Rating: 
Summary: Not his best (in my opinion)
Review: Although this book has it's high points, like Vonnegut's humorous observations about America, it isn't as good as Cat's Cradle or Slaugherhouse-Five. The reason for this is because the author literally tells you how the book ends, numerous times. Very disappointing.
Rating: 
Summary: You Owe Yourself This Great Read!
Review: Breakast of Champions was a book that Kurt Vonnegut wrote for hlmself as a 50 year old birthday present. Having reached half a century of this life, he had decided that it was time to let all of his 'repeat' characters - characters that showed up in several different novels of his - finally go. It's also the story of Dwayne Hoover and how the chemicals in his brain made him believe he was the only living human on the planet, a test by God, and that everyone else was a robot, a machine. And it talks a lot about beavers and penis size.
If you have never read this novel before, I can honestly say this is something you have never seen the likes of. Vonnegut's novel comes replete with drawings, absurd non-sequirors, and a good dose of both laughter and heartbreak. His often simplified language reveals myraids of information - when it comes to less meaning more, Vonnegut is a true artist. He can fit more emotion (both good and bad) into one sentence than most modern novelists can manage in an entire chapter.
The story itself tells the tale of two men, destined to meet, and change each other's lives forever. Why? Because the author wanted them to. How do I know this? He himself appears in the penultimate scene in which they meet; he realizes they are both just staring at him, and then rememebers that's because they're waiting for him to give them something to do or say. The two men, Dwayne Hoover (the man with the bad chemicals in his brain that make him slowly go crazy) and Kilgore Trout (the most frequently used character in Vonnegut's previous ouevre) meet at The Festival of the Arts in Midland City, where the incredibly wealthy Dwayne Hoover lives and runs a car dealership. (There is also a Wayne Hoobler in the story, but that's not important right now.) Trout is the author of the book Now It Can Be Told! that, upon reading, makes Dwayne Hoover crazy. Trout's book takes the form of a letter from the Creator of the Universe addressed to the reader, assuring him that he/she is the only real human on the planet, and that everyone else is a machine designed to test him. Their are loving machines and hating machines and sports machines and war machines and lying machines, etc. The reader is the only one with true freedom and choice and feeling. To many readers of such a book, they would think it clever and perhaps even funny. For Dwayne Hoover it becomes the Gospel truth.
The book is about many other things as well, and to give too much away would be criminal. But I can tell you that, no matter how hard you try not to, you will laugh at some point at this book, and you will feel incredible sadness at others. And you won't know exactly how or why Vonnegut is able to achieve this. Therein lies his magic. Read it and see for yourself! Another quick Amazon pick I'd like to recommend is The Losers' Club by Richard Perez -- another exceptional book, truly wonderful.
Rating:
Summary: America Is...
Review: Breakfast of Champions is a celebration of having found something valuable in an immense heap of trash, and a lamentation of lost opportunity and injustice confused with superior morals. The search theme overwhelms the narrative; the narrator, Vonnegut in his own voice, carefully examines what he sees and tries his best to make sense of it. This process is a bit subtle; take a look, for example, at all the mirrorings (Hoover and Hoobler, for example), and all the reflections of vulgarity and immanence (where taking a leak means stealing a mirror). Vonnegut holds up to the reader the most repulsive aspects of human life, and American life, and insists the reader look at it and recognize it for what it is.
Is it trash? Are we machines? Bands of light? Are storytellers responsible for the trouble we find ourselves in, or ourselves repeating stupid stories we're supposed to believe in? Vonnegut alternately pleads with you to answer these questions, and confronts you with them.
Very few stories look good after this. The stories that justify racism, sexism, homophobia, corporate environmental plunder, crappy art, the excesses of capitalist exploitation and warfare and hunger and virtually any kind of abuse Vonnegut throws out the window. The trouble is that they land right in the drinking water (pollution of Sugar Creek). Even Maharishi Mahesh Yogi gets a thumb in the eye, and folks who (in V's view) undermine humanity by thinking of human bodies as machines.
It's a great piece of folk art, folks, as relevant to US culture now as it was in 1973.
Rating:
Summary: A Breath of Fresh Air
Review: Breakfast of Champions was a book that Kurt Vonnegut wrote for himself as a present for his 50th birthday. Having reached half a century of this life, he had decided that it was time to let all of his repeated characters (characters that showed up in several different novels of his) finally go. Vonnegut combines satire, insanity, chaos, and literature into an amazingly fast-moving book that is hilarious, disturbing, wild, and undeniably true. It depicts modern life from a distance, as if explaining it to an extraterrestrial. Through this viewpoint, the reader can realize how many of the things people do are ridiculouse.
The book follows the odyssey of an oddball science fiction writer named Kilgore Trout. The reader follows Kilgore from his melancholy childhood in Bermuda to the sleazy underside of New York City, and eventually to a dangerous encounter with a Midwestern car dealer called Dwayne Hoover, a man on the brink of going insane. Vonnegut weaves through the lives of various characters, yet still to bring more focus onto Hoover and Trout and the path that follows. The descriptions and backgrounds that hover around each character give "Breakfast of Champions" an unexpectedly smooth plot where everything comes together in the end. That effect causes an explosive, satisfying moment of thought after the reader finishes the last page of the novel. There is clearly a message, but the exact message is not clear; it's definitely open to interpretation.
Being a profane, naughty, yet profoundly spiritual book, "Breakfast of Champions" is a good recommendation to anybody searching for something new and original. The writing style is sleek, quick, and sarcastic. Vonnegut writes the entire book as though he were somebody seeing something for the first time, and rather than explaining the feelings to the reader, as most would, he simply states what he sees, leaving the reader to associate their own feelings into the story. For anybody tired of ridiculous modern literature, Breakfast of Champions is much like a breath of fresh air.
Rating:
Summary: MUST BE Experienced!
Review: BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS was a book that Kurt Vonnegut wrote for hlmself as a 50 year old birthday present. Having reached half a century of this life, he had decided that it was time to let all of his 'repeat' characters - characters that showed up in several different novels of his - finally go. It's also the story of Dwayne Hoover and how the chemicals in his brain made him believe he was the only living human on the planet, a test by God, and that everyone else was a robot, a machine. And it talks a lot about beavers and penis size.
If you have never read this novel before, I can honestly say this is something you have never seen the likes of. Vonnegut's novel comes replete with drawings, absurd non-sequirors, and a good dose of both laughter and heartbreak. His often simplified language reveals myraids of information - when it comes to less meaning more, Vonnegut is a true artist. He can fit more emotion (both good and bad) into one sentence than most modern novelists can manage in an entire chapter.
The story itself tells the tale of two men, destined to meet, and change each other's lives forever. Why? Because the author wanted them to. How do I know this? He himself appears in the penultimate scene in which they meet; he realizes they are both just staring at him, and then remembers that's because they're waiting for him to give them something to do or say. The two men, Dwayne Hoover (the man with the bad chemicals in his brain that make him slowly go crazy) and Kilgore Trout (the most frequently used character in Vonnegut's previous ouevre) meet at The Festival of the Arts in Midland City, where the incredibly wealthy Dwayne Hoover lives and runs a car dealership. (There is also a Wayne Hoobler in the story, but that's not important right now.) Trout is the author of the book Now It Can Be Told! that, upon reading, makes Dwayne Hoover crazy. Trout's book takes the form of a letter from the Creator of the Universe addressed to the reader, assuring him that he/she is the only real human on the planet, and that everyone else is a machine designed to test him. Their are loving machines and hating machines and sports machines and war machines and lying machines, etc. The reader is the only one with true freedom and choice and feeling. To many readers of such a book, they would think it clever and perhaps even funny. For Dwayne Hoover it becomes the Gospel truth.
The book is about many other things as well, and to give too much away would be criminal. But I can tell you that, no matter how hard you try not to, you will laugh at some point at this book, and you will feel incredible sadness at others. And you won't know exactly how or why Vonnegut is able to achieve this. Therein lies his magic. So pick up a copy! Along with this book, I recommmend two other fun titles: THE LOSERS CLUB by Richard Perez, (...) by Tom Grimes
Rating:
Summary: Trout... better here then in Fish and Stream
Review: If you're an advit Vonnegut reader you know damn well who Kilgoure Trout. So it's no suprise you want to find a little bit more about him. This book is the definitive Kilgoure Trout book I believe, and has the same effect on this character that the Enacapatian Proclamantion would have had on Kunto Kenta. Vonnegut frees his character in this book, Which I found to be something no other author could pull off.
Plus Bill, Trout's bird is quite possibly the greatest Bird in a book sense Robinson Crusoe's Parrot.
It's worth your time - if not for the cross dressing Harry LaSabre alone.
* <--- and you will never look at that the same.
Rating:
Summary: Weird and wonderful: pure Vonnegut
Review: Kurt Vonnegut's novel "Breakfast of Champions" follows the odyssey of oddball science fiction writer Kilgore Trout from his melancholy childhood in Bermuda, to the sleazy underside of New York City, and eventually to a fateful encounter with car dealer Wayne Hoover, a man "on the brink of going insane." Within this framework Vonnegut weaves an amazing satiric tapestry that looks at racism, mental illness, environmental crises, the nature and function of art, and many other issues. The book is filled with Vonnegut's own quirky illustrations."Breakfast" is harsh, even cruel, but also tender and compassionate; it's laugh-out-loud funny, yet haunting and tragic. It's also a reality-warping metaphysical triumph; Vonnegut breaks down the barriers between reality and fiction, and invites the reader into the very process of the novel's creation. He creates a more intimate bond between author, reader, and fictional character than any other writer I can think of. Vonnegut presents some of American literature's most memorable characters in "Breakfast." But my favorite is undoubtedly Trout. Throughout the book we also get glimpses of Trout's own voluminous body of work, and meet some of his bizarre sci-fi characters. The book as a whole is also enriched by Vonnegut's unique style; he writes as if for an extraterrestrial audience to whom humanity is utterly alien. "Breakfast" is a profane, naughty, yet profoundly spiritual book. Filled with strange and vivid details, it's an oddly comforting modern-day testament for our fractured world. Thanks, Kurt.
Rating: 
Summary: Classic Vonnegut
Review: Kurt Vonnegut, in the Preface to this book, says "This book is my fiftieth birthday present to myself." The result is a novel which is a little lighter, a little less focused, and a little more witty than his other novels. One of the main characters of this novel is Kilgore Trout, a struggling (in fact, failed) writer who can only get his stories and novels published as filler for pornographic magazines and books. Anyone who has read Slaughterhouse Five by Vonnegut will recognize Trout's name--the main character of that novel, Billy Pilgrim, spends some time in a hospital next to a man (Eliot Rosewater) who is Trout's ONLY fan, and who has a private collection of Trout's work which is larger than the one Trout himself has.
Trout makes his appearance in this book when he departs for an arts festival in a small town called Midland City. There his path crosses with Dwayne Hoover, a car dealer who is already a little off his rocker and is soon to be made completely insane by Trout's writings, which he takes seriously. Though this was not my favorite of Vonnegut's novels, and though I did not enjoy the story as much as some of his other works, I could not help enjoying this book. Vonnegut is a superb writer, a true master of his craft. The drawings he includes are funny and add to the overall satirical effect of the book. Vonnegut perhaps included that part about the book being a birthday present so it wouldn't be taken as seriously as some of his other novels. I think the best part of this book is that it seems like Vonnegut wrote it just for the sake of writing, and that he didn't care what anyone would think of it. Breakfast of Champions certainly is not the masterpiece that Slaughterhouse Five or Cat's Cradle are, but it is nevertheless a very entertaining read.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Reading experience.
Review: Of all the Kurt Vonnegut books I have read, Breakfast of Champions is probably the wackiest. It depicts modern life from a distance, as if explaining it to an extraterrestrial. Through this viewpoint, the reader can realize how ridiculous much of what people do is! The book combines satire, insanity, chaos and literature into an amazingly fast-moving book that is hilarious, disturbing, wild and undeniably true. The focus of the novel is the important meeting between two men: a Midwestern car dealer named Dwayne Hoover and a prolific yet unknown science fiction writer named Kilgore Trout. What happens during this critical encounter is that Dwayne reads a book by Trout about how there is only one real human on Earth and everyone else is just a robot put there so the Creator of the Universe can observe his reactions. Unfortunately, Dwayne interprets this as the truth and goes crazy, believing himself totally surrounded by robots. Like some other Vonnegut books I have read, the outcome of the book - Dwayne's insanity due to Trout's book - is told from the very beginning and is mentioned throughout the novel as the date for their fateful meeting nears. Does knowing what will happen from the start ruin the enjoyment of the book? Not at all! In Breakfast of Champions , it is not the main event which is so funny, but everything leading up to it. As Trout journeys to meet Dwayne, we are introduced to some very funny and some very sad characters. It is these side characters, many playing a stereotypical role in society that form the backbone of Vonnegut's harsh commentary on American life. The writing style is sleek, quick and sarcastic. The book is divided up into rather short paragraphs, allowing for fast reading. It also features amusing illustrations by Vonnegut. A downside to Breakfast of Champions is that some might find it offensive. It is constantly raunchy. It also frankly mentions the (often offensive) views of some main characters on race. Of course, this must accepted in its context; it is a satirical work poking fun at America's preoccupation with sex and race. Still, a basic level of tolerance and a sense of humor is required. Finishing Breakfast of Champions left me with a smile on my face and very little idea of what had happened. I felt really confused at first; the quick moving book does seem chaotic and messy immediately after reading. It takes some time afterwards to absorb and to think about the book's meaning. There is clearly a message, but the exact message is not clear; it's definitely open to interpretation. There is so much to think about - an author's role as a Creator of the Universe, the lack of desire for free will, and the extent to which all people are like robots programmed to act a certain way. There is so much here to consider and keep your brain busy with! Much in the same vein as Breakfast of Champions, I like to recommend another satiric novel called WILL@epicqwest.com by Tom Grimes, also hilarious.
Rating: 
Summary: Trix are for kids
Review: Reading the average review of Breakfast of Champions, one gets the impression that this book must be at once uproariously funny, incisive in its social critism, and deeply philosophical. In truth, none of the above are even remotely applicable. Like Mark Twain, whom Vonnegut has often been likened to, Vonnegut's humor is largely based on tongue-in-cheek irreverence of the "Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" variety. The idea is to write a social critique from the perspective of a naive or unbiased outsider who is supposedly able to see things more clearly than everybody else. The outsider goes around pretending 'unwittingly' to expose absurdities, prejudices, and hypocrisy underlying various social conventions. The outsider in Breakfast of Champions is a narrator who writes about Earthlings as if he were an intergalactic traveller. The irreverent statements he makes are supposed to shock hypocrites, while those who are in-the-know titter away at the spectacle. Concerning power politics, for instance, Vonnegut writes: "[America] disciplined other countries by threatening to shoot big rockets at them or to drop things on them from airplanes." About racism he declares: "A Nigger was a human being who was black." Are you tittering? The 'philosophical' content of Breakfast of Champions, like the social commentary, is shallow and presented with a singular lack of eloquence; unlike the social commentary, it is incoherent rather than simplistic. The narrator is mainly concerned with the principle of determinism and how it relates to mental health, and the main characters in the novel serve as personifications of different aspects of this dilemma. Dwayne Hoover, a car dealer from the midwest, goes crazy after reading a novel by Kilgore Trout, a pessimistic science fiction writer. The novel is in the form of a letter from the Creator to the only person on the planet with free will. Hoover, already losing his marbles at the time of reading the story, takes it literally, and ends up injuring some of the other characters whom, in his orgy of solipsism, he has dismissed as "machines". The 'clever' reader is supposed to notice that the relationship between the Creator and the man with free will in Trout's novel is, on one level, an allegory of the relationship between a writer and the characters he creates. This is alluded to with increasing frequency until Vonnegut himself jumps into the novel to wreak havoc with the allegorical 'levels'. After being 'enlightened' via a speech by one of his characters about "awareness", Vonnegut tells the rest of the story about the Trout/Hoover encounter which personifies the author's personal triumph over madness. Vonnegut's intent seems to have been to show that though "awareness" is not a sufficient premise for free will, it nevertheless distances us from the spectre of determinism by implying that we are more than simply biological machinery. The concept is not tremendously profound, and that is probably why Vonnegut goes to such lengths to obfuscate the issue with ambiguous and/or conflicting statements throughout the novel. Of course he might be just writing carelessly. I have heard it proposed that the apparent incoherence of the novel is intentional in order to forestall any global interpretation of the book. People who support this view gleefully maintain that the point IS that there is NO point. This type of person will generally follow these remarks with something about how literature is written to evoke, not to explain; how the person searching for a 'purpose' in literature shows a fundamental lack of comprehension of what literature is.... And so on. Breakfast of Champions is tasteless "trash" (I am quoting Vonnegut's own appraisal of the book on p.6 - for once his bluntness is entirely apt), fortified with heaps of smug pretentiousness. If you can stomach this sort of junk, have it your way; for a real literary meal, look elsewhere.
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