Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut

I realize now that it's not a good idea to read two of Vonnegut's books close together--I read Jailbird a few weeks ago, and find that this one was consequently not nearly as amusing or thought provoking, mainly because he was satiric about mostly the same things. I first read this years ago and remembered it as a much better book.

The plot is almost nonexistent. Dwayne Hoover, owner of a Pontiac dealership, is going crazy. Kilgore Trout, a science fiction writer, is on his way to Dwayne's hometown to participate in an arts festival. Trout arrives. Dwayne goes crazy.

I did come upon something interesting: one explanation of why Vonnegut writes the way he does. After discussing a writer who "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," he says, "Once I understood what was making America such a dangerous, unhappy nation of people who had nothing to do with real life, I resolved to shun storytelling. I would write about life. Every person would be exactly as important as any other. All facts would also be given equal weightiness. Nothing would be left out. Let others bring order to chaos. I would bring chaos to order, instead, which I think I have done."

That explains a lot.