Pornografija vs. „Naučna fantastika” u romanu „Doručak šampiona” Kurta Vonegata

Abstract

Vonnegut, as a postmodernist writer, combines popular and high culture in his novels, simultaneously posing the question what popular and high culture are, and how to differentiate one from the other. One of the ways in which he illustrates the struggle between the two cultures is by describing the publishing process of his literary alter ego’s novels in Breakfast of Champions. The protagonist, Kilgore Trout, publishes his “science fiction” novels in pornographic magazines and he himself wonders about the connection between the sales of his books and the pornography. In this essay we give a couple of possible reasons why Vonnegut makes this unexpected combination of “science fiction” and pornography. He wants his readers to recognize the differences and the similarities of these two contents, thus he creates a postmodern mixture of high and low culture fictionalizing his literary alter-ego. The analysis of these relationships (high and low culture; pornography and “science fiction”) gives readers a chance to read Breakfast of Champions from a new perspective.