Media Meditation #4: Enter Vonnegut

I read my first book by Kurt Vonnegut. It's called Breakfast of Champions. It was published in 1973, which is one of his later works. Now I'm reading Slaughterhouse-Five which is apparently quite great. He gave (Kurt Vonnegut graded his other works in one of his books, comparing himself to himself, as he would say.) Breakfast of Champions a C while giving Slaughterhouse-Five an A+. It must be good.

The book being analyzed, however, is Breakfast of Champions. I just finished it last night and it was different, but great. Let's apply the four media toolsets to the book and see what we're looking at. Vonnegut's book includes illustrations he himself created. The limbic area of my triune brain was quite stimulated by these pictures, especially when I glanced over at the next page to see what the image was and, noticing that it has nothing to do with what I am currently reading, wondering what the hell it was there for.

My neocortex spent the entire time trying to decipher the plot mechanics being used - trying to find a point. The reptilian area of my brain caught a break for the most part; nothing stimulated or scared it too much.

There is so much text and so many messages. Within these messages are the subtle yet plentiful persuasive techniques of the 21st century media culture. Vonnegut plays the race card out to be one of his larger topics. Racial issues are scattered throughout the book and presented in such a way that it makes the reader realize the truth of racial discrimination, but also presents the mindset most humans take: an ambiguous understanding paired with a desire to do nothing about it but get away from it, ignore it, and hope it goes away while enjoying the robotic (as Kilgore Trout would agree) activities of day to day life.

Symbols are everywhere. Vonnegut boldly explains his own symbolism. In one part of the book he explains that two characters grasped hands and shook. After that he drew a picture of two hands shaking. He went on to say that this was a symbol of friendship between humans. He includes pictures and messages that are obvious but never too thought about, and that is more of the appeal, it seems, that Vonnegut has to offer.

My favorite part of the book is when Dwayne Hoover reads Kilgore Trout's book (read the book.) The idea in the book is a big form of flattery, as well as being profoundly deep and humanistic. The idea in Trout's book (in Vonnegut's book) says that the reader is the only creature with free will. Everything else that looks like the reader is a machine programmed to do what they do. It's a hyperbole on life, but it is not untrue. The herd instinct in America and in humans is blatantly real and the way Vonnegut presents that statement was genius.

The thing about a book like this is that it is almost mocking how people appeal to other people. The persuasive technique of rhetorical questions is so clearly presented that Kurt Vonnegut actually set it away from the text using line breaks and white space and illustrated it in massive font. The question is: "What is the purpose of life?" The words take up about a third of an entire page. It makes sense in context of the book, but regardless, that question is slapped in your face. Even if there is no context, that question gets people thinking.

A final example of persuasive techniques would be group dynamics. Vonnegut's statements on life are about Midland City, but this seems to be used as a small representation of humans in general. Midland City is representing Earth, if you will. Humans are machines, humans are competitive. He talks about people's racial tensions, passive or not, within Midland City. The situation can be transfered to a global scale and stay true proportionately. He has characters make mistakes and live their life off of that mistake, which everybody does.

Take the eight shifts of media education and Vonnegut's book has some revealing aspects inherent with it's content and message. One can see ideas that saturate media education in today's 21st century were somewhat alive thirty years ago, because it is pretty evident that either Vonnegut had the idea of an epistemological shift while writing or he happened to coincide with the idea because of how his book is presented. That he includes images can be a statement that appreciates humans' love for images (as media experts would agree) or a statement that is mocking humans' love for images. Either way the illustrations recognize the aforementioned shift as well as the aesthetic shift because this book is completely meshing the word and the image into one great piece of work.

This book is Vonnegut's take on life. The discursive shift suggests that nowadays third person objectivity is trying to dominate subjectivity, but literature that challenges the quest to define 'truth' has existed since day one. This book is an example that portrays the subject matter just as one person (or group) wants to portray the subject matter.

There are the eight principles of media education that Breakfast of Champions applies to. A small note on ownership: The illustrations in the book are drawn a certain way. There are vaginas, cows, signs, illustrated words, illustrated dates, ducks, and other standard objects in day to day American life. These illustrations are done by Kurt Vonnegut and drawn the way he wanted to draw them. The illustrations add some pizazz to the book, and not the kind of pizazz the illustrator recommended, but that the author and whatever editors and consultants thought.

Vonnegut has a rather strong construction of reality in this book. It is a satire on American life and, while it is written thirty years ago, portrays humans in an outrageous, simple, and true way. The beauty of the book and probably one of Vonnegut's most appealing techniques of writing is how he constructs what is actually reality. He talks about racial problems, comparing it to reindeer season for hunters. The minorities were called 'reindeer' by some of the book's characters and Vonnegut goes on to explain that in Midland City, the book's main setting, the majority would engage in 'reindeer season,' making a comparison that isn't, unfortunately, too far off when one considers racial discrimination in the US (remember this book was written in the 70s.)

This book threw me a curve ball in terms of what I have established for myself as story telling. I am still trying to make order out of the beautiful chaos. I am definitely going to re-read the book and see if some of the more hazy ideas clear up.

Consider me a Vonnegut follower now.

Time for Slaughterhouse-Five.