BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS

APRIL 16, 2025 – During last Monday’s lecture in Russian History from Peter the Great to the Present, Professor Stavrou again stressed the importance of reading literature. When he’d given the same pitch the previous Monday he’d remarked that he himself tried to read at least one novel a week. I’m not a big reader of fiction but on the good professor’s advice and as the steady reader of this blog knows, last month I read Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev—and not just because it’s on the required reading list for the class. As you know, I thoroughly enjoyed that classic novel.

Before leaving for the Red Cabin on Tuesday, I collected four of the stack of Russian history books that I’m reading for the class. As I threw these into the book bag, I heard Professor Stavrou’s voice inside my head, asking . . . “Where’s the novel?”

Oh yeah. Where was the novel? I was in a bit of a rush to get underway, so I didn’t spend a lot of time hunting down a good novel among Beth’s used book business inventory. Besides, what seems to sell the most are probably not the sort of novels what Professor Stavrou reads and recommends. But his voice persisted inside my cranium: “Where’s the novel?” I decided to take a quick look at another section of Beth’s inventory—the one stored in a large walk-in storage room adjacent to her office (the riff-raff are all shelved in the basement). Within five seconds my eyes landed on Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut. Not exactly Russian literature, but Professor Stavrou hadn’t limited his recommendation to Russian lit. I’d heard of Vonnegut’s book but had no idea what it was about. Didn’t matter. I knew it counted as “literature,” so I grabbed it and threw it into the bag along with the non-fiction tomes on Russian history.

I’ve now been at the Red Cabin for over 30 hours but haven’t cracked open Vonnegut’s “cereal box.” But I haven’t touched my violin, either, though I lugged that up here also with good intentions. By way of explanation, not excuse, I’ve been too busy—ignoring the news; installing the dock and stairs at the “landing”; designing steps for the dock in front of the Red Cabin; prepping sites in the Björnholm tree garden for the 100 red pine and 200 white spruce seedlings that will be delivered by the DNR later this month; discovering a gigantic ice floe east of here and worrying that if the wind blows from the wrong direction, the ice could wipe out the dock I labored so hard to install (!); conducting a bit of law work (and ruminating about what will become of my profession and the rule of law as our current political nightmare plays out); catching up on correspondence; and most germane to Professor Stavrou’s friendly and well taken advice . . . reading for hours on end, those (non-fiction) books for his Russian history class.

All the while I’ve been wondering—how does Professor Stavrou manage to read “at least one novel a week”? We’re having lunch in May. I’ll ask him then what his secret is—and what kinds of novels his list and whether he’s ever read Breakfast of Champions.

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© 2025 by Eric Nilsson