I’m never entirely sure whether Vonnegut is an optimistic pessimist or a pessimistic optimist but, whichever, it is a stance that allows no certainties except, perhaps, this: the ingenuity of man means that, however aracadian the situation we find ourselves in, sooner or later we’re bound to find a way of screwing it up. But then, being ingenious, we’ll find a way of remedying it. But then, being ingenious, we’ll find a way... And so it goes.Vonnegut's position as optimist or pessimist is always in doubt. He states with no doubt that he isn't against war because being against war is like being against the weather. Mankind will war, ad we will use our babies to fight those wars. He sees religion as a pointless opiate and writes his surrogate character, Kilgore Trout, as an author whose works are appreciated only by crackpots, whose books are only stocked in pornography stores and then only as seldom-sold window dressing, and whose only friend is a pet bird who chooses his cage over freedom.
Along these lines Breakfast of Champions was a tough read for me because the levity, the light-hearted, hopeful tone with which society's flaws were presented is almost entirely absent. In Vonnegut's own admission from his preface here, this is the work of an author turning fifty and clearing his mental bilges. He has spent much of his first six novels building up a quasi-connected world populated with Rumsfoords, Campbells, Trouts, Pilgrims, Rosewaters, Pefkos, and other denizens of Indianapolis and Illium. Vonnegut has spread these characters around his literary world, rewriting their family and personal histories, reshaping their careers and relationships as they were needed to fit the current story. In this novel then Vonnegut wipes the slate clean, dropping himself into the story's climax as a not omnipotent author shaping his characters to his whims, filling in identities and backstories as his characters interact with each other - as though he were both all-powerful creator and passive observer at the same time.
- As we have seen in nearly every one of the novels so far, Vonnegut gives away the ending of the novel within his opening line, "This is the tale of a meeting of two lonesome, skinny, fairly old white men on a planet which was dying fast. ... Dwayne Hoover was on the brink of going insane." (page 7 in the volume pictured at the top of the page)
- Throughout the book, a number of Kilgore Trout's novels are given summaries, some a sentence or two, others as long as a page or so. Each one reads like an interesting idea written by a second-rate writer, both all show some aspect of Vonnegut's view of the world. Is this simply a further effect of Vonnegut's age fifty clearing of the ideas in his head? Did he draw each of these from some card catalog of book/story ideas that he'd been building up for years? If so, were they ideas for Kurt Vonnegut stories or for Kilgore Trout stories?
- Trout's future is foretold throughout the book. We see that he will win the Nobel Prize for Peace and become the most famous, most well-respected writer and philosopher in the world. This is remarkably far from the small, disheveled, utterly unknown man that we meet in this story. His ideas, however - those that would eventually bring him the Nobel Prize and fame, are fully seen here. We even get to hear his Nobel acceptance speech:
"Some people say there is no such thing as progress. The fact that human beings are the only animals left on Earth, I confess, seems a confusing sort of victory.
All of the glimpses of Trout's work that we get show mankind as destined to, in some way, poison the universe or our planet, make it uninhabitable or just short of so. I wonder if this is simply Vonnegut trying to distance himself - if even slightly - from his negative thoughts. (page 25) - Welcome back, Eliot Rosewater. We'd seen the first piece of fan mail that Kilgore Trout receives before. We saw Eliot Rosewater write is a few novels ago. Again we see that Trout assumed the letter was from a child because of the awful handwriting - which we get to see from Vonnegut a few pages later. (page 30)
- The drawings from Vonnegut are somewhat new, as well. There have been occasional sketches from Vonnegut throughout the first half dozen novels, but here the drawings take on a far more prominent role, showing up in the dozens. It's interesting to see a man who clearly has very little skill in drawing putting his works out there so openly.
- Vonnegut clearly doesn't believe in fate or destiny, at least not in any deterministic plan sort of way. If we do have a destiny, it isn't because any higher power set that destiny into motion but rather because we can't effect any change in the direction and arc of our life. Even when, late in the book, Trout arrives in Midland City and meets his creations, he isn't able to control them absolutely but rather to nudge them here and there, to set things in directions where he hopes his desires will be enacted. On his truck travels from New York City to Midland City (in a state that is never named in this book but that I assumed to be in Indiana), Trout thinks to himself...
[H]is head no longer sheltered ideas of how things could be and should be on the planet, as opposed to how they really were. There was only one way for Earth to be, he thought: the way it was.
I'm happy to see that Vonnegut didn't fall back on "And so it goes" as some sort of greatest hit from one of the kings of catchphrase comedy. (page 106)
Everything was necessary. He saw an old white woman fishing in a garbage can. That was necessary. He saw a bathtub toy, a little rubber duck, lying on its side on a grating over the storm sewer. It had to be there.
And so on. - Vonnegut relates that the theory of plate tectonics - or at least the use of plate tectonics to explain the creation of all the coal under West Virginia - was just announced/proven/publicized as he was writing this novel. He uses the movement of geologic plates as an analogy to describe the forces underneath the surfaces of his characters, causing them to move in directions that they had never intended. (page 147-8)
- Vonnegut writes...
I had no respect whatsoever for the creative works on either the painter or the novelist. ... I thought Beatrice Keedsler had joined hands with other old-fashioned storytellers to make people believe that life had leading characters, minor characters, significant details, insignificant details, that it had lessons to be learned, test to be passed, a beginning, a middle, and an end.
I am stunned at how much of himself Vonnegut puts into his books. He doesn't just wear his heart on his sleeve, he explains every bit of his feelings and emotions in his books. I feel honored to be invited into Vonnegut's world. (page 214-5)
As I approached my fiftieth birthday, I had become more and more enraged and mystified by the idiot decisions made by my countrymen. And then I had come suddenly to pity them, for I understood how innocent and natural it was for themt o behave so abominably, and with such abominable results: They were doing their best to live like people invented in storybooks. This was the reason Americans shot each other so often: It was a convenient literary device for ending short stories and books.
Why were so many Americans treated by their government as though their lives were as disposable as paper facial tissues? Because that was the way authors customarily treated bit-part players in their made-up tales.
And so on.
Once I understood what was making America such a dangerous, unhappy nation of people who had nothing to do with real life, I resolved to shun storytelling. I would write about life. Every person would be as important as every other. All facts would be given equal weightiness. Nothing would be left out.Let others bring order to chaos. I would bring chaos to order, instead, which I think I have done.
If all writers would do that, then perhaps citizens not in the literary trades will understand that there is no order in the word around us, that we must adapt ourselves to the requirements of chaos, instead.
It is hard to adapt to chaos, but it can be done. I am living proof of that: It can be done. - Again, Vonnegut writes...
As for myself: I had come to the conclusion that there was nothing sacred about myself or about any human being, that we are all machines, doomed to collide and collide and collide. For want of anything better to do, we became fans of collisions. Sometimes I wrote well about collisions, which meant I was a writing machine in good repair. Sometimes I wrote badly, which meant I was a writing machine in bad repair. I no more harbored sacredness than a Pontiac, a moustrap, or a South Bend Lathe.
Again, heart on his sleeve all over the page, and very much in line with things that Vonnegut's books have been saying about the world and his characters. No one of us matters more than any other. This isn't hopeless to me; it's empowering. I am as important as any other person on the planet. I must be treated with the dignity - or with the same lack of dignity - that every other person deserves and gets. (page 225)
- Apparently Vonnegut recognizes that he doesn't write female leads. It's not something that only Calen and I have noticed. Vonnegut's surrogate, Kilgore Trout, has only written one book with a female lead character. (page 238)
- Near the end of the book, Vonnegut explains his use of "and so on" or "and so it goes". He explains that every person, every character's story continues on beyond what he writes, that none of them start and end their time while they're characters in Vonnegut's books, so he writes 'and so on' because their story continues.
Luckily, it's an outstanding book along the way. It's an open, honest exploration of an author's thoughts about his world, his characters, and his works. One of the things that I - and so many people - love about Kurt Vonnegut is that there is no artifice in his works. He isn't hiding behind his works. Every word, every page, every story reveals something about himself, and we love him - and his books - for that honesty and openness.
I'm really curious to see where Vonnegut goes from here because his writing has been following a significant arc, and I'm not sure that the arc can continue from here. His writing has been getting more and more personal, more and more frustrated and dark along the way. At some point, there has to be a turn away from the darkness. If we continue in this direction, I'm not going to enjoy this trek nearly as much as I have so far.
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