five (1969), Cat's Cradle (1963), and The Sirens of Titan (1959). In the examples provided by the tragicomic lives of the characters presented here, we see that there are no answers, no truth or beauty to be found. We want someone to "teach us to sing and dance and laugh and cry" while we exist "on money and sex and envy and real estate and football and basketball and automobiles and television and alcohol." But it's useless to look for reason in an unreasonable universe. The only way to exist is to accept that there are no magical answers, no miracles, no deus ex machina. But we're not machines without free will and we're not the playthings of some cosmic joker. This is the epiphany. This is the apple of knowledge that character Vonnegut gives to his character Kilgore Trout at the end of the book. The knowledge that our minds are free and that is all we have. Author Vonnegut has a character describe it as "the awareness of every animal ... the immaterial core ... the 'I am' ... it is all that is alive in any of us ... unwavering and pure ... one vertical, unwavering band of light ... our awareness is all that is alive and maybe sacred in any of us." Our self-awareness is free will, but to employ it requires giving up the illusions of childhood, taking off the blinders to reach an awareness of the deep flaws of society, the world, our lives. In Breakfast of Champions Vonnegut is reduced to laying out the evidence supporting this view as simply as possible, as in a child's primer on the ruin of society and the world. The story is helpfully self-illustrated to show us many things we think we already know. One drawing is of a rattlesnake. He then meticulously describes it and says: "Sometimes I wonder about the Creator of the Universe." Life has too many rattlesnakes. Vonnegut attempts to reintroduce us to our own lives (as of 1973) with blunt honesty. The reader may think this is the Vonnegut of the six previous novels, but he's made a turn here. Pretending this is just another Vonnegut novel, he presents what appear to be the usual humorous bits, but when considered they're pitiful, not funny. The book is drenched in sadness as he's trying to show us the hollow things we've become and the disaster we've arrived at (2020 would've killed him). As how he treats race and sex in Breakfast of Champions. Sex is made a matter of numbers and measurements. Creepy. At one point he sadly acknowledges his difficulty in writing female characters. Regarding race, he tries to depict honestly how race fits in American society and how bigoted Americans think. But by bluntly showing how race functions in society the book becomes ugly, harsh, and hard to stomach. Too real. Even today. "The Midland City Police Department ... [was] composed mainly of white men. They had racks and rack of sub-machine guns and twelve-gauge automatic shotguns for an open season on reindeer, which was bound to come." "Reindeer" being their code word for black people. It's easy to think of Breakfast of Champions as a pessimistic book. It is. The product of a specific person at a specific time in his life at a specific time in history. But there is also the glimmer of hope left in Pandora's box. In the Preface Vonnegut mentions the liberation of being "impolite ... about American history and famous heroes, about the distribution of wealth ... about everything." That message still resonates. He wants people to use their awareness for good. Vonnegut himself often goes back to the "lesson" he learned in Dresden, his moment of awareness from the fires that presented him with the truth as he knows it; a literal fire of truth. He writes: "At the core of each person who reads this book is a band of unwavering light." This is one of Vonnegut's important books although the read is deceptively quick and easy. [4½★]
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