This book stars Dwight Hoover, who is locally rich and
famous in an Ohio town.
This book also stars Kilgore Trout, who before being honored
by Eliot Rosewater is nowhere famous.
Actually, Trout is famous because the
writer who created him, Kurt Vonnegut. Vonnegut is famous, and he wrote this
book. Vonnegut is also a character in the book, and he knows that he is writing
it.
Vonnegut makes Hoover, Trout, and Rosewater his
puppets. It is a fun breaking of third and
fourth walls, almost metafictive, and it doesn’t make you feel like Vonnegut is
trying to say “Look how clever I am” because he really is clever. In an understated way. All the characters
come together for a thing that happens.
I won’t spoil it for you.
I first read this when I was in my early 20s. I lay on
full-sized mattress as the springs poked me through the cheap foam pad, and I
was deep in Vonnegut’s world. The time
passed too fast. I read it again this
weekend, after a dozen years or so. The only difference is that I sat up for
the most part, on a comfortable couch I own. That, and I appreciated the
drawings differently (There are a number of drawings). The younger version of
me liked them because they were a bit risqué. Older me wanted each new drawing
to be a new tattoo.
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