Breakfast of Champions continues to evoke some of the same feelings that Infinite Jest did. As such, I've been able to home in on their cause a little bit.
Two parallels between these books that I can confidenty point out are its characters and its plot's concentration on convergence.
Both books involve an extensive cast of characters. Infinite Jest trounces Breakfast of Champions in terms of the number of its cast, but the ratio of major to side characters is comparable.
Vonnegut's brought in a bunch of incidental characters that are as interesting as the mains over the last few pages, and it's clear that they're there primarily for the sake of the book's ultimate convergence.
Like the ever closing circle of Infinite Jest's various character groups, Breakfast of Champions is entirely about the meeting of two people who are a whole country apart. And this convergence is explosively climactic, just as much of Infinite Jest's final convergence is.
These two similarities also point toward a shared style. Sort of.
Breakfast of Champions is far from being a hyper-realistic novel, yet both involve a strangely effective sort of telling that simultaneously shows to varying degrees.
They might not match up one to one, but anything like Infinite Jest practically reads itself while in my hands.
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