Breakfast of Champions, or, Goodbye Blue Monday!

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Includes an interview with the author.
Compact disc.
Performed by Stanley Tucci.

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Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut (narrated by Stanley Tucci) submitted by patrice on November 16, 2009, 5:58pm Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut (narrated by Stanley Tucci)

Considered one of Vonnegut's landmark novels (along with Slaughterhouse-Five), Breakfast of Champions explores the life of two seemingly unrelated protagonists in Midland, Indiana: Kilgore Trout and Dwayne Hoover. Trout, a supposedly famous science fiction author, is on his way to Midland as the keynote speaker for an arts festival; Hoover, a Pontiac car salesman, is in a rut, so to speak.

The two only ever meet breiefly towards the end of the novel, right before Dwayne goes on a rampage, assaulting several people in a hotel lobby before carrying his rampage outside (the described path of destruction by Vonnegut reads almost like a treasure map). Essentially, Breakfast of Champions is Vonngeut's vehicle towards criticizing the "American Dream" and American way of life. His frank discussions of sex, violence, social issues, and the ouright surreal challenge our preconceived notions about understanding the human condition.

hilarious, but dated submitted by 21621031390949 on July 2, 2014, 8:13pm I reread this book, wondering how it would hold up after 30+ years. I found it to be sometimes hilarious, wonderful satire, totally enjoyable. But it also misogynistic and racist, in a way that is not at all acceptable now. At first, I thought it was all part of his satire, but the more I read and the more often he made sweeping generalizations using the N-word, the less comfortable I was with it. I guess this was okay in the early 70's, but it isn't today.