Breakfast of Champions

5 out of 5

By Bookshare.org Volunteer on Jan 11, 2009

Breakfast of Champions is not an easy book to like. It is unstable, more than a little loony, and wildly experimental. It is not for everyone -- if you are weaned on John Grisham or Tom Clancy or other Bestseller List staples, this book will be a jarring new experience. But if you are looking for the blistering vitality of a literary experience and not the comfort of a simple story, then welcome the wonderful world of Kurt Vonnegut with open arms.<p> A synopsis of the plot is pointless, but for reviewing purposes, I'll give it a go: It is a cynical, mind-bending exploration of a few dozen intersecting lives, at the center of which is sci-fi hack writer (and Vonnegut regular) Kilgore Trout and used-car dealer Dwayne Hoover. It is a small novel (298 pages in the Delta trade paperback version, in large print, with pictures) and a quick read (for me, a slow reader, it took a day). But it is pregnant with meanings, philosophies, satirical attacks on this and that, character observations, colorful descriptors, rants, plot summaries of books that don't exist, and whimsical excursions courtesy Vonnegut's stream of consciousness.<p> Critics have praised the book for revealing ugly truths about America regarding racism, pollution, success, and so forth, but it seems to extend beyond even that. Somewhere near the three-quarters mark Vonnegut uses a character to make a profound philosophical/metaphysical revelation about human lives, but even that doesn't quite encompass all of what Breakfast of Champions is. You probably won't even have a grasp on what the novel is all about after you've finished with it -- it simply isn't that kind of book. It's the kind of work that keeps going, running, and expanding in your head, suggesting new things and making connections, forcing you to think, reflect, fantasize, speculate, and even dream. In this way, the novel is greater than itself, and stretches outside itself. In other words, not all of Breakfast of Champions has been written down on paper, and published. You, the reader, provide part of it.<p> This is what people mean when they refer to something as mind-expanding: it doesn't just give you ideas, it lets you give yourself ideas. It's a liberating work -- wickedly funny, smart, well-observed, and unhesitatingly critical of the vices of modern society, but above all it is the kind of book that sets you free.