re:mote voices

Title: Breakfast Of Champions
Author: Kurt Vonnegut
Publisher: Vintage

Breakfast Of Champions is the third novel I’ve read by Kurt Vonnegut, and despite coming highly recommended, I have to say it is the one I enjoyed the least. I suspect it is the very things that others enjoyed so much about it, that are exactly the things which put me off it. Breakfast Of Champions is quite a gimmicky novel, filled with tangents and random illustrations. Beside which the plot comes across on the light side.

At the core of the actual story are the two characters Dwayne Hoover and Kilgore Trout. Hoover is a businessman, who has his hand in everything in town it seems. However Hoover is at his lowest ebb, barely holding himself back from the edge of a breakdown. Trout is a recurring Vonnegut character, who appeared in Slaughterhouse 5, among others. A down at heel science fiction writer, who is pretty much published as filler in porn mags. Much to his surprise, he is invited to an arts festival in Hoover’s town. Putting them on a crash course, which is telegraphed from the beginning. A meeting which tips Hoover over the edge after reading some of Trout’s work.

Which is part of the problem, the plot is pretty much summed up early on, and then milked out over a couple of hundred pages. Along the way Vonnegut provides plenty of commentary – observations about life, the world, and the relationship between a writer and his characters. In the process mixes his usual balance of humour tinged by a dark and critical outlook. It is perhaps ironic that Slaughterhouse 5 and Cat’s cradle seem to be slighter volumes than Breakfast Of Champions, but for me they both have the feel of more depth. Despite being less captivating Breakfast Of Champions remains a memorable read.