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    Breakfast of Champions: Or Goodbye Blue Monday
    Unavailable
    Breakfast of Champions: Or Goodbye Blue Monday
    Unavailable
    Breakfast of Champions: Or Goodbye Blue Monday
    Audiobook5 hours

    Breakfast of Champions: Or Goodbye Blue Monday

    Written by Kurt Vonnegut

    Narrated by Stanley Tucci

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Breakfast of Champions is vintage Vonnegut. One of his favorite characters, aging writer Kilgore Trout, finds to his horror that a Midwest car dealer is taking his fiction as truth.

    The result 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.

    A HarperAudio production.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateMay 4, 2004
    ISBN9780060764234
    Unavailable
    Breakfast of Champions: Or Goodbye Blue Monday
    Author

    Kurt Vonnegut

    Kurt Vonnegut was a master of contemporary American Literature. His black humor, satiric voice, and incomparable imagination first captured America's attention in The Siren's of Titan in 1959 and established him as ""a true artist"" with Cat's Cradle in 1963. He was, as Graham Greene has declared, ""one of the best living American writers.""

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    Reviews for Breakfast of Champions

    4/5

    4,381 ratings99 reviews

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    • 4/5
      I've only read two Vonnegut books, and as this one is a bit of a 50th birthday exercise for KV to say goodbye to his characters (as Jefferson freed his slaves at age 50, apparently), my impression may not be an altogether true one. But it is this: Kurt Vonnegut only really writes one book, it gets new chapters from time to time, it is brilliantly different in that the perspective is a special sort of 4th wall meets omniscient narration.
      I thought sections of BoC were beautifully mind-expanding. I became aware of how his work had influenced other writers I like (Phillip K Dick and Grant Morrison). If not everyone else... seriously - is any writer not a fan of KV? Probably, I'm just too lazy to google it.

      The pacing, and variance of theme, are beautiful in Breakfast of Champions. Also, a little personally therapeutic, on the author's part (I assume - along with his suggestion) riffing on the subjects of emotion, depression, suicide, and paternal legacy.

      The actual climax was dull compared to the build-up, I'm afraid. Otherwise I may have gone to 5 stars. Also, the idea that reading one KV book is such a similar experience to reading another is something that costs it a little charm for me. I like when an artist gives a different sort of picture, or variation enough to provoke you to keep walking in the gallery.

      Fully enjoyable. Happy to have chosen it as my vacation read. Goes well with sand and waves and mostly naked people walking around like that's perfectly normal.
    • 4/5
      It's 1972, remember. Authors are playing with the relationship between author as Creator and Creator as defunct. Gunther Grass, in Cat and Mouse (by memory - as I can't find my copy) flings the skies across the heavens in an act of authorial creativity at around the same time Vonnegut was calling Trout and Hoover ex nihilo. It makes a point, perhaps. Vonnegut makes many points in this romp. Some he makes well, others I sense he loses control of. He parodies much of the malaise of 1970s americana, though he overdoes penis size. We end up with escapism-with-meaning. Vonnegut can do better - but many have done worse.
    • 3/5
      maybe my steady diet of Vonnegut has raised my expectations ? so far Bluebeard and Player Piano are my favorites !
    • 4/5
      This was my first Vonnegut novel (I previously had only read some of his short fiction) and I really enjoyed it. His writing style is unlike anyone else's in a delightful -- though perhaps "acquired taste" -- sort of way. This book satirizes American culture and makes some vitally important statements about racism and other social ills that feel timely today, decades after its publication.
    • 3/5
      Kurt Vonnegut is a weird dude. This book is all but impossible to fit into a category of literature, but I suppose Science Fiction is as close as you can get. The book is basically the story of a few rather pathetic characters and their meandering lives working toward an intersection. Vonnegut puts himself into the story as the creator of the characters and throughout the story he tells you what is going to happen at the end. I am not sure if there are any real lesson to be learned from this novel, but it certainly makes the reader think about humanity and who really controls our lives.
    • 5/5
      I love this book.
    • 4/5
      Different. Refreshing.
    • 5/5
      Technically I had finished this just before going out with Sara and then over to Pizza Boy; but I'm only now getting to put it up as finished.

      Breakfast of Champions has always been one of my favorite Vonnegut reads. The 'attacks' heaved against America by Vonnegut were spot on then.... and (sadly) still spot on. His comments and views on the race issues of then and (still) today are just as true and just as poignant.

      His other statements against commercialism, the rich vs. the poor, how our minds work, etc, are all still very strong, true, and resonate greatly. This is Vonnegut in ultra-cynic mode too, maybe not as much as when he wrote 'A Man Without a Country' but still very cynical of the US, of people, and of our philosophies and ideas.
    • 5/5
      My second Vonnegut read. I was not in the least disappointed. I loved this book! It was absolutely insane.
    • 5/5
      I thought this book accomplished an amazing thing. It portrayed humanity in all its grotesqueness, stupidity, irrationality, insanity, and cruelty, and yet still convinced me that we are, each of us, "unwavering bands of light." This was the perfect read at the perfect time for me, still as relevant in 2016 as it was when it was written. And John Malkovich did a fantastic job as narrator.
    • 4/5
      Thus far one of the best discoveries of reading through the 1001 book list is Vonnegut. Breakfast of Champions is written in his signature style of short simple sentences. My take away from this book was concerns about mechanistic explanations for humanity and how much (if any) free-will the majority of us have.
    • 5/5
      At a time when a dominant trend in fiction seems to be to express familiar things in a complex way, it's refreshing to return to a writer who so obviously attempts the opposite. From the outset, the narrative is pitched in a matter-of-fact manner that enhances rather than diminishes the content, and the inclusion of the author's illustrations adds to the diarist/textbook style. With this being Vonnegut, plenty of satirical punches arise using these devices, and these literary blows are placed with effective precision. With a postmodern flourish, the narrative also moves on to include scenes featuring the narrator/author (but, despite the cameo appearances of characters from other Vonnegut novels, I wouldn't rush to the conclusion that the authored author is Vonnegut himself). 'Breakfast of Champions' is a little zany, and a little bit of its own time, but still sufficiently fresh to make it a worthwhile read more than 40 years after first being published.
    • 4/5
      My fourth Vonnegut read this year, and fifth overall. I'm not tiring of him yet. While not everyone loves him, he has quite a devoted following and I can see why -- I love his brand of humor and keen observations.
    • 3/5
      Vonnegut deliberately avoids resolution in this story, which might have seemed avaunt-garde and au courant back in 1974, but now it just makes me weary. Other than that nitpick, this is an enjoyable read -- but it doesn't stand up to the other KV books I've read. This book is more fun to read if you're familiar with the concept of the p-zombie ("philosophical zombie") before you read it.
    • 5/5
      Breakfast of Champions is a great fun read. It's still hilarious years later and the drawings are insulting to the norm which only adds to the feel of the book. Poor Kilgore and crazy Dwayne are the main stars of this book. Mixed in are other minor characters, are interwoven together and even the author himself makes an appearance. I think if you try to read too much into a book like this you're going to get frustrated. Everything can have a double or triple meaning but just take it for what it is and you'll enjoy it. "You are on par with the Creator of the Universe."
    • 4/5
      If you see anyone here who doesn't like the book, it's because they don't get postmodernism. Yes, this is a postmodernist book, if you are uncomfortable reading a satire of the world, then you should probably go read something naturalist instead. Don't complain that the book is bad because you "don't get it". If you do like postmodernism, this is a hilarious novel, quite absorbing, read well, and well written. The characterisation is on point. There's very little I would improve, for what it is, it does its job well.
    • 2/5
      I had a hard time getting into the book. The book explains why is is written with so many useless tangents that eventually reach some consistency although I found the resolution underwhelming.

      There is a point where I was genuinely interested in the book although it was brief and too far in the book to make a difference for me. Other people may enjoy it but it was definitely not to my tastes.
    • 2/5
      There's usually a comforting kind of consistency with Kurt Vonnegut's books – they're never my favourites, with the characterisation being too shallow for that – but they're witty, left-wing, and usually just kinda fun.

      Unfortunately, I didn't find this one as fun. I kept getting the characters mixed up and then it all got a bit silly at the end.
    • 4/5
      I'm really starting to love Kurt Vonnegut. I can't really explain why this book was so amusing. It's just the artist's writing style. This is the story of failed science fiction author, Kilgore Trout, who is attending an arts festival, and car salesman, Wayne Hoover, who becomes obsessed with his writing. When the two meet, Hoover will lose his mind and go on a violent rampage, and Trout will be given free will by the author himself. Very odd, very insightful, very funny!
    • 4/5
      This book is a crazy, seeming to head in all different directions. It covers a lot of social issues and much is about free will. It kind of makes fun of everything and is pretty 'out there' a lot. The way it is highlights how ridiculous things are in real life.
    • 5/5
      Extremely funny, bizarre and charming.
    • 4/5
      An absurdist, rambling satire on America, madness, and writing.
    • 3/5
      Heads would explode if this was assigned on campus today.
    • 4/5
      Kurt Vonnegut wrote some of the best and most depressing books of the Twentieth Century. I've read three Vonnegut books now and I've needed to go on suicide watch after each one. "Breakfast of Champions" covers a rich white man and his descent into madness and annihilation, and other fun topics. Kilgore Trout makes a welcome appearance and things turn out for him not as horrible as one fears. Some great storytelling but remember to have the anti-depressants on hand.
    • 3/5
      This is the third Vonnegut book I've read...and possibly one that makes me feel he was a bit unstable himself. In Slaughterhouse Five, I thought everyone was purposefully crazy to give the impression that war is crazy (like Catch-22). Welcome to Monkey House was a selection of short stories, which I felt were excellent...but this was jut like crazy after crazy. Entertaining book to be sure. And I loved the digs at american history and culture. But crazy!! :)
    • 3/5
      I probably should have read more of his work before attempting this. "The planet was being destroyed by manufacturing processes, and what was being manufactured was lousy, by and large."
    • 4/5
      As Vonnegut approaches his 50th birthday, he desires some interaction with the characters he's created over the years, most notably Kilgore Trout. He arranges for a series of events to bring them face to face so that Vonnegut can bestow upon Trout the best gift one can give a fictional character. Meanwhile, vast amounts of things such as trademarks and penis size are held up to Vonnegut's inimitable satirical lens. It is recommended that one have at least a passing familiarity with Vonnegut and his conventions and characters before attempting this. A very worthwhile read.
    • 3/5
      Bought this book in 1980 in former Joegoslavia. did not finish it then and understand know why. sometimes its funny but parts are also boring. The messages all of us is chemistry and you create your universe are prominent through the book. Relieve that it is finished is not a great recommandation
    • 4/5
      Thus far one of the best discoveries of reading through the 1001 book list is Vonnegut. Breakfast of Champions is written in his signature style of short simple sentences. My take away from this book was concerns about mechanistic explanations for humanity and how much (if any) free-will the majority of us have.
    • 2/5
      So very disappointed by Kurt Vonnegut's "Breakfast of Champions"... I've loved everything else by Vonnegut and generally find his black humor right up my alley.I chuckled my way through the beginning of the book and expected a delightful ride. But it went off the rails for me and the story, which is a conglomeration of weird and separate elements (as per usual) never really gelled very well.