Somehow Vonnegut is my hero this year.

Read by John Malkovich. Awesome narration.

The Emperor’s New Clothes,

As retold by Kurt Vonnegut, taking a leak  a main theme in Vonnegut's novel, symbolizing holding up a mirror  in front of Humanity to mirror their fictionalized realities!

(Vonnegut was apparently capable of prophetically foreshadowing what would happen to America in the 21st century, when leaks are indeed mirrors of the country's general condition! America is really taking the piss, and he KNEW it would happen.)

Once upon a time, there was a storyteller who tried to honestly hold up a mirror (leak) in the face of a pitiful assembly of postmodernist, cool people posing as representatives of the long lost species of homo sapiens, satiated from overdosing fast food, fast reads, fast philosophy, fast bad chemicals, fast fashion, fast listening and fast wisdom - not to mention fast governing.

"Listen!"

He said to his followers. Let us tell the story differently. Let us be taking a walk among our worshipers and be NAKED. Let us show the world our ugly, naked bodies, even tell them every detail of our penis size, to the last inch, and let us see what they say.

And out they went, the naked author, and his naked narrator, and his naked, invented universe, and they took a leak. And what happened?

All those postmodernist children saw something that seemed to be naked, but they thought that could not be. They were confused. There sure must be something underneath that nakedness, they thought - trained as they were to discover depth and wisdom in white canvases with red dots in one corner or heaps of trash behind glass in museums, labelled in golden letters, for example BEUYS.

So they said:

“The Emperor wears that beautiful “Social Study Shirt”!”

“Listen!” shouted the author, and all his invented characters. “WE ARE NAKED!”

“But there must be more to it,” said the children, ignoring the information.

“I love those “Cool Writing Style Jeans” with deliberate holes and all ripped and torn on purpose, and the permanent marker drawings he has filled them with - that is so SYMBOLICAL,” sighed a young hippie girl, aged 68 and wearing her body measurements according to the novel’s suggestions.

“Listen!” shouted the author, and all his invented characters. “WE ARE NAKED!”

“No, seriously, Vonnegut! Now you listen!”

Said the literary critic with a penchant to indoctrinate his environment with the absolute truth of his relativistic approach. “You clearly don’t have enough distance to yourself to understand that you wear the toga of your time, addressing important political issues in satirical, symbolical language. Your drawings are only superficially silly. They contain a deep message for the world! And your obstinate insistence on measuring every single penis in the plot is a clear sign that you have studied Sigmund Freud and reinterpreted him according to the needs of postmodern society!”

“Listen!” shouted the author, and all his invented characters. “WE ARE NAKED!”
“And who is Freud by the way?”

“Ah - there you give yourself away, Mr Trout, oh, sorry, Mr Vonnegut! Pretending NOT TO KNOW FREUD is a BRILLIANT MOVE!”

“Okay, whatever! We are not naked then! We carry the sky on our shoulders like Atlas! We have explained everything in the universe and expressed our discoveries in the vintage fashion we chose to wear!” said the naked author and his invented characters.

“WHAT? With that silly story? Don’t you think you are a bit too full of yourself? After all, it is just a badly written bunch of half-witty slapstick jokes!”answered the literary critic, who was used to be in opposition to whatever argument he heard, as his superiority-complex required it of him.

“I AM NOT LISTENING ANYMORE! BREAKFAST IS OVER! Eh … What’s for lunch?” said the author, who was unsure whether or not he had dressed in the morning.

So that is my opinion on the qualities of this novel. I loved Cat's Cradle, and appreciated Slaughterhouse-Five without really liking it, and liked this one, without really appreciating it.

My notes, as taken while reading, illustrate my thoughts just as randomly as the novel deals with the different questions (un)covered in the plot.

Notes. Random.

Kilgore Trout buys two copies of his own book:

That is hilarious, and would make a great satire, if I hadn’t happened to come across an authentic, real Sunday newspaper with an interview featuring a Swedish crime author, who decorates her whole house with bookshelves stuffed with hundreds of copies of her own books, matching colours as suggested by Muriel Spark in The Driver's Seat!

Chimpanzees for presidents:

People yelling “Hail the Chief”, - Well, that would have been a great satire, if reality had not trumped it already.

Bad chemicals:

Well, if we can’t blame it on gods, or political systems or parents or sexual oppression, bad chemicals is the next best thing. It’s not us, it’s the chemicals we’re made of and that we add voluntarily to the already mixed cocktail in our brain. “Poof!” The explosion is not our fault!

Purpose of life:

To be the eye and the ear and the conscience of the creator of the universe. Well, this actually is funny! Dear God Who Art Not In Heaven,[ or anywhere else,] If You Had Existed, I Would Have Advised You: Don’t take bad advice!

Irritating, supposedly funny list of the exact measurements of different characters’ penises, when aroused, and some women’s measures at different phases in life. No comment! Except for the ones I have already made.
Suppose it is meant to make fun of male competition, or something. But it is quite silly, and boring.

Anti-war comments. Well yeah! Social critic, he is.

Story within the story:

Kilgore Trout meeting people who read his novels before using it as toilet paper, fits with the meaning of the childish drawing on the front cover of my copy. Well yeah, literary critic, he is.

Temporary Verdict (somewhere in the middle of the novel):

This will probably be judged as deepest of the deep by nostalgic post-Woodstock hippies who remember their own ramblings under the influence of bad chemicals, and think they themselves may get away with being deep if they just claim that “Breakfast of Champions” is a masterpiece. Emperor’s New Clothes.

Complete nonsense on the creation of the universe, time, and myths, concluding with:

“Symbols can be so beautiful, sometimes!”

My response:

Well, yeah! They can also be a hot air balloon, or the dog shit you just described to me, Mr Vonnegut! Before giving me the details of a mile-long penis. Am I repeating myself? Well, yeah, so is he!

Pity for his fellow countrymen:

“They were doing their best to live like people invented in novels!” (Note within the notes: now it would be movies!)
My appeal: “Invent less violent, penis-fixated, crazy people to be imitated by real people, and we might see some improvement, maybe!”

Very true, and very funny:

Describing a marriage as an act played by machines: money making machine, housekeeping machine, loving machine, crying machine, drinking machine, fucking machine, apologising machine and slow forgiving machine, and so on, and so on…

The reading machine here has a good time!

Listen! Listen! Listen!

There is more to it than meets the eye (for the eye is distracted by silly drawings!): Racism, Homosexuality, Art, Creativity, all in there, in a big monster mash of a mess!

I could go on and on.

But what good would more information do, to paraphrase the author?

"Of course it is exhausting, having to reason all the time in a universe which wasn't meant to be reasonable"

I finished the book and went blank for a while. The book is a genius attempt at expressing contempt for humans as a race by providing a mirror (or leak) of the reality. If the book seems absurd, it is only because the reality is absurd! One of the repetitive rants is a parody on what humans consider achievement and progress. So you can imagine the mood and tone. The author also paints us little illustrations from time to time as if he is introducing our planet to an alien being.

"..humanity deserved to die horrible, since it had behaved so cruelly and wastefuly on a planet so sweet"

We meet again Kilgore Trout, the science fiction author in his essence and through his works of fiction discuss alternate planets/life. In one of the best stories, he talks about a planet where 'dirty pictures' showed people eating actual food instead of the fossil fuels that they have to. The core however is his story that every other human being is a machine except the lead character. A bad idea with bad chemicals in his brain, Dwayen Hoover - Pontiac salesman loses his marbles and starts on an rampage. The book traces two parallel storylines till they meet and spread the promised chaos.

KV takes on human beings obsession with sex, destruction (as progress), consumerism, slavery and art. The author tells us vital statistics of sex organs of every character and in a playful tone in one of Trout's stories, he talks of a planet where the average was set so high that people lose their self confidence and surrender to another planet. On minimalist art he calls it a conspiracy with millionaires to make poor people feel stupid and substantiates it with Trout's fiction of a planet where what is to be considered was determined through wheel of fortunes.

Almost midway the book turns on it's head. The author inserts himself into the middle of the book and wonders aloud about what he thinks the character should do and what he will make them do instead. Flaunting the role of a creator, (novelist who created characters) He draws parallel with the Creator who created humans and wonders aloud if it is not time something is done about the race.

"Let others bring order to chaos. I would bring chaos to order, instead, which I think I have done"

This is one crazy ride! And so on. ETC.

This was an interesting book. It was layered with black humor only the way Kurt Vonnegut could write. There really is no plot, but the reading is very unique and paints a picture for the reader. The structuring is simple: simple sentences, simple syntax, and simple dialogue that gives way to big ideas. I found myself thinking about it even when I wasn't reading: in the car on the way to work, in the evening. The illustrations that highlight the narrator's ideas are common sketches found on the covers of his other works.

I felt Kurt Vonnegut immeshed himself in the story as the Creator of the Universe. His purpose was to purge and cleanse himself in some way. Maybe his emotions, or things built up over the years, who knows. In the end he released his characters from the story.

I saw common themes he uses to include freewill and mental illness. The two characters merged in the end and concluded an unusual story. Overall in enjoyed it. Thanks!

Read for the second time.
This book drips with sarcasm!

Not even the creator of the universe knew what the man was going to say next…perhaps the man was a better universe in its infancy.

Written In the form of satire and portraying the politics, war, racism and sex in America, Breakfast of Champions centers on the two characters of Dwayne Hoover, a well off car dealer and Kilgore Trout, an unsuccessful author of science fiction.

Sometimes I wonder about the Creator of the Universe.

► Everything wrong with the United States of America, conveniently summarized in one neatly-bound book. 305 pages, 58,000 words, 120 illustrations. Zero silver linings.

► If the above doesn't give it away, this makes for bleak reading. Do not look for any hope or answers here. Overlong too—less easily deduced based purely on the numbers.

► Featuring several past/future Vonnegut characters—Rabo Karabekian, Eliot Rosewater, Francine Pefko etc.

E T C .

► A few on point quotes though—see below. I was generally less enthused the second time around. Vonnegut gave the novel a C, and I agree.

► Shares a plot device with J. M. Coetzee's Slow Man. I prefer the Coetzee.

► Vonnegut details the penis sizes of most of the male characters, which I appreciated. Many of them are white and a few of them are black, and Dwayne Hoover believes they're all robots.

Should that fail peak anyone's interest, perhaps the drawings of an asshole * or of a wide open beaver () will. How about an electric chair?

► And here, according to Trout, was the reason human beings could not reject ideas because they were bad: "Ideas on Earth were badges of friendship or enmity. Their content did not matter. Friends agreed with friends, in order to express friendliness. Enemies disagreed with enemies, in order to express enmity."

► "It don't seem right, though," the old miner said to Trout, "that a man can own what's underneath another man's farm or woods or house. And any time the man wants to get what's underneath all that, he's got a right to wreck what's on top to get at it. The rights of the people on top of the ground don't amount to nothing compared to the rights of the man who owns what's underneath."

► 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, tests to be passed, and a beginning, a middle, and an end. 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 them to behave so abominably, and with such abominable results: They were doing their best to live like people invented in story books. This was the reason Americans shot each other so often: It was a convenient literary device for ending short stories and books.

To say I was disappointed with this book would be an understatement.

A quick easy read that was funny from time to time. Did not think this was quite as good as Slaughterhouse Five.

I have actually met people with echolalia, that did make me laugh. A great satirical look at how stupid the actual human race is, although weird in places it actually makes sense.

سبک ونه گات کاملا خاص هست. به قول معروف کاملا ساختارشکن. نمره اش بین 3-4 هست...من بهش 4 میدم!!!
فقط چند جمله زیبا ازش مینویسم:tttttttttttttttttttt
•tهنگامی که او مرا بیازماید، باید چون طلای ناب از بوته ازمایش رستگار برون آیم. ایوب نبیttt
•tدر مدارس ایالات متحده امریکا، معلم ها تاریخ زیر را بارها و بارها روی تخته سیاه می نوشتند و از بچه ها میخواستند که با افتخار و شادمانی ان را از بر کنند:1492...به بچه ها می گفتند این تاریخ کشف قاره شان به دست انسان است. اما در اصل مدتها قبل از 1492 میلیونها انسان در ان قاره زندگی راحت و رویایی داشتند. در واقع این تاریخ سالی است که دزدان دریایی بنا کردند به فریفتن، غارت و کشتن بومیان...tttt
•tمیزان سلامت روان ما برابر است با میزان انسانی بودن تفکراتمان(جمله سنگ قبر کلیگور تراوت)ttt
•tوی سعی می کرد کسی باشد...(جمله سنگ قبر)ttttttttt
•tهدف زندگی چیست؟ هدف زندگی این است که چشم،گوش و باطنی برای خالق جهان باشیم احمق جان!ttt
•tتراوت گفت:نمیدونم زندگی جدیه یا شوخی. فقط میدونم که خطرناکه و ممکنه خیلی هم دردناک بشه.اما لزوما به این معنی نیست که جدی هم هست.t

While "Slaughterhouse Five" was my introduction to Kurt Vonnegut, "Breakfast of Champions" was the novel that cemented the fact that he is one of my favorite writers of all time.

It's hilarious satire in which his alter-ego Kilgore Trout (a character that pops up in numerous Vonnegut novels) plays a significant role. A brutal but mostly harmless castigation of American culture, "Breakfast of Champions" is one of those books that will require repeated readings.

Some criticize the novel for being sophomoric and offensive in parts. It is. (Vonnegut likes to add illustrations throughout, including one of his asshole, which looks like this: * ) It is also brilliant.

He was a graduate of West Point. West Point was a military academy that turned young men into homicidal maniacs for use in war.

Another brilliant ride through Vonnegut-land. Part comedy, part searing social satire, this book has its fourth wall broken more than any other book I’ve read. At times, I may not have understood where it was going or what the “point” was, but it certainly left me satisfied. Also, I am now completely convinced of Mr. Vonnegut’s influence over Douglas Adams.

The Creator of the Universe had put a rattle on its tail. The Creator had also given it front teeth which were hypodermic syringes filled with deadly poison. Sometimes I wonder about the Creator of the Universe.

And so on.