A marvellous novel that is both hilarious and devastating

Kurt Vonnegut’s 1973 novel Breakfast of Champions (a slogan from a manufacturer of breakfast cereals) was panned by the New York Times but then spent 56 weeks on The New York Times Best Seller list. Although Vonnegut himself gave the novel a C, it remains one of his most appreciated works. It was recommended to me by a friend who is writing a book on Vonnegut, and I found the book hilarious and devastating, a combination that few writers can manage and perhaps nobody better than Vonnegut. As I read the novel, I thought it just as well that the House Committee on Un-American Activities had dissolved because the committee surely would have summoned Vonnegut before it. I then discovered that the committee lingered on until 1975, two years after Vonnegut’s book was published, but the ardour of the committee had surely petered out; and Vonnegut is not promoting communism, the main concern of the committee. Vonnegut on America and particularly the military, a great American love: Everybody…