Goodbye Blue Monday

"What do I myself think of this particular book? I feel lousy about it, but I always feel lousy about my books", says Kurt Vonnegut about his book - "Breakfast of Champions".

I, myself, did not feel lousy when I read this book. I did not. To me, it was a totally different way of writing and I enjoyed it to the last word and the last one of those sketches that populate the novel.

The novel was written in 1973, set in Midland City, a fictional town. The novel was supposed to be a fiftieth birthday present to himself.

It is a satire on slavery, racism, sex, pollution, greed etc. all directed at the American society. Every attack is straight and impolite. He attacks the copyright law, when he mentions, more than once, that the novel has no association with General Mills. General Mills has copyright on the expression "Breakfast of Champions". Not once, could I avoid thinking that this is a parody of himself.

It is the story of "a meeting of two lonesome, skinny, fairly old men on a planet which was dying fast" - Dwayne Hoover, a successful and insane Pontiac automobile dealer, and Kilgore Trout, a largely unsuccessful and unknown fiction writer. Kilgore Trout would win the Nobel Prize for science and Dwayne Hoover would turn into a homicidal maniac, thanks to Kilgore Trout's "Now it can be told". Their destinies were written and published by Kurt Vonnegut.

The author has peppered the novel with simple sketches like Amercian Flag, chickens, fried chicken, cow, hamburger, the monument intended to be raised over Kilgore Trout's ashes, gun, flamingo, a switch box, beaver, jackets, sheep, trucks, stork, "fairy land", "please, do not disturb", "What is the purpose of life?" etc. I found these sketches very amusing and refreshing. This way of writing would have been quite an experiment at the time the novel was published. I learnt from a friend that the novel "A curious incident of the dog in the midnight time" by Mark Haddon and the Thamizh novel "Pin Thodarum Nizhalin Kural" by Jeyamohan also have the same style of writing.

About his characters in the novel, many of Kurt Vonnegut's characters from other novels can be found in this novel such as Eliot Rosewater. Eliot Rosewater was a minor character in Slaughterhouse 5 and Francine Pefko appeared in Cat's Cradle. I have read these novels. I gathered that Eliot Rosewater was the main character in God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, Rabo Karabekian was the main character in Bluebeard, Kazak, the guard dog, appeared in The Sirens of Titan and Galapagos.

A very interesting part comes when the scene is setup for Kilgore Trout and Dwayne Hoover to meet. Kurt Vonnegut could not resist leaving himself out of the scene. He wears dark glasses with silvered lenses to avoid recognition and takes a seat close to Dwayne Hoover and Kilgore Trout. I found it amusing, to read the novelist as a character in his own novel. Particularly so, when he knows that they are his creations. It was delightful to read, when he sits at his table and controls his characters, like a master of puppets. At one point, he assumes the role of a fortune teller and offers to predict the future of the waitress in the cocktail lounge.

Another interesting part is when Kurt Vonnegut meets Kilgore Trout, his creation, to tell him that Trout is indeed his creation and that he is free to go, that he is not bound by his Creator's whims and fansies anymore. I know how Trout would have felt - shocked and in shambles - to come to know that he is afterall in a novel and worst still, his creator has taken away all his youth before freeing him. He cries to his creator, as Kurt Vonnegut vanishes in a fantastic manner typical of any science fiction movie. This is how he vanishes:

"I somersaulted lazily and pleasantly through the void, which is my hiding place when I dematerialize."

This is what Kilgore Trout cried:

"Make me young, make me young, make me young, make me young!"

Kilgore Trout is the only character who comes to know that he has been freed. As mentioned in the novel, the author wishes to set free his literary characters, in the same manner as Tolstoi or Thomas Jefferson freed their serfs.

In a way, I felt that it was an explicit dig at slavery, when he tries to set free his characters.

Kurt Vonnegut wants to throw a lot of junk from from his head, too. I must mention that he has thrown all the "junk" in a delightful play of words. This is one of those novels where you read, enjoy and would want to keep reading.

Trivia -

Breakfast of Champions is also known as Goodbye Blue Monday. Goodbye Blue Monday is the slogan of the new automatic washing machine, which the Robo-Magic corporation, tried to design and manufacture. This is fiction.

The expression "Breakfast of Champions" is a registered trademark of General Mills, Inc., for use on a breakfast cereal product. As mentioned in the novel.

Breakfast of Champions had been adopted as a movie in 1999 starring Bruce Willis, Albert Finney, Nick Nolte and Omar Epps. I have not yet had the opportunity to watch the movie but I found some mixed reviews of the movie on the IMDB website.

You can find the reviews on the movie, here.