Breakfast of Champions

By: Kurt Vonnegut

Narrated by: John Malkovich

Audie Award Finalist, Best Male Narrator, 2016

Breakfast of Champions (1973) provides frantic, scattershot satire and a collage of Vonnegut's obsessions. His recurring cast of characters and American landscape was perhaps the most controversial of his canon; it was felt by many at the time to be a disappointing successor to Slaughterhouse-Five, which had made Vonnegut's literary reputation.

The core of the novel is Kilgore Trout, a familiar character very deliberately modeled on the science fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon (1918-1985), a fact that Vonnegut conceded frequently in interviews and that was based upon his own occasional relationship with Sturgeon. Here Kilgore Trout is an itinerant wandering from one science fiction convention to another; he intersects with the protagonist, Dwayne Hoover (one of Vonnegut's typically boosterish, lost, and stupid mid-American characters), and their intersection is the excuse for the evocation of many others, familiar and unfamiliar, dredged from Vonnegut's gallery. The central issue is concerned with intersecting and apposite views of reality, and much of the narrative is filtered through Trout, who is neither certifiably insane nor a visionary writer but can pass for either depending upon Dwayne Hoover's (and Vonnegut's) view of the situation.

America, when this novel was published, was in the throes of Nixon, Watergate, and the unraveling of our intervention in Vietnam; the nation was beginning to fragment ideologically and geographically, and Vonnegut sought to cram all of this dysfunction (and a goofy, desperate kind of hope, the irrational comfort given through the genre of science fiction) into a sprawling narrative whose sense, if any, is situational, not conceptual. Reviews were polarized; the novel was celebrated for its bizarre aspects and became the basis of a Bruce Willis movie adaptation whose reviews were not nearly so polarized. (Most critics hated it.)

Download the accompanying reference guide.©1973 Kurt Vonnegut (P)2015 Audible, Inc.

John Malkovich hates everyone

great story but John Malkovich doesn't seem to enjoy reading it. he has a really aggravated tone of voice and every time he describes an illustration he sounds like he wants to die.

Poor narration

I have read this book in the past and I when I saw who was narrating it, I thought, “great choice! I’ll listen. It was really disappointing. It felt like the narrator was cold reading. The phrasing was awkward and stilted. Every now and then he would find a flow and read a phrase well, but all in all it was impossible for me to keep listening to it. Too bad. Great book though. Maybe read it yourself instead of listening.

Not best Vonnegut, not great performance

I like Vonnegut but found this book a little lacklustre and lacked the crafted genius of his other books. I didn’t enjoy John Malkovich’s performance, for the most part. Felt like he was reading it for the first time. Happy I listened, as I’ve wanted to read this for a while, but wasn’t one of the better audiobooks I’ve listened to.

This is incredible

What did you love best about Breakfast of Champions?

This is classic, laugh-out-loud/bemoan-humanity's-fate Vonnegut, and the reading is fantastic. Don't let anyone tell you differently. If you love Vonnegut, this is a must-have audio book. And to think I almost didn't purchase it based on some of the negative comments here - cheech. How can spending time with Kilgore Trout not be amazing? “The waitress brought me another drink. She wanted to light my hurricane lamp again. I wouldn't let her."Can you see anything in the dark, with your sunglasses on?" she asked me."The big show is inside my head," I said.”

Who was your favorite character and why?

Trout

Have you listened to any of John Malkovich’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

No, but I love his reading of this book

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

Both

Any additional comments?

And so it goes

5 stars for Malcovich

This is a good, fun read. Don't expect it to be on the same level as Cat's Cradle and Slaughterhouse-Five and you will still enjoy it a lot. Also, there's images throughout the book that the reader misses out on; Malcovich does a good job of describing them and keeping it going. In fact, if it was anyone other than him I'd probably recommend skipping the audiobook and sticking with physical copy but he does such an awesome job. An enjoyable 6.5 hours.

Malkovich is great

Need to be familiar with Vonnegut's prior works to appreciate .John Malkovich is the perfect voice for this dark comedy

Beware old racist ideas!

John Malcovich as the narrator was quite appropriate. The metacognition and spurts of stream of consciousness writing amalgamated into a wonderful cacophony of blissful surrealism. There was talk of black people using the "N" word featured prominently and unapologetically. The references to women and Asian people was shocking. The story was captivating.

WEIRD

Glad to be done with the story.
Vonnegut certainly has a vivid and sick imagination. He must have forgotten to take his meds on the days he wrote this book.

As Kurt loses his mind

This is great Kurt Vonnegut as always besides the stereotypical racial profiling.

Absolutely crazy and amazing at the same time.

Deadpan Cynicism

Cynicism has become something of a bad word. The Greek philosophical practice was to discard customs and social norms in effort to achieve mental clarity. "Free from smoke" smoke being conceit, self deception, fear etc.

The story explores ideas deemed great and insignificant with no discrimination. Malchovich narrates in such a way as to state every thing as matter of fact. No event or detail is given greater importance than the other, and this is in keeping with the philosophy of the novel.