Chipping away at the Kurt Vonnegut book series I bought, I recently re-read his 'Breakfast of Champions.' It's a beautifully written and fun book. I found myself wondering if it was simply simple or if it was brilliant. The language is a bit pedantic at times though I find it charming rather than insulting.
'Breakfast of Champions' tells the story of Kilgore Trout and Dwayne Hoover. Kilgore Trout is an author who is invited to speak at an arts festival while Dwayne Hoover is an owner of a car lot that is struggling with his sanity and ends up attacking several people near the end of the book. Vonnegut even writes himself into the book, which he says he wrote as a fiftieth birthday present to himself. Authors seldom do that and even more rarely is it done as smoothly and naturally as Vonnegut's prose achieves.
The book is peppered with drawings by the author, illustrating various objects noted throughout the book. The subject matter comes off as almost random, but they are fun to see and it does make the book go by quite quickly.
I mentioned previously that the book is beautifully written and wanted to comment more on that. Occasionally passages are surprisingly haunting or moving. While other passages may be light-hearted or even humorous. I'll note a couple of the former below.
'"This is a very bad book you're writing," I said to myself behind my leaks.
"I know," I said.
"You're afraid you'll kill yourself the way your mother did," I said.
"I know," I said.
'Here is all she had to say bout death: "Oh my, oh my."'
'...It was about a planet where the language kept turning into pure music, because the creatures there were so enchanted by sounds. Words became musical notes. Sentences became melodies. They were useless as conveyors of information, because nobody knew or cared what the meanings of words were anymore.'
I initially read this book in my late teens or early twenties and, starting it again, remembered nothing about it aside from the fact that it was illustrated. I enjoyed re-reading it, though. The book was thoroughly engaging and had a pretty strong ending as well. Simple yet moving. Effective.