Breakfast of Champions, or Goodbye Blue Monday is a pivotal book in Vonnegut’s career as an author. It’s his 7th novel, and the one published after his masterwork Slaughterhouse-Five. Published when he was 53, it took him years to write, with a lengthy pause due to chronic depression. In a way, it is his farewell to fiction, intending to abandon the fictional form and the novel as ways to change the world or get to the truth. He returned to novels quickly however, publishing seven more.
I think the book was difficult to write because Slaughterhouse-Five was so good, and Vonnegut knew it would be hard to top. Despite the long gestation period, he wasn’t happy with the result and “gave it a C grade on a report card of his published work.” The critics were critical too, yet it remains one of his best known works – maybe in the wake of SH5‘s success?
Every artist has to deal with repetition, and Vonnegut tried to tackle it in this book by trying out two new things, but it are not much more than formal attempts, hardly changing the tone and the voice of his writing. The result is that Breakfast of Champions never rises above being generic Vonnegut. A quick dissection after the jump.
Those two new things are the included drawings, and the meta-fictional insertion of himself as a character & plot device. Sadly, the drawings don’t add anything but the fact that this book isn’t fully serious in tone and form – something anyone familiar with Vonnegut already knew. As such, the informational value of the drawings nears zero, and the same goes for their artistic and entertainment value. The other element – his presence as both a narrator and a character – doesn’t add a lot either. There is a similar effect: don’t take this novel too serious as a construction, as Vonnegut explicitly pokes a hole in its logic himself. Again, we already know he is a literary maverick. As for its emotional results or possible awe at a clever construction, the rewards are practically non-existent.
On the other hand, both literary tactics are in sync with one of the book’s main messages: life is not a neat, orderly narrative, and maybe our belief in such narratives blinds us from the truth. “I would bring chaos to order, instead, which I think I have done.” Sadly, Breakfast of Champions remains a novel, even if it tries halfheartedly not to be. Vonnegut’s formal attempts simply aren’t powerful enough to really evoke chaos, his signature short vignette style notwithstanding.
Some of its themes are more outspoken than in his previous works, and especially racism, US slavery, mental health, free will and sex jump to the forefront. His analysis is well worded at times, but then again, it’s not exactly rocket science: slavery was bad, etc. Maybe some of these problems don’t need deep thought, and spelling things out in simple words can help to open eyes indeed. As such, this book has merit, and it even must have had more merit in the seventies. Maybe it still has merit if you’re American, could be.
But as a contemporary reader, familiar with similar social criticism for decades, this book was a bore, even though it is a quick read, and even though it tries to be funny. The science fictional ideas spelled out in Kilgore Trout’s novels would not make good science fiction novels, so there’s nothing to be had on that front either.
It’s not that I don’t enjoy Vonnegut’s style: Slaughterhouse Five is one of my favorite books, and I liked The Sirens of Titan, Cat’s Cradle and Armageddon in Retrospect. I guess the main issue is that Breakfast for Champions lacks internal urgency. Vonnegut’s own heart wasn’t in this attempt to let go of the novel, and that somehow shows. As he says himself, he tried “to clear my head of all the junk in there”, but the result is just that: unrelated debris, junk, more of the same.
I have copies of 1979’s Jailbird and 1985’s Galápagos on my pile. It will be interesting to see if he truly overcame this creative slump.
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Weighing a pig doesn't fatten it. 
I’ve only read Cat’s Cradle and Slaughterhouse Five. I am most interested in exploring his other SF works — Piano Player and The Sirens of Titan.
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I’ve just reread my review of The Sirens of Titan, and I think I still stand by it as an honest appraisal of that book. I’m curious for Player Piano too, a debut is always something special. I guess I’ll end up reading it someday too. I have a strong feeling he never topped SH5 though.
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As for this book, it simply doesn’t qualify as science fiction, even though it’s listed as such everywhere you look.
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I agree with your review. I loved Slaughterhouse-Five but this one left me cold. I didn’t get all the hype for it. I read a couple of his later books but I can’t even remember them now.
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That’s why you need to keep a reader’s diary! 😉
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🤣 OMG! I walked right into that one!
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I read this one a long time ago. I thought it was weird but also kinda cool. I just liked Vonnegut’s style. Wasn’t there a movie adaptation as well with Bruce Willis? I still have Galapagos on my TBR.
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Yeah, but I haven’t seen it. Wikipedia says the movie was universally panned by critics, and never saw wide release. I don’t see how this would translate well to a movie anyhow.
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Wasn’t Kilgore Trout a joke on Theodore Sturgeon?
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No idea whatsoever. Could be. It’s quite a piss on the guy in this book if it is true.
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I heard it was, yes. But they were good friends, as far as I know.
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It’s a play on his name. However, I believe the character is more of a personal alter-ego. He breaks that wall down in the book. Sets himself free in some ways, while also locking a part of himself up.
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Also a way to mock himself then, as KT is basically an unknown, unwashed writer of smut in this book.
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Btw, I like his style too, but here it felt too random, without urgency. There are a few great passages, but they drown in the rest.
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If he doesn’t talk about Wheaties, then his book is a sham and an insult to breakfast cereals of all kinds.
I simply have zero respect for Vonnegut so I can’t approach his books the same way you do. If there weren’t so many other pretentious authors and bulk wastes of paper I might feel bad. but since he’s simply lost in the crowd I don’t give him a second thought, until I read a review that reminds me of him and then off I go, like a hotwheels car down one of those plastic tracks.
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You feel Vonnegut is pretentious? I don’t get that vibe at all. I can understand readers that are more conservative or religious not liking the man, but I don’t see how he would be perceived as pretentious – outspoken maybe. Maybe you feel his dismissal of certain aspects of American society or religion is pretentious? Or?
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I’ll take Door #3 Alex. Dismissal. That and grading his own books.
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I enjoyed this book quite a lot back in the day – but this was my first Vonnegut, before Cat’s Cradle and Slaughterhouse Five so the things you see as repetitive seemed quite fresh 😉 I didn’t love it so much as to warrant a re-read, though, I must say – for this, I choose SH5. For what it’s worth, I think it still holds up as a satire on American society – even if there are now better books, this one was quite sharp back in the day. But yeah, I agree that it’s just…random, an aimless stroll through the recesses of the mind rather than a journey with destination.
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Good point: this book probably works much better as the first Vonnegut. On the other hand, I wouldn’t recommend it as a starting place. (That would simply be SH5.)
I agree as well that the satire remains sharp, but that didn’t redeem it for me, and it’s a bit repetitive too.
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Heh, I remember loving this book when I read it in high school, and it was because of BoC that many of my video game characters were named Kilgore… I don’t remember that much now, but I remember being entertained by the drawings 😉
I did not appreciate Slaughterhouse enough, Cat’s Cradle was excellent, I don’t remember if I liked it more or less than Breakfast… don’t have time for a proper re-read now, but I’ll see what Audible has to offer, Vonnegut might actually be interesting in audio.
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There seems to be an excellent audio version of BoC, narrated by John Malkovich. You are right that Vonnegut’s style probably works very well as an audiobook.
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They got Malkovich to read BoC, I’m definitely spending my next credit on that 🙂
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I remember enjoying this book, but when it came to reading SH5 I really struggled. And then Cat’s Cradle came along after so much praise and I was severely disappointed. I had read Galapagos a few years previous and as far as memory serves, actually enjoyed that the most. Perhaps I don’t find Vonnegut particularly funny, but the stories never seem to “go anywhere”. I will be interested in your review of Galapagos. I enjoyed Galapagos more than Cat’s Cradle. I felt more for the characters, wanted to believe in them, and was genuinely interested in their predicament and the future narrator looking backwards over millions of years is far more interesting than the first person narrator of Cat’s Cradle.
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For me it’s the other way around. My first Vonnegut was SH5 and that really resonated with me. His narrative voice, the tragedy in Dresden. For me it worked. Every one of the Vonneguts I’ve read since then haven’t met that bar. I don’t think he has written a book that will. In that sense Vonnegut seems to be a bit of an overrated writer, and his attempts at humor indeed are just that: attempts. But humor is easily dated, so it might be just that. And maybe I’m simply not in the right age demographic anymore. I can imagine that people in their twenties might be still more impressed by that kind of writing. Then again, I was 35 when I read SH5, that’s 7 years ago. But 7 years is a long time. Makes me think I should reread SH5, and see if that still meets that bar it set?
But I’ll read Galapagos first – I hope somewhere before the end of 2022, we’ll see.
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