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Such a pity... I was a great admirer of Vonnegut in my liberal teenage years. However, the more I read his books, the more I began to view them as simply novel-length rants-- with Breakfast of Champions being exhibit A.

A few of his books, like Player Piano, Cat's Cradle and Galapagos raise interesting philosophical points, although something like Player Piano is certainly an obsolete philosophical point in the wake of the tech revolution in this country (there aren't fewer jobs with automation... there's more).

All in all, when a liberal writer like this makes 'predictions' he gets it wrong from the start. All the hellish 'utopias' predicted by liberal writers in the 60's come with a centralized 'overseer' running it. Writing about this, you'd think they'd be against a centralized state, especially when viewing how all their predictions for the 'bad' future come true on the causative end, but bear fruit on the effects end simply because the wide scope of American experience and ingenuity can make a buck off anything.

Such a pity... I was a great admirer of Vonnegut in my liberal teenage years. However, the more I read his books, the more I began to view them as simply novel-length rants-- with Breakfast of Champions being exhibit A.

I have to disagree. In many of Vonnegut's stories a moral message can be found, even at times a conservative message. Though I can't recall the name of the short story, in one the government forced everyone to be "equal". People who were athletic had to carry around great weights, people with great intellect had to wear a hearing aid that regularly blasted their ears with loud noises so they couldn't keep a train of thought for more than 5 seconds, beautiful people had to wear hideous face masks, etc. It was great satire of 60's attempts at "forced equality".

I can cut some slack for elders who are more liberal in their outlook. It seems part of the human condition that many people become that way later in life. People like Mailer and Vidal have long been left wingnuts even as younger men IMHO.