Kurt Vonnegut’s cache of wisdom imbedded in his novels has continued to capture my minds interest. The strange compound of cynicism, humanism, humor, eastern philosophy, and absolutism in his story telling I have often found enlightening. The task of this article is to outline, as well as provide observation of his strange book Breakfast of Champions, a story (if it can be rightly so called) which appears to find its zenith in a meeting between a demented Pontiac dealer, and a lonesome science fiction novelist; all in the backdrop of a Midwestern arts festival in a town called Midlands, described as the asshole of the world by some of its residents.

Dwayne Hoover and Kilgore Trout are both out of luck human beings on planet earth (two important details in Vonnegut’s story). Actually this is true of every character in the story. The writer of the story makes his voice increasingly manifest as the page number increases. The writer at one point in a moment of poignancy has a dialogue with himself, “This is a very bad book your writing,’ I said to myself behind my leaks. “I know” I said. “Your afraid you”ll kill yourself like your mother did,’ I said. “I know.”” (page 198). It is hard to know weather to laugh or cry at his humor, as different human beings will have disparate reactions to his text. This passage seems to be particularly interesting since Vonnegut’s mother in real life actually did commit suicide.

The writer does sadistic things to his characters, and opens with an epigraph from the biblical story of Job: “When he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold.” The demented Pontiac dealer goes on a murderous rampage, destroying the trust of all of the characters most close to him. He does this when the bad psychopathic chemicals in his body are fed the idea that all human beings are machines except for him. The creator of the universe has endowed him with free will as an experiment of a new kind of animal, in which the creator has no control over. This idea induces Dewayne Hoover to a psychotic state where he goes on to physically beat without mercy all of the characters close to him thinking it funny because they are just machines. He is doing this while waggishly in monologue to the creator of the universe, yelling that it does not matter because they are just machines.

This book seems to be in the tradition of the man who, when asked if he believes in free will replies, “I have no choice but to believe in free will.” When Dwayne was making love he was doing it with a fucking machine, when he is attempting to fight a black man and can’t hit him he explains it by thinking that this man is a dodging machine and so on. Another point: he ends many of his ideas or thoughts by saying “and so on” to indicate that they are circular and continue to keep on going, just as human life is circular and continues to keep on producing itself, in a very mechanistic manner.

Lastly the book, as all Vonnegut’s writing, is critical of the idea of human progress, purpose, and the thread weaving these ideas together, accepted truth or culture. Truth according to Rabo Karabekian (a character at the Midlands art festival) is simply something people accept in order to be friendly with each other, in order to satiate their machine like impulses for human connection. Karabekian says, “Do you want to know what truth is? Its 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?’” (page 214). Not bad!

Weather or not you reject Vonnegut’s politics, his absolutism, or his cynicism, I strongly urge you to give one of his novels a read. His ideas can spark lively and important debate about human beings, which raise pertinent questions about human life, which is all a good writer can do. The questions are answered by the way human beings live there lives weather they are aware of it or not. The best writers do not give us answers but pertinent questions; they reflect to us how and why we answer these questions in our daily milieu. This is precisely what Vonnegut does in his books, which is why I think at least one of his books should be required reading for students (preferably Slaughterhouse Five, Cats Cradle, or Bluebeard in my view).