The cast of Breakfast of Champions is far from the size of Infinite Jest's. However, after Wayne Hoobler's introduction I find myself starting to get the same feeling I had while reading Infinite Jest. This book of Vonnegut's is important. It's literature. It's stirring whatever that thing called "humanity" is within me.
Maybe it's the bullet point format that gives the impression of a story told in snapshots. Maybe it's the tightness of the relationships and how we're shown the way that Trout and Hoover are gradually whirling together (shown it in a way similar to watching two cars driving for a minute (from each driver's perspective) in slow motion and then crashing).
In fact, I think it's the second one. Definitely the second one.
Vonnegut's telling us how the story ends gives his book a definite end point. As I read I can see things moving toward this endpoint. But at the same time, there's some sort of sense that I have that maybe - just maybe - things won't end the way we've been told they will.
As a reader and a writer, I had a similar feeling throughout much of Infinite Jest. Not because I knew how it would end (although *technically* it ends with its first chapter) but because I knew that a cast of that size would eventually curl in on itself. I knew that characters would meet, either directly or merely in passing.
Knowing that two characters will cross paths isn't the same as knowing how a story ends, though.
Given the difference between those two, you might think that knowledge of characters would give a stronger feeling of humanity than a knowledge of plot, but I can honestly say that I feel as much anticipation for Breakfast of Champions' climax as I did for seeing Infinite Jest's characters finally crossing paths.
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