I would like to have met Kurt Vonnegut. I have raved previously about his masterwork Slaughterhouse 5, and also about the Sky Arts documentary on him - use the search engine at the top of the blog and you'll trace my ravings. Aren't computers clever? And just a tad frightening.
Today we consider Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions. Definitely one of the best books I have read this year. It is coruscatingly funny yet laden with deadpan tragedy. Its point-of-view is artfully all over the shop. Mesmerising. I will set out a sample below. Those of you paying close attention may trace an echo of another (and on balance slightly lesser) novel mentioned later in this Advent strand.
I had no respect whatsoever for the creative works of either the painter or the novelist. I thought Karabekian with his meaningless pictures had entered into a conspiracy with millionaires to make poor people feel stupid. I thought Beatrice Keedsler had joined hands with other old-fashioned storytellers to make people believe that life had leading characters, minor characters, significant details, insignificant details, that it had lessons to be learned, tests to be passed, and a beginning, a middle, and an end.
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