Notes on Breakfast of Champions

I just finished Breakfast of Champions today and what a fantastic book. Y-O-U have got to read it. Seriously though, it is truly fantastic for numerous reasons. Firstly, it skewers us as humans and us especially as Americans in a delightfully painful way. I'm not advocating masochistic pleasure-seeking when I recommend this book, but if you want to have your patriotic thought processes unnerved a bit (which you should so you don't end up goose-stepping your way through life) this is a great book to achieve that. Secondly, it's a brilliant description of life. I have been working to make myself a good storyteller recently. In fact, that's what this whole blog is essentially about - it's a repository of all my previous notes and current thoughts in the hopes that my future self will be able to easily look back at categorized notes in order to pull something worthy of putting into a story. Vonnegut hates storytellers. He blames storytelling on all the ills that America faces and his argument is pretty sound. Nonetheless, Vonnegut wrote one hell of a story. Thirdly, I love the meta-narrative he does of inserting himself into the story and explaining why he writes the way he does and so on and so forth. It's a fascinating literary device and has instructional value for me as an aspiring writer.

There could be a lot of metaphorical ink wasted if I were to point out every little jib and jab of this book that I particularly enjoyed so I will save the metaphorical carbon black by highlighting only a few of my favorites. In the introduction his discussion of Armistice Day and how the soldiers heard God was great.

"When I was a boy, and when Dwayne Hoover was a boy, all the people of all the nations which had fought in the First World War were silent during the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of Armistice Day, which was the eleventh day of the eleventh month. It was during that minute in nineteen hundred and eighteen, that millions upon millions of human beings stopped butchering each one another. I have talked to old men who were on battlefields during that minute. They have told me in one way or another that the sudden silence was the Voice of God. So we still have among us some men who can remember when God spoke clearly to mankind" (Vonnegut, 6).

This little blurb sums up for me what Vonnegut does in this book. First, he successfully makes himself a part of the story, which I like. Second, he touches on a brutal subject (WWI) with levity and jokes (stopped butchering one another) without being mean. It's dark, but not mean. Third, his wit and dark humor is amplified through dissonant sarcasm - the Voice of God is silence.

In a little jab at men and women and their roles with each other he writes "'I don't wonder you're tired and nervous,' Francine went on. 'If I was a man, I'd be tired and nervous, too. I guess God made women so men could relax and be treated like little babies from time to time.' She was more than satisfied with this arrangement." (Vonnegut, 154). That's just funny.

His shot at how wealth is accumulated is funny too. "With the passage of time, his shares had become one hundred times as valuable, simply lying in the total darkness and silence of a safe-deposit box. There was a lot of money magic like that going on. It was almost as though some blue fairy were flitting about that part of the dying planet, waving her magic wand over certain deeds and bonds and stock certificates" (Vonnegut, 161).

In contemplating the meaning of life as he is slowly starting to lose his grip on his sanity, Dwayne tells Francine about his visit to the Pontiac factory and the impact that the destruction tests had on him. He recalls seeing (and Vonnegut so kindly drew for us a rendition of it) a door labeled "Destructive Testing" where all the torture of the cars took place. "'I saw that sign,' said Dwayne, 'and I couldn't help wondering if that was what God put me on Earth for - to find out how much a man could take without breaking'" (Vonnegut, 166).

Again in pondering the meaning of life, Vonnegut inserted a story about a greyhound. Forgive me, this is a lengthy quotation but it's funny and can't really be pared down well and retain its hilarity. "The girl with the greyhound was an assistant lighting director for a musical comedy about American history, and she kept her poor greyhound, who was named Lancer, in a one-room apartment fourteen feet wide and twenty-six feet long, and six flights of stairs above street level. His entire life was devoted to unloading his excrement at the proper time and place. There were two proper places to put it: in the gutter outside the door seventy-two steps below, with the traffic whizzing by, or in a roasting pan his mistress kept in front of the Westinghouse refrigerator. Lancer had a very small brain, but he must have suspected from time to time, just as Wayne Hoobler did, that some kind of terrible mistake had been made" (Vonnegut, 198).

In discussing truth a Novelist (Beatrice) and a painter (Karabekian) a sad conclusion about truth is raised. Karabekian had just sold a minimalist painting entitled The Temptation of St. Anthony for an exorbitant price and Beatrice admitted to Karabekian that she had no idea who St. Anthony was. Karabekian responded, "'I don't know, and I would hate to find out,' said Karabekian. 'You have no use for truth?' said Beatrice. 'You know what truth is?' said Karabekian. 'It's some crazy thing my neighbor believes. If I want to make friends with him, I ask him what he believes. He tells me, and I say, Yeah, yeah - ain't it the truth?'" (Vonnegut, 209). Funny. But sad.

Vonnegut places the blame of what makes America a dangerous and unhappy place squarely on the shoulders of the story tellers. The government treated Americans as disposable (a war reference) because authors treated their bit-part players like that. The reason why some details in life are important and others are trivial and the reason why some people in life are important and others are trivial is because authors makes some details important and others trivial and some people important and others trivial in their stories. Vonnegut swore off storytelling. Instead he chose to write about life. "I resolved to shun storytelling. I would write about life. Every person would be exactly as important as any other. All facts would also be given equal weightiness. Nothing would be left out" (Vonnegut, 210). That's why Vonnegut stories have so many seemingly unimportant side passages.

"Milo now used a line from a television show which had been popular a few years back. The show wasn't on air anymore, but most people still remembered the line. Much of the conversation in the country consisted of lines from television shows, both present and past" (Vonnegut, 230). That's funny because it's true.

"I gazed at the Keedsler mansion, never dreaming that a volcanic dog was about to erupt behind me" (Vonnegut, 287). That's funny because of the wording.

As a hopeful writer, as a hopeful storyteller, I find I've often inserted myself into a story or two. But, I've not found a way to do it later in the story. Either I'm in it from the beginning or I'm not it at all. Vonnegut is present from the beginning in this book in theory, but really jumps into the story when Dwayne, Wayne and Kilgore Trout are all in or around the Holiday Inn in Midland City. His entrance is flawless and I read and reread it about fifteen times. "'Give me a Black and White and water,' he heard the waitress say, and Wayne should have pricked up his ears at that. That particular drink wasn't for any ordinary person. That drink was for the person who had created all Wayne's misery to date, who could kill him or make him a millionaire or send him back to prison or do whatever he damn pleased with Wayne. That drink was for me" (Vonnegut, 192). From this point on, Vonnegut is a character with a major role to play in the conclusion of the story - which I won't reveal in case you haven't read it.

Maybe it's the sheer weirdness of Vonnegut's stories. Maybe it's his literary style. Maybe it's the fact that he's a Hoosier. Maybe its a je ne sais quoi amalgamation of all three and other unknown factors, but I'm really starting to see Vonnegut as among my favorite writers. Currently, I find myself enjoying and thus, emulating, however poorly, four writers more than anyone else: Voltaire, Douglas Adams, Raymond Queneau and Vonnegut. Voltaire has long been among my favorites, so he holds a sentimental place in my heart. But, between the other three I can't decide who I like the most.