For those of you who haven't had the chance to read a book by Kurt Vonnegut, let me tell you that it's an experience. Reading Vonnegut is like hanging out with an uncle. He's going to tell you jokes that your parent's don't want you to hear. He's going to tell you stories that scare you a little bit, but are so entertaining that you can't help but listen. Most of all, he's going to point out things about our world that others would be uncomfortable bringing up, because to him, it's his duty.
Now I've been through Slaughterhouse Five and Cat's Cradle, as well as most of his short stories, and they were all entertaining, but none carried the brutal honesty of Breakfast of Champions. What we have here is a story about two men. One is an ignored writer of science fiction. The other is a successful car dealer. The car dealer is losing his mind. The writer will inadvertently help him do so. This is, in a nutshell, what the book is about.
Having made the previous statement, let me assure you that the book is hardly about just that. Instead, the book is about all the people that these two interact with. It's about the places they live. It's about history. It's about racism and fetishism and money and pollution and humanity. It's about a whole lot of things, and every one is approached with this amazing, matter-of-fact tone that stresses the fact that he didn't discover these things, he's just pointing them out for those of us to busy to look for ourselves.
I'm really not sure how much more I can say about this one other than to tell you that you should read it. Having done so myself, I will definitely start pouring through the other books he's written that I've missed. Well, at least after I read some more Asimov to make up some lost geek cred points on a certain message board.
Let me tell you, the geek crowd can be an unforgiving group.
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