‘We are healthy only to the extent that our ideas are humane…’
Kurt Vonnegut’s seminal novel Slaughterhouse-Five is probably the most prominent anti-war novel of the century (along with Catch-22, obviously). Often, and again this is also true of Heller and Catch 22, a hugely successful novel can become an albatross around the author’s neck. Something that casts everything else in the harsh light of diminished returns. Catcher of the Rye. To Kill a Mockingbird. Heck, we’ve been waiting 2000 years for a sequel to the bible. It’s just laziness at this point. Holy laziness, but laziness nevertheless. Breakfast of Champions is Vonnegut’s other major work, and in truth, it never really comes close to matching Slaughterhouse-Five…
Breakfast of Champions is the story of an unlikely meeting between Kilgore Trout, a prolific but widely ignored science fiction writer, and Dwayne Hoover, a wealthy yet mentally deranged businessman who is living on the very edge of his sanity. Trout is mentioned sporadically throughout Slaughterhouse-Five, and he is not the only common thread between the two books. Vonnegut employs many of the same techniques throughout both works including illustrations, metafiction and a simple writing style that ensures that Breakfast of Champions is at once an easy read and an infuriating one. There isn’t really a story here, more a selection of random events tacked together, a technique that regrettably calls to mind Virginia Woolf and other nonsense modernist writers.
Vonnegut’s seventh novel is unique enough and funny enough to recommend it, it was clearly an influence on the likes of Douglas Adams for example, but it is also a bit disappointing in terms of being a direct follow-up to Slaughterhouse-Five. My main piece of advice would be to just read that instead.