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Breakfast of Champions

Kurt Vonnegut

4.08 · Rating details · 204,187 ratings · 6,097 reviews

In Breakfast of Champions, one of Kurt Vonnegut’s most beloved characters, the aging writer Kilgore Trout, finds to his horror that a Midwest car dealer is taking his fiction as truth. What follows is murderously funny satire, as Vonnegut looks at war, sex, racism, success, politics, and pollution in America and reminds us how to see the truth.

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Paperback, 303 pages

Published May 1999 by Dell Publishing (first published 1973)

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· 204,187 ratings · 6,097 reviews

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Jul 24, 2008 Honey rated it liked it

I am about to finish Kurt Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions. I checked out the book from the Multnomah County Library four weeks ago. I've never read anything by Kurt Vonnegut before. The book looks like this:

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I'm enjoying the book because it feels easy to read. I'm not enjoying the book because parts of it induce discomfort. There are many things in the universe that make me feel the opposite of discomfort. One of those things is a lava lamp.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

A lava lamp emi ...more

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Mar 20, 2017 Barry Pierce rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Manic depressives and Drāno enthusiasts

Shelves: 20th-century, read-in-2017

A novel is a dead tree with words on it. Breakfast of Champions is a great dead tree with words on it.

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Jul 26, 2016 Emily May rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, 2016

I have a little inner book snob that desperately wants to like Vonnegut. In the very unlikely event that I should find myself at a convention of bookish intellectuals, I feel like I'd fit right in if I sipped my champagne and said "Oh yes, indeed, I simply adore what Vonnegut has to say about the absence of free will..."

This is the kind of bollocks that runs through my mind on a daily basis.

Unfortunately, I just don't find him that funny most of the time. Perhaps jokes about open beavers are fu ...more

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May 22, 2018 Adina rated it liked it

Shelves: kindle-nou, 1001, us

“Like most science-fiction writers, he knew almost nothing about science.”

Breakfast of Champions is not my favorite Kurt Vonnegut novel and I have a bit of difficulty to understand why. Maybe because it was crazier than the others that I’ve read, with long passages without any sense. There weren’t one or two deeper themes that I had to dig between the irony and the absurd. It was more of a collection of crazy talk (or talk by crazy men) mingled with the author’s ideas about the world. I enjoyed “Like most science-fiction writers, he knew almost nothing about science.”

Breakfast of Champions is not my favorite Kurt Vonnegut novel and I have a bit of difficulty to understand why. Maybe because it was crazier than the others that I’ve read, with long passages without any sense. There weren’t one or two deeper themes that I had to dig between the irony and the absurd. It was more of a collection of crazy talk (or talk by crazy men) mingled with the author’s ideas about the world. I enjoyed the latter parts more than the former, I laughed out loud many times but it wasn’t enough.

For the whole novel we are prepared for a momentous meeting between our main characters, the still undiscovered, aging, soon to become monumental, SF writer, Kilgore Trout and Dwayne Hoover, a successful Midwest car dealer. Dwayne, due to bad chemicals in his brain, is slowly going crazy and the meeting with the SF writer will make him derail irrecoverably. The story switches between Kilgore’s trip to reach an Art festival in Midwest to Dwayne’s increasingly weird mind. At some point we also get to meet the author, which was an interesting feature.

The plot offers Vonnegut the opportunity to launch in a bleak satire on race, politics, social standards, sexism, etc. I don’t know how Vonnegut can be pessimistic and funny at the same time.

“As I approached my fiftieth birthday, I had become more and more enraged and mystified by the idiot decisions made by my countrymen. And then I had come suddenly to pity them, for I understood how innocent and natural it was for them to behave so abominably, and with such abominable results: They were doing their best to live like people invented in story books. This was the reason Americans shot each other so often: It was a convenient literary device for ending short stories and books. why were so many Americans treated by their government as though their lives were as disposable as paper facial tis-sues? Because that was the way authors customarily treated bit-part players in their made-up tales”

For more than half of the book, I listened to the brilliant narration of John Malkovich. I believe the actor’s voice and Vonnegut’s work go perfectly together. However, I do not usually listen to audiobooks so it might have altered my reading experience somewhat.

I enjoyed the novel, it’s Vonnegut duh, but I felt he crammed a bit too much inside the pages. I also don’t believe it is the place to start if you are a newbie to his work. Slaughterhouse 5 would still my first choice. By the way, Kilgore Trout is a character in that novel as well. There are many characters, themes and places that appear in more than one novel of the author and that is a prize for his fandom, of which I am still part of.

“Dear Sir, poor sir, brave sir." he read, "You are an experiment by the Creator of the Universe. You are the only creature in the entire Universe who has free will. You are the only one who has to figure out what to do next - and why. Everybody else is a robot, a machine. Some persons seem to like you, and others seem to hate you, and you must wonder why. They are simply liking machines and hating machines. You are pooped and demoralized, " read Dwayne. "Why wouldn't you be? Of course it is exhausting, having to reason all the time in a universe which wasn't meant to be reasonable.”
“So, in the interests of survival, they trained themselves to be agreeing machines instead of thinking machines. All their minds had to do was to discover what other people were thinking, and then they thought that, too.”
...more

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Jul 21, 2015 Ahmad Sharabiani rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 20th-century, fiction, classic, humor, literature, american

Breakfast of Champions or Goodbye Blue Monday, Kurt Vonnegut
تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز دوم از ماه ژانویه سال 2017 میلادی
عنوان: صبحانه قهرمانان؛ نویسنده: کورت ونه گات؛ مترجم: راضیه رحمانی؛ مشخصات نشر: تهران، ققنوس، 1393، در 312 ص، مصور، شابک: 9786002781147؛ موضوع: داستانهای نویسندگان امریکایی - قرن 20 م
صبحانه قهرمانان رمانی طنزآمیز است. دغدغه های ذهن نويسنده، درباره ی دو پیرمرد سفیدپوست لاغر اندام، که روی سیاره ای در حال مرگ زندگی میکنند. کیلگور تراوت، نویسنده ای پرکار، و در عین حال، ناکام است، که ب Breakfast of Champions or Goodbye Blue Monday, Kurt Vonnegut
تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز دوم از ماه ژانویه سال 2017 میلادی
عنوان: صبحانه قهرمانان؛ نویسنده: کورت ونه گات؛ مترجم: راضیه رحمانی؛ مشخصات نشر: تهران، ققنوس، 1393، در 312 ص، مصور، شابک: 9786002781147؛ موضوع: داستانهای نویسندگان امریکایی - قرن 20 م
صبحانه قهرمانان رمانی طنزآمیز است. دغدغه‌ های ذهن نويسنده، درباره ی دو پیرمرد سفیدپوست لاغر اندام، که روی سیاره‌ ای در حال مرگ زندگی میکنند. کیلگور تراوت، نویسنده‌ ای پرکار، و در عین حال، ناکام است، که به جز یک نفر، هیچ‌کس انبوه کتاب‌ها، و داستان‌های او را، نخوانده‌ است. روزی با اعمال نفوذ همین تنها خواننده، به جشنوارهٔ هنر شهر کوچک میدلند سیتی دعوت می‌شود؛ او که از این دعوت شوکه شده، تصمیم می‌گیرد تا به آنجا برود. حضور تراوت، در آن شهر رخدادی ست، که زندگی چندین نفر را دگرگون می‌کند؛ از جملهٔ این افراد: دواین هوور است، که فروشنده ی ماشین‌های پونتیاک، و از ثروتمندترین شهروندان میدلند سیتی، هست. ونه گات در واقع، شخصیت‌هایی آفریده، که با آن‌ها خود را متحول می‌کند، و به این نتیجه می‌رسد، که انسان‌ها دو بعد: «ماشینی» و «مقدس» دارند. تا زمانی که یک انسان ماشین‌وار عمل کند، وضعیتش پیچیده، تراژیک و مضحک خواهد بود. اما در درون همه ی موجودات، به طور یکسان، ماهیت مقدسی نیز، وجود دارد که نویسنده آن را «نوار لغزش ‌ناپذیری از نور» می‌نامد. این ماهیت، در وجود تک‌ تک این موجودات، شعله می‌کشد. ونه گات در این رمان، از تکنیک‌های بسیاری استفاده کرده، تا اصول سنتی داستان نویسی را، در هم بریزد. وی از همان آغاز داستان، درباره ی چگونگی و پایان آن سخن می‌گوید، اما رخدادهای پیش بینی نشده، در این میان خود حدیث دیگری هستند. ا. شربیانی ...more

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Dec 15, 2016 Lisa rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 1001-books-to-read-before-you-die, monster-mash-of-a-mess

The Emperor’s New Clothes,

As retold by Kurt Vonnegut, taking a leak (view spoiler) in front of Humanity to mirror their fictionalized realities!

(Vonnegut was apparently capable of prophetically foreshadowing what would happen to America in the 21st century, when leaks are indeed mirrors of the country's general condition! America is really taking the piss, and he KNEW it would happen.)

Once upon a time, there was ...more

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Jul 09, 2008 Tim P rated it did not like it

God, what a terrible book of nonsense.

The two main characters are just overly weird and bizarre for the sake of being bizarre. And I mean really really bizarre. (I suspect many people say they like Vonnegut because he is so damn weird, but theres gotta be a purpose to it. You can't just have completely random ridiculous thoughts that do not have any purpose towards the message of the story. When you do that, its like the intellectual version of VH1 reality; people love it for shock value, while ...more

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Jul 05, 2007 Joe rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommends it for: People with bad chemicals in their heads

Good old Kurt (God rest his soul) has truly helped me understand what all this fuss is about "wide open beavers".
This is a quick and rewarding read (with funny drawings) that makes you think about the world in a totally new way. I love how Vonnegut writes about America as a civilization which died out long ago and is addressing an audience who knows nothing of it.
This book is hilarious and heart-breaking at the same time. It follows a sci-fi author (Trout) of Vonnegut's own creation who meets a ...more

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Dec 24, 2015 J.L. Sutton rated it really liked it

Nothing is sacred in Breakfast of Champions. The narrator/Philboyd Studge/Vonnegut makes his appearance as the Creator of the Universe (or at least the creators of the characters in his novel) as he delivers what amounts to a searing meta-critique of American culture. "The big show is inside my head," he tells a waitress as he watches his main protagonists, and decides what they will do next. After his brief appearance in Slaughterhouse-Five, it was fun to see Kilgore Trout, the failed science f ...more

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Apr 17, 2014 Anthony Vacca rated it it was amazing

Back before I nicked a diploma and put that particular time and place in the rearview, there were only two authors that nearly all of my fellow Liberal Arts College English majors blabbered-on about unendingly: Chuck Palahniuk and Kurt Vonnegut. (Lucky for us all that the Second Coming of Christ didn’t happen just once but twice!) Even though I had read and liked Slaughterhouse Five as a young, emotionally-stunted and delusional fifteen year-old, I had also dutifully read through six of Chucky’s Back before I nicked a diploma and put that particular time and place in the rearview, there were only two authors that nearly all of my fellow Liberal Arts College English majors blabbered-on about unendingly: Chuck Palahniuk and Kurt Vonnegut. (Lucky for us all that the Second Coming of Christ didn’t happen just once but twice!) Even though I had read and liked Slaughterhouse Five as a young, emotionally-stunted and delusional fifteen year-old, I had also dutifully read through six of Chucky’s stinkers by the time I got to college. Add to the equation the variable that most of these hep cats thought Shakespeare and Hemingway (two of me best mates at the time) were talentless hacks, and what you get the other side of that equal sign is an Anthony that is going to take his chances and steer clear of the Vonnegut circle jerk sessions.

With that introductory diatribe out of the way, I can now say that, yes, I was wrong about Vonnegut, and so now we can all move right on along to my review.

Breakfast of Champions is a sad and gloomy slice of metafiction that still manages to find a sense of humor about what an awful fucking nightmare it is to exist in this sad sorry sack of shit of an excuse for a world. If read aloud, every sentence in this book should end with a sigh and a defeated glance out the window at nothing but a bleak view of nothing.

Vonnegut writes this book, as he does with most of his books, through the 1st-person-POV guise of being a weary misanthropic novelist named Kurt Vonnegut, whose thankless job it is to write another goddamned book about all of these horrible (but also (sometimes (very seldom) ) wonderful) people we’re stuck with in this life. BoC goes about this in a conversational, vernacular-heavy, cliché-ridden prose style that still manages to be quite charming and clever. The focus of this book is the hours leading up to a chance meeting between Kilgore Trout, a loser who writes off-beat science fiction novels that nobody reads, and Dwayne Hoover, a successful car salesman who is starting to lose his shit in a major way. Along the way there is plenty of time for digressions full of deadpan takedowns of American culture as well as for dozens of endearing little doodles from our author.

The end result is a novel that reads like something an off-beat science fiction novelist would write if given the task of explaining the United States in the 1970’s to an alien species. Vonnegut makes it clear that there is so much in this world that makes him angry, and getting older does nothing to ease his resentment. But even in the face of murder, hate, racism and greed, Vonnegut can’t help but care about people and sympathize for what it must be like for not just his characters but for every last one of us who goes about chug-chugging along through this nightmare we all share together. And it’s that big god-damned heart of Vonnegut’s that’s the real treasure of this wonderful novel.
...more

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Jul 20, 2011 Lyn rated it really liked it

This is one of my earliest favorites and I have gone back to revisit several times over the years.

In high school I was both amazed and hooked by Vonnegut's wry humor and devilish mid-western charm. I have since caught on to the more serious metaphors and themes into which he delves. But the humor drew me in initially and makes me think of Vonnegut today.

Insanity explained as a chemical imbalance and dysfunctional families, relationships and communities described as matter of factly as a still l ...more

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Apr 06, 2016 Sean Barrs the Bookdragon rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi, 5-star-reads

I needed this book. You have no idea how much so. Vonnegut is just so hilarious. There is a certain sense of wisdom in perfect irony, and Vonnegut’s irony is anything but perfect. It boarders upon the outrageous and plain mad. His ideas are crazy yet strangely perceptive; it’s like he sees beyond the idiotic surface world of human culture, of life itself, and makes fun of it. He points at it and has a good old laugh. If you read his books, he’ll share it with you too! He's good like that.

“The t I needed this book. You have no idea how much so. Vonnegut is just so hilarious. There is a certain sense of wisdom in perfect irony, and Vonnegut’s irony is anything but perfect. It boarders upon the outrageous and plain mad. His ideas are crazy yet strangely perceptive; it’s like he sees beyond the idiotic surface world of human culture, of life itself, and makes fun of it. He points at it and has a good old laugh. If you read his books, he’ll share it with you too! He's good like that.

“The things other people have put into my head, at any rate, do not fit together nicely, are often useless and ugly, are out of proportion with one another, are out of proportion with life as it really is outside my head.”

His novels are so individual in their weirdness. He explores, and perhaps even defines, an anti-narrative style. The first chapter of the book, along with its many intertextual references to the real world, tells you how the plot is going to end. He tells you what’s going to happen to his wacky characters; he informs you that they will die, and even goes as far as to explicitly say when. This isn’t a spoiler: it’s on the first page of the book. But, that’s merely the surface level of Vonnegut’s brilliant writing.

He also uses self-reflective addresses in the middle of a narrative sequence: his own personal voice comes through, the voice of the individual, and acknowledges the fact that this is actually a book. This may not sound like much, but it’s very unusual. How many books randomly point out the fact that they are actually a book? In the middle of chapters there are so many interruptions; they’re semi-autobiographical statements because Vonnegut, oddly, stops and explains his characterisation of Killgore Trout. He stops and informs you of the choices he has made. This is wonderfully comic. It may even sound like an interruption of the story, but it’s not. Vonnegut is part of the story. Without the use of such an inventive and transgressive mode of writing, this book would be comparable to one of Trout’s failed science fiction novels.

“Kilgore Trout once wrote a short story which was a dialogue between two pieces of yeast. They were discussing the possible purposes of life as they ate sugar and suffocated in their own excrement. Because of their limited intelligence, they never came close to guessing that they were making champagne.”

description

If you’ve made it this far into my review, you may wonder what I’m actually talking about. If you’ve not read anything by Vonnegut, then my review may come off as a little strange, but Vonnegut is strange. Superbly so. He is witty in his bizarrely written narrative. You have to read his books to understand. I’m having a certain degree of trouble to actually express what I mean here. Vonnegut is just unique. Trust me: he’s worth your time.

There were moments in his book that produced within me real gut wrenching laughter. Not a simple chuckle or a casual outburst, but real laughter. The type that brightens your day and make other people think that you, too, have gone slightly mad. But who cares? I’ve not laughed like that in a long time. Perhaps since the last Vonnegut book I read. The persona that narrates this novel is a real oddity; it’s almost like Vonnegut has written a story about his imaginary friends, and about imaginary parts of himself. I’m not entirely sure how he manages to pull it off. Few others could.

Postscript- I gave this book five stars because I enjoyed it immensely, but it wasn’t as good as Slaughter House 5. I wonder if any of his other books actually will be. Also the image in my review is one of many ridiculous images Vonnegut includes within the story. Because why the hell not? ...more

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Apr 12, 2017 Justin rated it really liked it

So this guy, Dwayne Hoover, is a rich owner of stuff, primarily a Pontiac dealership, and he has these bad chemicals in his brain. Kilgore Trout is this completely unknown science fiction writer whose stories are printed in adult magazines and such. Anyway, Dwayne reads one of Trout's novels and he thinks it's real which really messes with those bad chemicals in his brain.

The book is this collision course of these two meeting each other with all kinds of distractions and subplots and observatio ...more

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Feb 04, 2012 Jason Koivu rated it it was amazing

Shelves: comedy, fiction, humor

Phew, it has been a LOOONG time since I've read Vonnegut. I mean "classic" Vonnegut. It feels good to be back!

I mean no offense to his most recent work, but it just doesn't compare with what he put out from about the '60s through to the '80s. It's all good stuff. I mean, I've read about a dozen books of his and I don't recall a true stinker in the lot. But if I'm going to recommend "a Vonnegut" to the interested and uninitiated, it's going to be something like Breakfast of Champions from 1973.

T ...more

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Feb 23, 2011 Ian "Marvin" Graye rated it it was amazing

Shelves: vonnegut, re-read, read-2016, reviews, reviews-5-stars

Breakfast of Champignons

Now It Can Be Told, Thank God

So I finished reading this novel soon after I arrived at my hotel, and I thought I’d better write a review while it was still fresh in my mind. But, first, I decided to go down to the cocktail lounge for a drink. All the seats at the bar were taken, so I had to sit by myself at a table for four.

The waitress took my order. A dry martini. When she returned, she placed it before me and said, “Here it is. The breakfast of champions!”

I sucked on t ...more

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Dec 16, 2008 Manny rated it it was ok

When I read this novel as a teenager, I remember finding the following paragraph strikingly witty:

1492. As children we were taught to memorize this year with pride and joy as the year people began living full and imaginative lives on the continent of North America. Actually, people had been living full and imaginative lives on the continent of North America for hundreds of years before that. 1492 was simply the year sea pirates began to rob, cheat, and kill them.

Though since then, the point has ...more

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Mar 07, 2011 Darwin8u rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2017

“in nonsense is strength”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions

description

Sometimes, I think of Breakfast of Champions as top shelf Vonnegut (five stars). Sometimes I think of it as second shelf Vonnegut (four stars). I think it could exist easily on both shelves. Since I own a couple copies, and have read it a couple times, I will forever physically keep it on two shelves (Library of America on one, Laurel Mass-Market Paperback on a lower shelf). The Laurel Mass-Market is also the one I try to bribe and ...more

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May 13, 2016 Apatt rated it really liked it

Shelves: mainstream

Listen:
What the hell was that?
I finished reading Breakfast of Champions, closed the book, went to Goodreads, stared at that big empty review box, ate a cookie, stared at the screen some more, hands hovering over the keyboard, not moving.
And so on.

Now, if you are thinking “what is that stupid paragraph above?” Don’t worry about it.

My Achilles heel as a reader of modern fiction is that I don’t cope well with unconventional narrative styles. Streams of consciousness, omitted quotation marks, massiv ...more

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Dec 27, 2011 MJ Nicholls rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: art-or-illustrated, merkins, novels

The House of Trouts:

Kilgore Trout’s latest book, World’s Funniest Thermonuclear Accidents, was forthcoming from Michael O’Mara. He shared a bathroom with Kilgore Trout, whose latest book, Complications in the Chrono-Synclastic Infundibulum, had forthcome from Yale Press. The two Trouts co-rented a kitchen with Kilgore Trout, whose book I Was a Teenage Obergruppenführer, had not found a publisher. All three Trouts did not read each other’s books and did not discuss literary matters at all. When o ...more

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Feb 06, 2011 Jason rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: dead-tree-edition, for-kindle, 2011, reviewed

He was a graduate of West Point. West Point was a military academy that turned young men into homicidal maniacs for use in war.

Another brilliant ride through Vonnegut-land. Part comedy, part searing social satire, this book has its fourth wall broken more than any other book I’ve read. At times, I may not have understood where it was going or what the “point” was, but it certainly left me satisfied. Also, I am now completely convinced of Mr. Vonnegut’s influence over Douglas Adams.

The Creator of ...more

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Apr 20, 2013 Vit Babenco rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

What is life we live from day to day? What do we eat at breakfast? How do we cope with our problems and what are we doing for fun? What dreams do we dream and what ideas do we have in our heads?
“The things other people have put into my head, at any rate, do not fit together nicely, are often useless and ugly, are out of proportion with one another, are out of proportion with life as it really is outside my head.”
Some obey God, some obey government, some obey voices in their head and some obey no ...more

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Jul 28, 2018 Bradley rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2018-shelf, sci-fi, satire

It's really indecent how much I like this book. It's nearly as indecent as how Vonnegut treated his character Kilgore Trout.

Mind you, he doesn't rob, cheat or abuse the character in the traditional sense. In fact, the author shows up, treats the damn guy to success, wealth and fame, tells him he's gonna win some fancy awards in the future, and he does it only because he can.

What a damn jerk.

I mean, look at all these other SF authors other than Kilgore Trout who spend their lives writing stories ...more

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Feb 11, 2012 Nathan "N.R." Gaddis added it · review of another edition

Shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, tits.

ASSHOLE.

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May 03, 2014 Daniel Clausen rated it it was amazing

Biting satire, crude drawings, crazy characters--a deliciously low-brow humor. This is an amazing accomplishment.

Who is Kilgore Trout? I’m Kilgore Trout, you’re Kilgore Trout. He is every hack writing who ever felt overwhelmed by his creativity and underwhelmed by his talent. He is anyone who has ever tried and failed. I suppose there is a little Trout in all of us, especially if you like seafood.

One of the great things about the book is Kilgore Trout’s endless imagination and his ability to c ...more

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Aug 06, 2018 Iulia rated it really liked it

Shelves: read-2018, 100-books-to-read-in-a-lifetime

I'm confused.

I was thrown (or more accurately, threw myself) into Kurt Vonnegut's work blindly and completely unprepared. After finishing Breakfast of Champions , a book about nothing in particular and which doesn't necessarily lead anywhere, I was left with the distinct impression that I am yet unable to fully grasp and appreciate Vonnegut's humor and satire. In a less than shocking twist of fate however, I happen to love books that challenge me, and I've already formulated a plan to devour Vo ...more

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Mar 18, 2007 Oriana rated it it was amazing

Shelves: perennialfavorites, phenomenal, read-for-work, read-2010

Why Kurt Vonnegut is a genius:

As for the story itself, it was entitled "The Dancing Fool." Like so many Trout stories, it was about a tragic failure to communicate.

Here was the plot: A flying saucer creature named Zog arrived on Earth to explain how wars could be prevented and how cancer could be cured. He brought the information from Margo, a planet where the natives conversed by means of farts and tap dancing.

Zog landed at night in Connecticut. He had no sooner touched down than he saw a hous ...more

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May 25, 2007 Beth Kleinman rated it liked it

I should have liked this book more. It's about as "Vonnegut" as Vonnegut books go - with Kilgore Trout as a leading character, and Vonnegut mixing his views into the narrative to the point of eventually inserting himself, as author, into the story. And, of course, the book is filled with Vonnegut's humorous drawings and ability to return to an earlier observation in a way not unlike an incisive stand-up comedian. A modern-day Mark Twain, Vonnegut has been one of my favorite authors for years. So ...more

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Sep 18, 2014 Brian Yahn rated it liked it

Kurt Vonnegut famously graded all of his books. He gave Breakfast of Champions a C, and probably it deserves it.

Although there's plenty to appreciate in terms of wit and humor, and although there's a few genius scenes, as a whole this satire doesn't compare with Cat's Cradle, Slaughterhouse Five, or The Sirens of Titan. Where those books excel in clarity and being easy to follow, this one fails in a disorganized, meandering mess.

As with everything Vonnegut wrote, reading it feels more like exper ...more

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Jan 19, 2014 El rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: biddles, 20th-centurylit-late, science-fictiony, read-in-a-blink

I shouldn't like this book. It does things that I've disliked other modern writers for doing, authors like Adam Levin or Dave Eggers. I don't like excessive cleverness that smells like pretension. I think a story can usually stand on its own without illustrations of staplers, and if it cannot then it probably wasn't a very good story to start. I don't care for bells and whistles - they're loud and distracting and jarring.

Kurt Vonnegut might be the Godfather of Bells and Whistles. And, by god, he I shouldn't like this book. It does things that I've disliked other modern writers for doing, authors like Adam Levin or Dave Eggers. I don't like excessive cleverness that smells like pretension. I think a story can usually stand on its own without illustrations of staplers, and if it cannot then it probably wasn't a very good story to start. I don't care for bells and whistles - they're loud and distracting and jarring.

Kurt Vonnegut might be the Godfather of Bells and Whistles. And, by god, he managed to do it without being insufferable. And, holy shit, he actually had something to say along the way.

Years ago I had surgery which took me out of commission for a while. I was staying with my boyfriend during my recovery, and we had only been together for about a month or two at the time. I wasn't able to work, I had a gaping wound, and so my days basically consisted of popping pain pills and sleeping during the day and then being up late at night. While I was up at night, I'd peruse this guy's bookshelves. It was then that I read the shit out of some Vonnegut. Somehow I never got around to reading this one - either it wasn't on my boyfriend's shelf at the time or maybe I healed up enough to be able to go back to work at that point and just never got to it.

But now, years later, in a different apartment, surrounded by different dogs, under different circumstances (ie, no gaping wound, no pain pills), I find myself up after 1 in the morning finishing off another Vonnegut book. The only thing that is the same is the boyfriend himself, in another room, sound asleep.

I think Vonnegut is the sort of author that deserves to be read in one sitting, preferably at night. No distractions. Vonnegut was a master writer, playing tricks on his readers and creating dimensions between his characters that most authors are not skilled enough or confident enough to be able to pull off.

For all intents and purposes, based on my history reading other authors who clearly were inspired by Vonnegut but failed because they thought they were being too cute, I should hate this book. But I don't. Maybe it speaks to my disdain for most of society, maybe I feel something for the schizophrenic narrator.

Mostly, though, I think it just feels like home, reading Vonnegut. Kilgore Trout is practically family. ...more

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Mar 21, 2009 Erin Martin rated it it was amazing

Shelves: childhood

This was the first Vonnegut book I read, when I was 13. I chose it from the ones my mother had because, when scanning through, I noticed the little drawings. I am so grateful that those little drawings made me choose this book first. Since then, after reading many others, I know it was definitely the best to introduce me to the Vonnegut genre. It is lighthearted and funny, yet full of moments where the characters achieve great inner reflection, causing the reader to do the same. Vonnegut changed ...more

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topics	posts	views	last activity
Reading 1001: Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.	2	17	Dec 27, 2018 03:53AM
Goodreads Librari...: Correction	1	7	Dec 24, 2018 01:53PM
Around the Year i...: Breakfast of Champions, or Goodbye Blue Monday, by Kurt Vonnegut	3	61	Jun 17, 2018 03:48PM
Lit Chicks Podcast: Breakfast of Champions	1	4	May 28, 2018 06:58AM
Mentor Texts: Mentor Texts	1	8	Dec 11, 2017 05:17AM
Goodreads Librari...: Edition information challenged	4	28	May 12, 2017 12:11PM
Colaboradores para blog de cultura pop	1	5	Apr 19, 2017 05:12PM

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About Kurt Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut

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Kurt Vonnegut, Junior was an American novelist, satirist, and most recently, graphic artist. He was recognized as New York State Author for 2001-2003.

He was born in Indianapolis, later the setting for many of his novels. He attended Cornell University from 1941 to 1943, where he wrote a column for the student newspaper, the Cornell Daily Sun. Vonnegut trained as a chemist and worked as a journali ...more

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Trivia About Breakfast of Cham...

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Quotes from Breakfast of Cham...

“We are healthy only to the extent that our ideas are humane.” — 448 likes

“Kilgore Trout once wrote a short story which was a dialogue between two pieces of yeast. They were discussing the possible purposes of life as they ate sugar and suffocated in their own excrement. Because of their limited intelligence, they never came close to guessing that they were making champagne.” — 376 likes

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