Vonnegut’s Breakfast tr. de Cecilia Ceriani y Txaro Santoro BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS El Desayuno de los Campeones [With Drawings By The Author] de by 5 Kurt Vonnegut KURT VONNEGUT 10 Copyright © 1973 by Kurt Vonnegut trad. de Cecilia Ceriani y Txaro Santoro Cover art and e-Foreword to the electronic edition co- pyright© 2000 by RosettaBooks, LLC con dibujos del autor For information address [email protected] First electronic edition published 2000 by Anagrama,. Barcekiba, 1999 15 RosettaBooks LLC, New York. ISBN 0-7953-0241-X 20 eForeword “We are healthy only to the extent that 25 our ideas are humane” — so reads the epitaph for Kilgore Trout, who is one of several alter egos of the author Kurt Vonnegut in his explosively funny and ironic 1973 novel Breakfast of Champions. The 30 world Vonnegut explores is not a healthy one — as the title suggests, it is the United States of America in the age of Vietnam, Nixon and the Silent Majority — but it is desperately trying to seem so. An obscure 35 science fiction writer takes a wild road trip to the middle of the Midwest, where his fate becomes intertwined with that of a successful car dealer who is slowly going mad. Vonnegut takes this opportunity to 40 question a number of assumptions, including the very nature of the novel he is writing. A tour de force of imagination and scathing insight, Breakfast of Champions is one of the most discussed and widely read 45 American novels of the late 20th century. The American novelist Kurt Vonnegut (b. 1922) occupies an unusual but enduring 50 place in modem American fiction, that of the prolific, critically acclaimed writer whose work has also enjoyed enormous popularity and inspired a virtual cult following. Vonnegut’s first work appeared 55 in the early 1950s, and few writers have captured the modem age as consistently and as imaginatively as he has. Often blending satire with science fiction, Vonnegut’s writing reflects an acute sense of the 60 ironies in modem American life. Nowhere is his richly ambivalent feeling about the contemporary American scene more brilliantly realized than in Breakfast of Champions , published just after 65 Vonnegut’s 50th birthday, ending a four- 1 Vonnegut’s Breakfast tr. de Cecilia Ceriani y Txaro Santoro year hiatus that followed appearance of Slaughterhouse Five. 5 RosettaBooks is the leading publisher dedicated exclusively to electronic editions of great works of fiction and non-fiction that reflect our world. RosettaBooks is a committed e-publisher, maximizing the 10 resources of the World Wide Web in opening a fresh dimension in the reading experience. In this electronic environment for reading, each RosettaBook will enhance the experience through The RosettaBooks 15 Connection. This gateway instantly delivers to the reader the opportunity to learn more about the title, the author, the content and the context of each work, using the full resources of the Web. 20 Other Vonnegut titles available from RosettaBooks include Slaughterhouse Five, Cat’s Cradle, The Sirens of Titan and Player Piano. 25 To experience The RosettaBooks Connection for Breakfast of Champions, go to: 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 In Memory of Phoebe Hurty, who A la memoria de Phoebe Hurty, comforted me in Indianapolis—during the que fue mi consuelo en Indianápolis Great Depression. durante la Gran Depresión. 65 2 Vonnegut’s Breakfast tr. de Cecilia Ceriani y Txaro Santoro When he hath tried me, I shall come Cuando me ponga a prueba, forth as gold. -Job saldré como oro puro. Libro de Job 5 Preface PRÓLOGO The expression “Breakfast of El Desayuno de los Campeones es el nom- Champions” is a registered trademark of bre de unos cereales para el desayuno, marca General Mills, Inc., for use on a breakfast registrada por General Mills, Inc. La utiliza- 10 cereal product. The use of the identical ción de ese mismo nombre como título de este expression as the title for this book is not libro no pretende sugerir ninguna relación es- intended to indicate an association with or pecial con General Mills ni ningún patrocinio sponsorship by General Mills, nor is it por su parte. Tampoco debe tomarse como un intended to disparage their fine products. menosprecio a sus selectos productos. 15 The person to whom this book is La persona a quien está dedicado este li- dedicated, Phoebe Hurty, is no longer bro, Phoebe Hurty, ya no se cuenta entre los among the living, as they say. She was an vivos, como suele decirse. Era una viuda que 20 Indianapolis widow when I met her late in conocí en Indianápolis bien entrada la Gran the Great Depression. I was sixteen or so. Depresión. Yo tenía unos dieciséis años y ella She was about forty. alrededor de cuarenta. She was rich, but she had gone to work Era rica pero no había dejado de tra- 25 every weekday of her adult life, so she went X bajar ni un día ___________, así que seguía on doing that. She wrote a sane and funny haciéndolo. Escribía una columna, sensata advice-to-the-lovelorn column for the y divertida, de consejos para enamorados Indianapolis Times, a good paper which is en el Times de Indianápolis, un buen pe- now defunct. riódico ya difunto. 30 Defunct. Difunto. She wrote ads for the William H. Block También escribía anuncios para la Compañía William Company, a department store which still H. Block, unos grandes almacenes que aún siguen 35 flourishes in a building my father designed. marchando muy bien en un edificio que diseñó mi She wrote this ad for an end-of-the-summer padre. Una vez, con ocasión de unas rebajas de vera- sale on straw hats: “For prices like this, no, escribió un anuncio para unos sombreros de paja you can run them through your horse and que decía: «A este precio, puede ponerle sombrero a put them on your roses.” su caballo y hasta a sus rosas.» [15] 40 Phoebe Hurty hired me to write copy Phoebe Hurty me contrató para hacer los for ads about teenage clothes. I had to wear anuncios de ropa para adolescentes. Yo tenía the clothes I praised. That was part of the que usar la ropa que anunciaba. Eso era parte 45 job. And I became friends with her two del trabajo. Me hice amigo de sus dos hijos, sons, who were my age. I was over at their que eran más o menos de mi edad, y siempre house all the time. estaba metido en su casa. She would talk bawdily to me and her Cuando se dirigía a sus hijos o a mí o a las 50 sons, and to our girlfriends when we amigas que llevábamos a su casa, soltaba tacos. brought them around. She was funny. She Era una mujer muy divertida e irradiaba a su al- was liberating. rededor una sensación de libertad. She taught us to be impolite in Nos enseñó a hablar abierta y descarada- 55 conversation not only about sexual matters, mente no sólo de las cuestiones sexuales sino but about American history and famous de la historia estadounidense, de los héroes fa- heroes, about the distribution of wealth, mosos, de la distribución de la riqueza, de la about school, about everything. enseñanza y de cualquier cosa imaginable. 60 I now make my living by being Ahora yo me gano la vida siendo desca- impolite. I am clumsy at it. I keep trying rado. Aunque intento imitar, torpemente, to imitate the impoliteness which was so aquel descaro que en Phoebe Hurty tenia tanta graceful in Phoebe Hurty. I think now gracia. Creo que a ella le era más fácil que a that grace was easier for her than it is mí ser graciosa, dado el ánimo general que 65 for me because of the mood of the Great reinaba en la época de la Gran Depresión. Ella 3 Vonnegut’s Breakfast tr. de Cecilia Ceriani y Txaro Santoro Depression. She believed what so many creía en lo mismo que tantos estadouniden- Americans believed then: that the nation ses creían por aquel entonces: que, cuando would be happy and just and rational llegase la época de la prosperidad, el país when prosperity came. sería feliz, justo y racional. 5 I never hear that word anymore: Nunca más he vuelto a oír esa pa- Prosperity. It used to be a synonym for labra: prosperidad. Era sinónimo de Paradise. And Phoebe Hurty was able to paraíso. Y Phoebe Hurty creía que believe that the impoliteness she esa forma de hablar sin tapujos, que 10 recommended would give shape to an tanto recomendaba, conformaría el American paradise. paraíso americano. Now her sort of impoliteness is Ahora su descaro está de moda. Pero fashionable. But nobody believes anymore ya nadie cree en el paraíso americano. 15 in a new American paradise. I sure miss La verdad es que echo mucho de menos Phoebe Hurty. a Phoebe Hurty. As for the suspicion I express in this En cuanto a la sospecha que dejo entrever en 20 book, that human beings are robots, are este libro de que los seres humanos son robots, machines: It should be noted that máquinas, tengo que aclarar que, cuando yo era people, mostly men, suffering from the un niño, las personas que padecían sífilis, hom- last stages of syphilis, from locomotor bres en su mayor parte, sufrían, durante la últi- ataxia, were common spectacles in ma fase, locomotor ataxia y eran un espectáculo 25 downtown Indianapolis and in circus corriente en el centro de Indianápolis y entre las crowds when I was a boy.