Breakfast of Champions and race

 > What do you think of this?

It is intentional. It takes a conscious effort to lift a pen and draw on a
page.

 > Is this a shade of irony?

People get confused about what irony actually is (see Alanis Morrisette, but
perhaps she was being post modern "ironic" in skewing the meaning of irony, by
asking "Isn't that ironic?"). But with that in mind, assuming you might be
missing the boat on irony as well, we can say, yes, it is possible, for irony
as some define it. Those drawings and descriptions were meant with humor in
mind. It is a reflection on the culture using such images and words.

it may help to consider that in some ways at the time Breakfast of Champions
was written. its intended audience may not be nearly as conservative and easily
shocked, or as willing to censor someone elses thought as someone picking up
the book today. Make Love not War.


 >a subtle argument that all story-tellers (historians, journalists, and the
 >like) are biased?


It could be. The point might be what you think. Although you might be reading
more into it than intended by the author. Weren't those sunglasses silvered?

I would say the point might be to point out how silly the human condition might
be, that someone might take advantage of someone escaping danger on a fire
ladder, to capture a glimpse of Wide Open Beaver. The really silly bit might be
in reading intended hate or offense into such.<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Breakfast of Champions and race 

"Roger7812" <rvorti01.TakeThisOut@hotmail.comm> wrote in message
news:beacl1$139l$1@news.louisville.edu...
 > Hi, I'm reading Breakfast of Champions and one of the bigger themes in
this
 > seems to be race: note the narrator identifies the race of every single
 > character.

Race is quite a pertinent issue in American history. I am not an American -
and would not profess to be an authority on the subject of being one
historically - but I've read enough to notice that most relevant American
literary works acknowledge the major step that overcoming slavery was in the
nation's history. Sometimes this acknowledgement manifests itself in brutal
beatings and unfairnesses and cross-burnings, and sometimes in the casual
mention of the character's race as being black, because of its relevance to
the story. I doubt that there are any pre-1990 works of fiction that do not
identify a black person as a black person, but if any pre-1995 works were to
not identify the race of a character, the reader is to automatically assume
that the person is white. John Sandford does not mention the race of Lucas
Daveport. Shane Stevens does not mention the race of Adam Kenton or Thomas
Bishop. Thomas Harris does not mention the race of Clarice Starling. But we
automatically assume that all these characters are white/caucasian.

A rule of thumb I have when reading is this: whenever race is mentioned, try
to see if the story would work if the character's race weren't mentioned
(which would probably mean that you think the character is caucasian as
opposed to whatever race they happen to be). If I were to apply this to
Breakfast of Champions, I would certainly come up with the conclusion that
it would have made a big difference if Wayne Hoobler were to be white. Right
off the bat, the author wouldn't have been able to go into details about the
character's ancestors and their being slaves.
Other black people in the book either served the plot directly or were in
there to achieve their contribution to what the book ultimately was: a
social statement. For instance, Eldon Robbins and the black people cooking
in the kitchen at the Arts Centre... to me they are the equivalent of that
old Leonard Cohen line: Old black Joe's still picking cotton for your
ribbons and bows.

 > The narrator seems to take on an "objective" viewpoint of the
 > universe and it seems the audience of the narrator are beings not from
 > Earth.

I wish you wouldn't call him "narrator," you know. The word somewhat betrays
the relationship that the book builds with its author. Breakfast of
Champions reads like such a personal trip for Vonnegut. And it is. You know
why in the beginning he so bluntly states that he feels lousy about this
particular book? At first read it may seem funny (sure was for me), but when
read again with some critique in mind, one can easily see what an effort it
must have been for the author to attempt to join so many of his popular
characters, along with random bits and pieces of himself, into what
essentially is a non-story, a social rant, a cry about the strangeness of
the world, a self-disinfecting, and so on. It must have been hell for
Vonnegut to present us with such beautiful chaos. Personally, I think
Breakfast of Champions is the closest any casual reader has ever come to
feeling the inner turmoil and psychological torture that produced some of
the most meaningful American literature ever.

 > My problem is the way blacks are stereotyped and the frequent use of
 > the word nigger. What do you think of this? Is this a shade of irony?

Irony? Maybe. Certainly a constant social statement, though. The word nigger
figures a lot in American literature. It's mostly used to bring the reader's
awareness to one of three things: how ignorant a character is, how
inefficient or irrelevant historical record is, or how bad a social
environment is. In the case of Breakfast of Champions, it seems to serve all
three points quite easily, so why not use it? Dwayne Hoover's grandfather
used to talk about niggers in the 1930s; shows the familial and
consequentially individual ignorance of a character. The sign said: "NIGGER!
THIS IS SHEPHERDSTOWN. GOD HELP YOU IF THE SUN EVER SETS ON YOU HERE!" This
shows the racism of a whole town, and consequentially the irrelevance of all
historical civil rights battles when it comes to this particular town. You
have to keep in mind that Breakfast of Champions shows many a flashback from
the 1930s, when racial differences were very much in everyone's face. So I
wouldn't think any reader should be offended or annoyed by all the racial
statements, simply because they are quite relevant to that time. This is the
Vonnegut style, anyhow. Saying the word nigger shouldn't be more offensinve
than stating that fucking was how children were made, or that 1492 was
really the year during which sea pirates started robbing and killing the
people who were already living on the American continent.

 > Or a subtle argument that all story-tellers (historians, journalists, and
the
 > like) are biased?

I don't usually buy that argument. I know many journalists who try their
best to be very objective, and some of them succeed to a large extent. It is
tough, but it is possible. And once you're there once, it should be easy for
you to be there again. Practice makes perfect.
But in the case of Breakfast of Champions, Vonnegut is definitely biased. He
states so himself in the book's preface. "I think I am trying to clear my
head of all the junk in there... I'm not going to put on any more puppet
shows".
This is as personal as it gets, and personal positions are certainly biased.

 > I think the book is great, though I'm almost finished. It's hilarious,
but
 > the race thing is kind of annoying. Maybe the way the narrator addresses
 > blacks is an argument that you should not trust any authority, no matter
how
 > objective and scientific s/he appears to be. What do you think?

There is no question that Vonnegut tells us here to not trust everything we
are told, but I'm not sure how it ties in with the black issue. On the other
hand, if we were to dig deeper into Vonnegut's body of work, separately from
Breakfast of Champions (and perhaps we should, since so many bits and pieces
of his other stories appear in this book), we may find an interesting ramp,
per se, to this black issue annoying you, from one of Vonnegut's very
popular sayings (from Mother Night): "We are what we pretend to be, so we
must be careful what we pretend to be." One could very easily extend this
theory to "we are what we are told we are..." (just ask Dwayne Hoover) and
apply it to all the black characters in Breakfast of Champions. During
slavery, and to use Vonnegut terminology here, black people were told that
they were machines that were supposed to perform certain tasks, and they had
nobody telling them otherwise, so they lived with that belief and became
that belief. After slavery ended, that belief was passed on to some black
people by their ancestors, so one could theorize that Vonnegut social
statement may mean that there were a post-slavery generation or two that
struggled with the concept of their own freedom, struggled with it enough
that it affected the way they fit within society. If that's the theory or
observation the author is putting forth, and if stereotyping does indeed
serve that theory or observation, then so be it.

It is an excellent book you are reading.
I'm glad you are having a stimulating time with it.

So it goes!

'<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Breakfast of Champions and race 

 > "I think I am trying to clear my
 >head of all the junk in there... I'm not going to put on any more puppet
 > shows".
 >
 >This is as personal as it gets, and personal positions are certainly biased.

I almost wonder if this made it into later printings, because this did not seem
as strong a sentiment of the authors when I recently reread the book. When I
first read it, much closer to the time of publication, there was an overriding
sentiment of "Here is the author trying to pull up all his pastwork, so he can
bury it once and for all". Of course, this merely made the book more
successful, and brought the characters back again later.

I don't know if the sentiment of an author clearing house was in the book
itself, or in the press surrounding the book. I don't necessarily recall where
I read reviews of the book.<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Breakfast of Champions and race 

"Georg Schönegger" <g.schoenegger DeleteThis @aon.at> wrote in message
news:3F0920EA.936113A6@aon.at...
 > from the narrator's pov, about as important as shoe sizes, weight etc.
 > which he also lists. from the protagonist's pov, in fact very important.
 > living in the old world, i'm obviously not qualified to judge this
 > correctly, but i got the impression that in the society kv was
 > describing race was in fact a topic.
 >
 > georg


Hi Georg, just to clarify: I wasn't arguing that race was something that a
writer should ignore. I agree with your comments. However, I am curious to
know people's opinion on the method in which race is addressed in the book.
Basically, what is the point of looking at race from the narrator's
perspective?

There was a point in talking about Trout's story ideas. For example, the
story about the astronaut who visited the planet without food (they ate oil
products) and how perceptions of what is erotic are so different there. On
the one hand the story is simply funny and on the other hand, it's a comment
on such things as values, poverty, lack, and the like.

But, having black characters say something like, "Whuffo?! Whuffo I need to
read a book on Tale of Two Cities? Whuffo?" True, this is stereotypical
and offensive (even though I'm not black), but what is Vonnegut, or the
narrator, trying to do with stuff like that? In my opinion, it is there to
purposely anger readers, and that's not necessarily bad because at the heart
of Vonnegut's works is a striving for a more humane society.<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Breakfast of Champions and race 

"GrapeApe" <grapeape DeleteThis @aol.comjunk> wrote in message
news:20030707092639.28644.00000199@mb-m19.aol.com...
  > > What do you think of this?
 >
 > It is intentional. It takes a conscious effort to lift a pen and draw on
a
 > page.
 >
  > > Is this a shade of irony?
 >
 > People get confused about what irony actually is (see Alanis Morrisette,
but
 > perhaps she was being post modern "ironic" in skewing the meaning of
irony, by
 > asking "Isn't that ironic?"). But with that in mind, assuming you might be
 > missing the boat on irony as well, we can say, yes, it is possible, for
irony
 > as some define it. Those drawings and descriptions were meant with humor
in
 > mind. It is a reflection on the culture using such images and words.

I did not refer to the pictures. But to address irony: how can you define
it, or how would you describe it? Here's my try: I think irony is about
there being a cosmic joke on (some, maybe not all) people; for instance,
circumstances are such that good people fail and malicious people succeed,
sometimes. And this is tied into the funniness of opposites, the
juxtaposition of serious with comic. That is why it seems ironic that a
humane writer like Vonnegut is attacking racist attitudes with a narrator
that is himself racist. Does this make sense?<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Breakfast of Champions and race 

"Rabo Karabekian" <no DeleteThis @thanks.net> wrote in message
news:9CqOa.81513$x4o.17689@news04.bloor.is.net.cable.rogers.com...
 > "Roger7812" <rvorti01 DeleteThis @hotmail.comm> wrote in message
 > news:beacl1$139l$1@news.louisville.edu...

 > Race is quite a pertinent issue in American history. I am not an
American -
 > and would not profess to be an authority on the subject of being one
 > historically - but I've read enough to notice that most relevant American
 > literary works acknowledge the major step that overcoming slavery was in
the
 > nation's history. Sometimes this acknowledgement manifests itself in
brutal
 > beatings and unfairnesses and cross-burnings, and sometimes in the casual
 > mention of the character's race as being black, because of its relevance
to
 > the story. I doubt that there are any pre-1990 works of fiction that do
not
 > identify a black person as a black person, but if any pre-1995 works were
to
 > not identify the race of a character, the reader is to automatically
assume
 > that the person is white. John Sandford does not mention the race of Lucas
 > Daveport. Shane Stevens does not mention the race of Adam Kenton or Thomas
 > Bishop. Thomas Harris does not mention the race of Clarice Starling. But
we
 > automatically assume that all these characters are white/caucasian.

I agree with you. The problem might be in the language itself or the way we
perceive language. For instance, the pronoun "he" or "him" may be more
frequently used to describe a generic character, instead of using "she" or
"her." So, the assumptions are already there in our brains, as you know.
So we assume a generic character will be white and male--that's the
"default" perception, for some people. (sorry for all the quote marks) My
question was mainly was why do you think the narrator takes this point of
view about describing blacks in stereotypical ways? I agree that for the
most part, the narrator says that being black is merely descriptive and it
has as much significance as having any distinguishing feature whether it be
a birthmark, scar, or whatever.



 > I wish you wouldn't call him "narrator," you know. The word somewhat
betrays
 > the relationship that the book builds with its author. Breakfast of
 > Champions reads like such a personal trip for Vonnegut. And it is. You
know
 > why in the beginning he so bluntly states that he feels lousy about this
 > particular book? At first read it may seem funny (sure was for me), but
when
 > read again with some critique in mind, one can easily see what an effort
it
 > must have been for the author to attempt to join so many of his popular
 > characters, along with random bits and pieces of himself, into what
 > essentially is a non-story, a social rant, a cry about the strangeness of
 > the world, a self-disinfecting, and so on. It must have been hell for
 > Vonnegut to present us with such beautiful chaos. Personally, I think
 > Breakfast of Champions is the closest any casual reader has ever come to
 > feeling the inner turmoil and psychological torture that produced some of
 > the most meaningful American literature ever.


I used the word narrator because there is no way of knowing how much of the
author is in the narrator. It would be like confusing a movie actor with a
film character. Plus, I thought the narrator was named Philboyd Studge, as
the preface states.<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Breakfast of Champions and race 

"GrapeApe" <grapeape DeleteThis @aol.comjunk> wrote in message
news:20030707232359.19764.00000299@mb-m28.aol.com...
 >
 > I don't know if the sentiment of an author clearing house was in the book
 > itself, or in the press surrounding the book. I don't necessarily recall
where
 > I read reviews of the book.
 >

It's in the book. I have four different editions of Breakfast of Champions,
the most recent being the Laurel/Dell 32nd run. All four editions do include
the preface where Vonnegut frequently comes back to the issue of cleaning
house:
"I feel as though I am crossing the spine of a roof - having ascended one
slope."
"I think I am trying to clear my head of all the junk in there - the
assholes, the flags, the underpants."
"I'm not going to put on any more puppet shows."
"I think I am trying to make my head as empty as it was when I was born onto
this damaged planet fifty years ago."

Another interesting thing in that preface is that Vonnegut somewhat
exasperatedly declares that "I have no culture, no humane harmony in my
brains. I can't live without a culture anymore." This is what I believe
makes Breakfast of Champions the conscious end-marker of a very "real"
period in Vonnegut's writing.

After Breakfast of Champions, he did earnestly try to leave his previous
characters behind, and he did earnestly try to adopt a culture and provide
poetic solutions to existing social problems, as opposed to merely observing
and reporting through his unique microscope.<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Breakfast of Champions and race 

Rabo Karabekian wrote:
<snip>
 > I doubt that there are any pre-1990 works of fiction that do not
 > identify a black person as a black person, but if any pre-1995 works were to
 > not identify the race of a character, the reader is to automatically assume
 > that the person is white.
<snip>

Ironically, it took me a bit of time, while I was reading recently, to
realize that the character Lena in Faulkner's _Light in August_ was not
black.

-jay, whose skin is not exactly white.

--
**Email address is invalid. Do not use.**<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
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"Roger7812" <rvorti01.TakeThisOut@hotmail.comm> wrote in message
news:befglu$2o26$1@news.louisville.edu...
 >
 > I agree with you. The problem might be in the language itself or the way
we
 > perceive language. For instance, the pronoun "he" or "him" may be more
 > frequently used to describe a generic character, instead of using "she" or
 > "her."

That has somewhat changed recently, under the banner of political
correctness. Most contemporary literature (whatever of it I have read
anyhow) tries to avoid this sort of hiccup. Many feminists or wannabe
feminists have gone to the other extreme and use "she" and "her" for
everyone, while in general authors have been using "they" and "their" to
talk about hypothetical gender.

Though the English language certainly has its shortcomings, I'm not sure I
agree that this particular problem can be attributed solely to language. I
think it may be more of a social evolution hang-up. Do people in
mostly-black African countries, like Nigeria or Senegal, automatically
assume a fictional character to be black? Furthermore, do people in South
Africa, which I think is pretty much half and half, automatically assume a
character to be of a certain race; if so, which race is it, and why?

 > So, the assumptions are already there in our brains, as you know.
 > So we assume a generic character will be white and male--that's the
 > "default" perception, for some people. (sorry for all the quote marks)
My
 > question was mainly was why do you think the narrator takes this point of
 > view about describing blacks in stereotypical ways?

Back in 1973, when Breakfast of Champions was published, stereotyping was
common because it wasn't stereotyping. It was merely an observe-and-relay
process. Around the same time, Led Zeppelin had a song called Black Dog, and
the Rolling Stones had a song called Brown Sugar, both massive hits at the
time. It is mostly because of the artists of the 1960s and 1970s that we can
now call anything stereotypical, and again that has a lot to do with politic
al correctness. Should a contemporary author not include in his or her
writing a character who is black and has a southern accent, or the character
of a dumb blonde, or a redneck, or a French chef, or an Italian mobster, or
a spy who likes martini, cigarettes and women, etc.?

That said, and to directly answer your question, I don't think any
stereotype in Breakfast of Champions is at all intentional, simply because,
at the risk of repeating myself, there was no such thing back then. Let's
not kid ourselves... the word 'stereotype' is a device that we invented to
mostly help us in our quest to understand and actually believe that we
should be aware of each other's feelings, regardless of background,
surroundings, possessions, looks, and so on. It is one of the tools we
employed to overcome our many general myths, like eyeglasses implying
weakness, money implying corruption, and so on.

 > I used the word narrator because there is no way of knowing how much of
the
 > author is in the narrator. It would be like confusing a movie actor with
a
 > film character. Plus, I thought the narrator was named Philboyd Studge,
as
 > the preface states.

Nah, Philboyd Studge the signature is just a reference to what he wrote
earlier in that preface about his friend, Knox Burger, telling him that some
novels read "like it was written by Philboyd Studge".

Ciao.<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Breakfast of Champions and race 

"Roger7812" <rvorti01 RemoveThis @hotmail.comm> wrote in message
news:befer8$2ne7$1@news.louisville.edu...
 >
 > But, having black characters say something like, "Whuffo?! Whuffo I need
to
 > read a book on Tale of Two Cities? Whuffo?" True, this is stereotypical
 > and offensive (even though I'm not black), but what is Vonnegut, or the
 > narrator, trying to do with stuff like that? In my opinion, it is there
to
 > purposely anger readers, and that's not necessarily bad because at the
heart
 > of Vonnegut's works is a striving for a more humane society.
 >

It's just not like Vonnegut to want to make the reader angry with the
author. I've seen him speak four times, and each time he stated the
equivalent of: "If people don't like you as a writer, they will not read
your work."

As far as the "whuffo" thing, I don't see anything offensive about it
really. So there is this black character saying something in a southern
black accent. Big deal. When someone imitates Mr.T's accent, they're not
necessarily taking a cheap shot at a race. If instead of a black character
saying "whuffo" Vonnegut were to use a Brooklyn man saying "my goifriend's
at de doah", would we find that stereotypical and offensive too?

Shadows in the rain.<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Breakfast of Champions and race 

<< As far as the "whuffo" thing, I don't see anything offensive about it
really. So there is this black character saying something in a southern
black accent. Big deal. When someone imitates Mr.T's accent, they're not
necessarily taking a cheap shot at a race. If instead of a black character
saying "whuffo" Vonnegut were to use a Brooklyn man saying "my goifriend's
at de doah", would we find that stereotypical and offensive too? >><BR><BR>


There can be a problem, if you are attempting, in written word, a brooklyn
accent, or even a pirate patois, and someone mistakes it for ebonics.

Did you eat?

No, Did you?

Antisemite!
 >> Stay informed about: Breakfast of Champions and race 

"Roger7812" <rvorti01 DeleteThis @hotmail.comm> wrote in message
news:beacl1$139l$1@news.louisville.edu...
 > Hi, I'm reading Breakfast of Champions and one of the bigger themes in this
 > seems to be race: note the narrator identifies the race of every single
 > character. The narrator seems to take on an "objective" viewpoint of the
 > universe and it seems the audience of the narrator are beings not from
 > Earth.

A valid observation. It even goes beyond that. Vonnegut refers to people with
disease as "defective machines." An extreme viewpoint... sort of a souless
materialism.

 >My problem is the way blacks are stereotyped and the frequent use of
 > the word nigger. What do you think of this? Is this a shade of irony?

Yeah, I'd say there was some irony here.

 > Or a subtle argument that all story-tellers (historians, journalists, and the
 > like) are biased?

I like to think of it as honesty.

 >From a subsequent Roger7812 post, whence he wrote
 >But, having black characters say something like, "Whuffo?! Whuffo I need to
 >read a book on Tale of Two Cities? Whuffo?"

I recall a story that Anthony Burgess related in his autobiography. CUNY had an
open admissions policy. Street negroes were admited and given cash vouchers.
They did the "wuffo" thing, and Burgess hauled them out of their chairs by their
collars. I think KV was perplexed, as anyone would be, by people too dumb to
know they are stupid.<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
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