- Paperback: 320 pages
- Publisher: Delta (May 1999)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0385334206
- ISBN-13: 978-0385334204
- Product Dimensions: 13.4 x 1.7 x 20.3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 565,578 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Breakfast of Champions (Kurt Vonnegut Series)
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Product Description
Book Description
'After Vonnegut, everything else seems a bit tame' Spectator
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
edition.
Product Description
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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First Sentence
THIS IS A TALE of a meeting of two lonesome, skinny, fairly old white men on a planet which was dying fast. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt
THIS IS A TALE of a meeting of two lonesome, skinny, fairly old white men on a planet which was dying fast. Read the first page
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
21 of 21 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I'm not entirely sure how or why I came across this delightful book, but I am thankful that I did. The illustrations really do help to elevate this book into utter hillarity, as do the insane characters, which upon first impression don't seem central to the plot at all. Eventually though, everything comes together in what has to be one of the most bizarre endings I have ever read. Things that happen in this book just dont occur in other books. One of these things for example, is Vonneguts actual omnipotent presence in the book, he places himself in the story (with all the characters he has created at his mercy) to describe it like this in an amzon review does not do it justice.
Alltogether a briliant read, Happy 50th Kurt.
And so on.
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is it, this is the book that proves that literature still has something to offer. Vonnegut's style easily peaks in Breakfast of Champions, with the most humorous pathos known to man, making even satiric masters like Swift green with envy. Through his almost child like perception of modernity, Vonnegut strips down life to its bare essentials, and shows humanity for the inhumane thing it is. Vonnegut is the only man who can make me laugh whilst depressing me at the same.
36 of 40 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
You know that anything goes once you pick up a work by the zany and terrific Kurt Vonnegut. The man knows how to dish up satire like none other. He'll spew out his complaints about the government, the world, people, etc., and instead of making it sound like a bunch of inane ranting he uses all of that to create a crazy world filled with outrageous characters and situations. "Breakfast of Champions" is an off-the-wall novel that is about 300 pages of pure hilarity and comedic chaos. Some of the most outrageous characters lie within this masterpiece.
Listen: This story revolves mainly around two characters. There's Kilgore Trout who is an aging and bitter sci-fi writer that nobody has ever heard of (except for one person). His stories have only appeared in very adult magazines. So naturally, he has "doodley-squat" to show for it. The other person that this story is about is a car dealer by the name of Dwayne Hoover, a man that everyone in town considers a "fabulously well-to-do" person. Dwayne is losing his mind and is ever so gracefully slipping into the cozy and wonderful world of insanity. What pushes him over the edge will take place when the two meet and Hoover takes one of Trout's literary works as reality. The results are unforgettable and hilariously disturbing in this dark and offbeat tale of the flawed human beings who are destroying Mother Earth.
This amazingly written book is completely ADDICTING. I easily finished it within a week. Once you start you do not want to stop reading until you have finished. Very rarely does a book have the power to make me laugh aloud so frequently and carelessly. People must've thought I was on something when they saw me laugh so uncontrollably while reading this in public. Vonnegut's commentary as the overall storyteller provides us with such an enriching voice that really is the star of the story. He has also created some of the most memorable and certifiably insane characters ever to be witnessed by the world of fiction. Vonnegut cleverly attacks everything that is wrong in society and he does it in such a funny and witty way. His illustrations also add a lot to the story as well.
Reading a book like "Breakfast of Champions" reminds me why I want to be a writer. It also reminds me why we read in the first place. It is definitely a classic that stands on its own and will never EVER be duplicated. If you're looking for a "fabulously well-to-do" satirist that will never conform to the norm, Kurt Vonnegut is your man. If you have not read this book yet, I highly encourage you to check it out a.s.a.p.! It may not be your ordinary novel, but that's more the reason to read it, now isn't it? A definite new favourite that I will read again and again. -Michael Crane
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Dog's dinner
Part memoir, part novel, part experimental meta-narrative, "Breakfast of Champions" is a jumbled assortment of literary devices and imagination rolled into a book peppered with... Read more
Published 6 days ago by Sam Quixote
Despairingly bleak
I'd always heard Vonnegut had an ability to 'create' a new type of book but this new genre leaves me with a bitter taste in a my mouth. Read more
Published 8 months ago by Joseph Cantillon
fun
Breakfast of Champions perfectly balances cynicism, the deconstruction of fiction and comedy. His cynicism is never self-righteous 'cause he turns it into a joke. Read more
Published 15 months ago by Max Coombes
Vonnegut's unique mixture of hilarity and bitterness
Breakfast of Champions was Vonnegut's self-described "fiftieth birthday present to himself", and it's a more self-indulgent and loosely constructed book than his earlier novels. Read more
Published 22 months ago by Paul Bowes
Present
I bought this as a present for my dad. My Dad and myself both love Kurt Vonnegut's work, and I'm sure this book will live up to our expectations.
Published 22 months ago by Rosie
A hillarious account of the American dream and reality but Vonnegut is...
Meine Schweiz.: Ein Lesebuch for the USA. It's surreal, it's short, and it's a thoroughly enjoyable account of Americana from a true master. Read more
Published on 3 Nov 2009 by AK
Champion, our Maurice
My first Vonnegut but leading to many more. Seeming simple but not, really. I love the way he's dispensed with all the tedious parts of novel writing and just cut to the... Read more
Published on 13 July 2009 by P. Nagle
MUCH more than it seems.
Reading some of the blandly negative reviews on the site, I felt I should say something about the book - which is a great one, from what I can tell. Read more
Published on 27 Feb 2009 by Ryan R. Ashe
The only Vonnegut book I don't like
Yes, Vonnegut is a genius, one of the greatest ever authors, and he'll always be in my top 10 writers list, but just because of all the other masterpieces it doesn't mean... Read more
Published on 25 Feb 2009 by Blackhorse47
Listen:
Sordid, repellant, charming, witting, full of interesting insight and eminently readable. And so on.
It does make you wonder if this ever happened to Kurt.
It does make you wonder if this ever happened to Kurt.
Published on 10 Sep 2008 by D. Bowtell
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