Thursday, April 10, 2014

A hearty breakfast indeed

Breakfast of Champions is a welcome reprieve from Russian literature - even from reading about Bowie.

Part of the rest comes from the speed of Vonnegut's bullet point style. Yet, at the same time what he's writing about isn't fluff to be carelessly zoomed past.

It reminds me of Frank Zappa's rock/pop output: it uses popular means but strives to say something verging on the unpopular, making it perfectly counter-cultural. Though Vonnegut seems far less virulent than Zappa. Perhaps that's just an inevitable difference between a performer and a writer.

I'm really getting into Vonnegut's illustrations, too. They add a self-effacing quality to the book that gels excellently with the storytelling method that Vonnegut's chosen.

However. I do wonder one thing. Having read Slaughterhouse-Five, a book written in standard paragraph form, why is Breakfast of Champions not?

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