Breakfast of Champions

Vonnegut here is like a shaman who throws a bunch of knuckle bones in the air, sees how they land, and tells the client what they mean. The novel is a crazy ramble through whatever Vonnegut had tucked away in the absurdist corner of his mind. It's dark and dangerous, reaching past satire to the edges of savagery.

SciFi author Kilgore Trout appears again alongside other Vonnegut regulars. He's been invited to an arts festival where one of his books about a lone human on a planet of robots sparks a psychotic episode in a paticipant. The narrator has made many references to 'bad chemicals' effecting human behaviour, but the assumption has been drug references. As the story progresses we see that he means the chemicals our brain makes for itself. Humanity is little more than a bunch of robots being controlled by our own chemistry.

To add to his theme, the narrator becomes a character in the book towards the end, demonstrating how he can make any character in the story do whatever he wants them to do. It's a weird flex that adds to the feeling of insanity that threads its way through the whole story.

Vonnegut's second piece I'm getting around to (after Slaughterhouse Five) is a witty and satirical post-modernist piece that is about nothing and everything. The prose takes time to get used to, there is little to no plot to speak of, and there's no point to the novel, which Vonnegut himself indirectly admits at one point, telling us that the worst books are one which do have a lesson - because there's no such thing in real life.
BoC follows a uniquely original medley of characters and backstories who live in a town colloquially known as “the asshole of America”, as they go about their everyday lives. The satire ranges from Trout's stories poking fun at how seriously we take our arbitrary notions, to pointing out ingrained and internalised sexism, racism, consumerism and even some throwaway discussions on the environment.
Vonnegut's self-insertion, the amateurish drawings on display (always prefaced with “they look something like this”), and his warped worldview make for quite the ride. Even though I can understand why some might deride this, it made for brutal, maximalist and hilariously poignant reading. You go from “how the fuck did someone think of this?” to “yeah, I'm going to hell for laughing at this” in five seconds flat, and those are the best kinds of novels, as we all know. And so on.

Gritty, sarcastic and amusing would be the words that come to my mind when I talk about this book. Vonnegut has an unique style, when he talks about the human race he makes you think that him, the narrator, might actually be an alien, it feels like a documentary created by an extraterrestrial being that is trying to understand human behaviour and strenght. A solid analysis of the human and its nature and a satyre to the american way of life, possibly one of the best books of this year?

Executive Summary: I didn't like this as much as I'd hoped. However it hasn't put me off from trying some of his other work at some point.

Audiobook: This book is strange. Was it made more strange by John Malkovich? It's hard to say for sure. It probably didn't help. Don't get me wrong, I like strange, but I wonder how much was simply the presentation. The real reason I'd recommend against doing this audio isn't the narrator however. There are apparently a bunch of drawings. I didn't know that. Mr. Malkovich “describes” them but I'd rather have been able to see them for myself.

Full Review
I first heard of Kurt Vonnegut when I was growing up in the 90s. He seemed to be one of my older sister's favorites. Maybe I'm wrong, but I recall seeing several of his books laying around the house. For some reason I never picked them up myself.

I'm not sure if this was the best choice for my first book of his. Only time (and reading another book or two) will tell. I owned 2 of his books already, as I needed an audio book, I opted for this one first.

I never really got into it. It was strange. I'm not really sure how I feel about it. I didn't really like any of the characters for one. The premise was interesting, but I never really got caught up in it.

I was born after this book takes place. That may have hurt my enjoyment as well. There were a few funny parts. There were several parts and language that made me uncomfortable to read. It's certainly more literary than most of what I read. Maybe I just wasn't in the right frame of mind to really enjoy it.

Either way I'm glad I did, and I do plan to try out at least the other book of his I already own at some point, but probably not as quickly as I would have if I enjoyed this one a bit more.

Kurt Vonnegut's capacity of constantly breaking the fourth wall, bending time and space, observational comedy - reminds me why I wanted to pick this up.

However, it's that same back and forward that just feels like the story moves too slowly and takes too long. To the point where I just wanted to get to the end.

Leave it to Vonnegut to be able to take this huge sweeping look at all levels of society in less than 300 pages. The surprising power of his prose, the haunting beauty of his scenes, his tongue-in-cheek satire, balanced by a thorough sadness, and his sheer unwavering truth all make this book one hell of a literary achievement. honestly, it hit me like a truck.

9/10

I already held Vonnegut in very high regard after Slaughterhouse 5. This book is in a similar vein but much funnier because it lacks the grim nature of WW2. Vonnegut is one of the funniest authors I've ever read. The way he deconstructs mundane human concepts is masterful and hilarious. Social satire at its best.

Malkovich's narration was excellent. One thing to note is that the book has a lot of funny drawings. On audio, those drawings are described verbally, which is not ideal but works well enough if you find and look for those drawings separately.

How do you review this book? The writing was inspiring. The depth of thought and analysis of culture was almost devastating. His cynicism was refreshing and beguiling. I loved it but I acknowledge how dangerous this book could be. Not danger in the “harmful” sense but danger in the “shatter the illusion” sense. I had no expectations. Now, I'm reeling. I'm afraid to give it five stars but I want to. I'm not sure I could adequately back it up. This was odd, important, and I'm glad I had this experience.

Transported into a unique, sharp, empathetic mind, but one I can't quite connect to.
Does the passage of fifty years since publication make that inevitable?
I think it's inevitable I'll eventually try his other greatest hits, as I've stumbled through a couple of his less touted works already.
I appreciate the punchy story-telling style, the arrows denoting paragraphs and the breaks with sketches.
He's obviously not just conscious but fluent in the social issues of his day, which depressingly seem to match up closely to the social issues of the present day:  mental health, contentions around pornography/erotica, drag queens; the prevalence of self-involvement, private and corporate greed, capitalism, private property and land ownership v. stewardship, industrial pollution and environmental destruction, racism, misogyny, SA, military mindset, toxic masculinity, war, animal slaughter for food, ETC. (See what I did there?)
I understand that to challenge the status
 quo is often as much about saying outrageous or vulgar things in a commonplace manner as it is describing all the ills society seems content to ignore in the same manner, to ensure you have the reader's attention, but as clearly laid out as Vonnegut's aims seem to be, in the intervening years since publication it's become well worn territory expressed in a multitude of ways, to the extent that harping on about women's vulvas in print, men's penis sizes in all of their irrelevance to their identities, just kind of makes me tired.
 ⚠️ (In addition to the above) Fatphobia, Suicide, out of date/offensive terms, homophobia 

So now when I think of Vonnegut, I think ‰ЫПWIDE-OPEN BEAVERS!‰Ыќ

‰ЫПHe made carbon copies of nothing he wrote. He mailed off manuscripts without enclosing stamped, self-addressed envelopes for their safe return. Sometimes he didn‰ЫЄt even include a return address. He got names and addresses of publishers from magazines devoted to the writing business, which he read avidly in the periodical rooms of public libraries. He thus got in touch with a firm called World Classics Library, which published hard-core pornography in Los Angeles, California.‰Ыќ

There are some authors who can write pertinent social commentary in a way that is both humorous and horrifying at the same time. Kurt Vonnegut is one of those writers. Most of his satirical takes start off like classic SNL skits to hook you, and then, as you're being dragged down the rabbit hole, he hits you over the head with candid facts. “Breakfast of Champions” makes your head swim. You won't forget its sobering lessons about the value of our climate, social insecurities, nature, race relations, and how we should all live much more peacefully until the last page is turned.

The book is, among many other things, a satire. A book composed of a compilation of Vonnegut's true-to-life observations and anecdotes about the world. The story follows Kilgore Trout, a struggling science fiction writer, and Dwanye Hoover, a businessman who is losing his mind. Trout accepts an invitation to go to a local arts festival while we follow Hoover's business dealings before an eventual meeting of the two minds. It's sporadic and hypnotic, much like a Mel Brooks film. As the two characters navigate their respective futures, Vonnegut uses their interactions as a vehicle to shine a light on topical issues such as unequal distribution of wealth, mental health, consumerism, art, the environment, etc., etc. It's an interesting and entertaining structure, to say the least.

One of the hallmarks is the content of Kilgore‘s science fiction books. Plague on Wheels, for example. It's a story about a planet filled with automobiles that leave oil in their wake as they reproduce, and they all inherently thrive off fossil fuels. These entities ultimately extinguish the planet's atmosphere and look to space travelers to borrow oxygen. You get the picture. It's sort of like reading your favorite comic strip. Sporadic ideas and musings that make you think about a topic in a different way. It's an adult version of Calvin and Hobbes.

Although some may find portions of the book preachy or irreverent, I believe every one of us can take something from the text to use as inspiration, a warning, or a good chuckle. Whatever way you look at it, the knee-jerk reactions of each thought might bring about this face: