Breakfast of Champions - wikipedia Breakfast of Champions This article is about the novel. For the movie, see Breakfast of Champions ( film ). For the breakfast cereal, see Wheaties. Breakfast of Champions Cover of first edition ( hardcover ) Author Kurt Vonnegut Country United States Language English Genre Novel Publisher Delacorte Press Publication date 1973 ISBN 0 - 385 - 28089 - 0 Breakfast of Champions, or Goodbye Blue Monday, published in 1973, is the seventh novel by the American author Kurt Vonnegut. Set predominantly in the fictional town of Midland City, Indiana, it is the story of `` two lonesome, skinny, fairly old white men on a planet which was dying fast. '' One of these men, Dwayne Hoover, is a charming but deeply deranged Pontiac dealer, and extensive land and franchise owner, whose mental illness causes him to believe that a science fiction story by the other man, Kilgore Trout, is the literal truth. Trout, a largely unknown pulp science fiction writer who has appeared in several other Vonnegut novels, looks like a crazy old man but is in fact relatively sane. As the novel opens, Trout hitchhikes toward Midland City to appear at an art convention where he is destined to meet Dwayne Hoover and unwittingly inspire him to run amok. Contents 1 Plot summary 2 Major themes 3 Style 4 Background 4.1 Title 4.2 Doubts about publication 4.3 Fame 5 Reception 6 Adaptation 7 References 8 External links 9 Further reading Plot summary Kilgore Trout is a widely published, but otherwise unsung and virtually invisible writer who is invited to deliver a keynote address at a local arts festival in distant Midland City. Dwayne Hoover is a wealthy businessman who owns much of Midland City, but has become increasingly unstable mentally. The novel is achronological and frequently shifts focus between Hoover and Trout, as well as supporting characters like Hoover 's son, Bunny, and Wayne Hoobler, and Kurt Vonnegut himself, who appears as the author of the book. `` The novel 's structure is a simple one, yet it employs simultaneously evolving plots from different times and spaces. '' Early on, Vonnegut as narrator / creator says he 's going to purge himself of mental clutter, and, throughout the novel, can be found examining and refuting disparate concepts, from the ' discovery ' of the new world in 1492 to euphemisms for genitalia. When Kilgore finally arrives in Midland City he piques the interest of Dwayne. A confused Dwayne demands a message from Kilgore, who hands over a copy of his novel. Dwayne reads the novel, which purports to be a message from the Creator of the Universe explaining that the reader -- in this case Dwayne -- is the only individual in the universe with free will. Everyone else is a robot. Dwayne believes the novel to be factual and immediately goes on a violent rampage, severely beating his son, his lover, and nine other people before being taken into custody. While Kilgore is walking the streets of Midland after Dwayne 's rampage the narrator of the book approaches Kilgore. The narrator tells Kilgore of his existence, and lets Kilgore be free and under his own will. Kilgore begs to be made young again, and the novel ends with a full - page drawing of Vonnegut crying. Major themes Suicide, free will, mental illness, and social and economic cruelty are dealt with throughout the novel. In the preface, Vonnegut states that he tends `` to think of human beings as huge, rubbery test tubes, too, with chemical reactions seething inside. '' As with Slaughterhouse - Five ( 1969 ) and The Sirens of Titan ( 1959 ), the nature of free will is called into question, in this case by considering mankind as biological machines, and physical measurements of characters are often given when they are introduced. He attributes the mental illness of Dwayne Hoover and society at large to an abundance of `` bad chemicals '' in the brain which, when combined with bad ideas, formed `` the Yin and Yang of madness. '' This idea, that humans are no more than machines, is contained within the novel Kilgore Trout gives to Dwayne Hoover. Both Trout and Vonnegut realize the power of bad ideas, with Vonnegut remarking how `` natural it was for ( people ) to behave so abominably, and with such abominable results : They were doing their best to live like people invented in story books. This was the reason Americans shot each other so often : it was a convenient literary device for ending short stories and books. '' The view of humans as biological machines, initially accepted by Vonnegut, is counteracted by Rabo Karabekian, the abstract artist who suggests `` Our awareness is all that is alive and maybe sacred in any of us. Everything else about us is dead machinery. '' The novel is critical of American society and its treatment of its citizens, many of which Vonnegut writes `` were so ignored and cheated and insulted that they thought they might be in the wrong country. '' He focuses largely on race, the poor, and the destruction of the environment, criticizing the hypocrisy of a land that claims to be based on the principles of freedom having been founded by people who `` used human beings for machinery, and, even after slavery was eliminated, because it was so embarrassing, they and their descendants continued to think of ordinary human beings as machines. '' The incidents in the life of Wayne Hoobler, a black resident of Midland City, are frequently contrasted with those of the similarly named Dwayne Hoover, emphasizing the aforementioned impact of race. Style The novel is simple in syntax and sentence structure, part of Vonnegut 's signature style. Likewise, irony, sentimentality, black humor, and didacticism, are prevalent throughout the work. Like much of his oeuvre, Breakfast of Champions is broken into very small pieces, in this case separated by three dots. Vonnegut himself has claimed that his books `` are essentially mosaics made up of a whole bunch of tiny little chips... and each chip is a joke. '' Characteristically, he makes heavy use of repetition, in this case starting many sections with `` Listen '' and ending many with `` And so on. '' The novel is full of drawings by the author, intending to illustrate various aspects of life on Earth, are sometimes pertinent to the story line and sometimes tangential. They include renderings of an anus, flags, the date 1492, a beaver, a vulva, a flamingo, little girls ' underpants, a torch, headstones, the yin - yang symbol, guns, trucks, cows and the hamburgers that are made from them, chickens and the Kentucky Fried Chicken that is made from them, an electric chair, the letters ETC, Christmas cards, a right hand that has a severed ring finger, the chemical structure of a plastic molecule, an apple, pi, zero, infinity, and the sunglasses the author himself wears as he enters the storyline. Breakfast of Champions makes heavy use of metafiction, with Vonnegut appearing as the narrator / creator of the work, explaining why and how he makes this world as it is, changing things when and as he sees fit, and even being surprised by events. The novel also makes use of intertextuality with Vonnegut 's other works. In addition to Kilgore Trout, characters from other Vonnegut books which appear here include Eliot Rosewater and Rabo Karabekian. Rosewater was the main character in God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater ( 1965 ) and a minor character in Slaughterhouse - Five ( 1969 ), while Karabekian later became the main character in Bluebeard ( 1988 ). Hoover 's secretary, Francine Pefko, previously appeared in Cat 's Cradle ( 1963 ), where she performed secretarial duties at General Forge and Foundry, in Ilium, New York. ( Pefko also appears in `` Fubar, '' a story released posthumously in Look at the Birdie. ) Vonnegut uses the name `` Khashdrahr Miasma '' for a minor character, in reference to a character in Player Piano. The vicious guard dog, Kazak, was Winston Niles Rumfoord 's pet in The Sirens of Titan ( 1959 ) and Selena MacIntosh 's guide dog in Galápagos ( 1985 ). Many of Midland City 's inhabitants reappear in Deadeye Dick ( 1982 ), which locates the city in Ohio. Background Title The title, taken from the well - known slogan for Wheaties breakfast cereal, crops up in a key scene late in the novel when a waitress, apparently ironically, says `` Breakfast of Champions '' each time she serves a customer a martini. Vonnegut, in his typical ironic manner, mocks the legal and copyright systems as he notes meticulously that Breakfast of Champions is a registered trademark of General Mills, Inc. for its breakfast cereal products, and that his use of the term is not `` intended to disparage their fine products. '' Vonnegut refers to himself as `` Philboyd Studge '' in the preface, a name which he claims his friend Knox Burger associated with cumbersome writing. The name appears to have been borrowed from a short story by Edwardian satirist Saki. ( `` Filboid Studge, the Story of the Mouse that Helped '', describes the success of the eponymous breakfast food through bizarrely counter-intuitive advertising. ) Doubts about publication According to an article in the New York Times Magazine in January 1971, `` Vonnegut says repeatedly he is through writing novels... After Slaughterhouse - Five, Vonnegut began work on a novel called Breakfast of Champions, about a world in which everyone but a single man, the narrator, is a robot. He gave it up, however, and it remains unfinished. I asked him why, and he said, ' Because it was a piece of -- --. '' This view persisted, with Harlan Ellison claiming that Vonnegut 's submission in the 1972 short - story anthology Again, Dangerous Visions, would be `` the last new piece of fiction you will ever read by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. '' After the publication of Breakfast of Champions, Vonnegut stopped publishing short stories, and many believed he had given up writing altogether, with the New York Times book review stating Vonnegut 's persona gives up fiction before our very eyes... When he self - destructs himself as a novelist by first warning us in the middle of his book that ' Once I understood what was making America such a dangerous, unhappy nation of people who had nothing to do with real life, I resolved to shun story - telling. ' In the preface, Vonnegut states that as he reached his fiftieth birthday he felt a need to `` clear his head of all the junk in there '' -- which includes the various subjects of his drawings, and the characters from his past novels and stories. To this end, he sprinkles plot descriptions for Trout 's stories throughout the novel, illustrates the book with his own simple felt - tip pen drawings, and includes a number of characters from his other novels and short stories. Fame Vonnegut 's previous novel, Slaughterhouse - Five, was his first commercial success, and brought him from being an unknown science - fiction writer to one of the most famous authors in the country. Reception Breakfast of Champions spent a total of 56 weeks on the New York Times bestsellers list, 28 weeks for the hardcover edition and 28 for the paperback. The novel received a negative review from the New York Times, as opposed to positive reviews from TIME and Publishers Weekly. Vonnegut himself was unhappy with the novel, and gave it a C grade on a report card of his published work, lower than any other novel besides Slapstick ( 1976 ). However, it remains one of Vonnegut 's best - known and most - influential works. Adaptation In 1999, the novel was made into a film of the same name, starring Bruce Willis, Albert Finney, Nick Nolte and Omar Epps ; see Breakfast of Champions ( film ). The movie was widely panned by critics and never went into wide release. References ^ Jump up to : Klinkowitz, Jerome. `` Speaking Famously : Happy Birthday, Wanda June ; Breakfast of Champions ; Slapstick ; Jailbird ; and Deadeye Dick. '' The Vonnegut Effect. Columbia : University of South Carolina Press, 2004. 98 -- 124. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Jeffrey W. Hunter. Vol. 212. Detroit : Gale, 2006. Literature Resource Center. Web. 13 Nov. 2015. ^ Jump up to : Westbrook, Perry D. `` Kurt Vonnegut Jr. : Overview. '' Contemporary Novelists. Susan Windisch Brown. 6th ed. New York : St. James Press, 1996. Jump up ^ Grossman, Edward. `` Vonnegut & His Audience. '' Commentary ( July 1974 ) : 40 -- 46. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Carolyn Riley and Phyllis Carmel Mendelson. Vol. 5. Detroit : Gale, 1976. Jump up ^ Reed, Peter J. `` The Later Vonnegut. '' Vonnegut in America : An Introduction to the Life and Work of Kurt Vonnegut. Ed. Jerome Klinkowitz and Donald L. Lawler. Delacorte Press, 1977. 150 -- 184. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Dedria Bryfonski. Vol. 12. Detroit : Gale, 1980. Literature Resource Center. Web. 13 Nov. 2015. Jump up ^ Ellison, Harlan ( 1972 ). Again, Dangerous Visions. Doubleday. ^ Jump up to : Lehmann - Haupt, Christopher ( 3 May 1973 ). `` Breakfast of Champions, Or Goodbye Blue Monday ''. NYTimes.com. The New York Times. Retrieved 10 Apr 2017. Jump up ^ Justice, Keith ( 1998 ). Bestseller Index. McFarland & Company. p. 316. Jump up ^ Vonnegut, Kurt ( 1981 ). Palm Sunday. Delacorte. Jump up ^ http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/breakfast_of_champions/ Jump up ^ `` Box Office Mojo -- Breakfast of Champions ( 1999 ) ''. External links Breakfast of Champions at Goodreads Further reading `` Book Review : Breakfast of Champions, Or Goodbye Blue Monday ''. The New York Times. May 3, 1973. Horwitz, Carey ( April 15, 1973 ). `` An Interview with Kurt Vonnegut Jr. ''. Library Journal. Kurt Vonnegut Bibliography Novels Player Piano ( 1952 ) The Sirens of Titan ( 1959 ) Mother Night ( 1961 ) Cat 's Cradle ( 1963 ) God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater ( 1965 ) Slaughterhouse - Five ( 1969 ) Breakfast of Champions ( 1973 ) Slapstick ( 1976 ) Jailbird ( 1979 ) Deadeye Dick ( 1982 ) Galápagos ( 1985 ) Bluebeard ( 1987 ) Hocus Pocus ( 1990 ) Timequake ( 1997 ) Novellas Sun Moon Star ( 1980 ) God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian ( 1999 ) We Are What We Pretend To Be : The First and Last Works ( 2013 ) Collected Short Fiction Canary in a Cat House ( 1961 ) Welcome to the Monkey House ( 1968 ) Bagombo Snuff Box ( 1999 ) Armageddon in Retrospect ( 2008 ) Look at the Birdie ( 2009 ) While Mortals Sleep ( 2011 ) Sucker 's Portfolio ( 2013 ) Complete Stories ( 2017 ) Collected Non-Fiction Wampeters, Foma and Granfalloons ( 1974 ) Palm Sunday ( 1981 ) Fates Worse Than Death ( 1991 ) A Man Without a Country ( 2005 ) Armageddon in Retrospect ( 2008 ) If This Is n't Nice, What Is ? : Advice to the Young ( 2013 ) Kurt Vonnegut : Letters ( 2014 ) Vonnegut by the Dozen ( 2015 ) Plays / Screenplays Fortitude ( 1968 ) Happy Birthday, Wanda June ( 1970 ) Between Time and Timbuktu ( 1972 ) Interviews Like Shaking Hands with God ( 1999 ) Conversations with Kurt Vonnegut ( 1999 ) Kurt Vonnegut : The Last Interview ( 1999 ) Adaptations Happy Birthday, Wanda June ( 1971 ) Slaughterhouse - Five ( 1972 ) Between Time and Timbuktu ( 1972 ) Next Door ( 1975 ) Kurt Vonnegut 's God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater ( 1979 ) Slapstick of Another Kind ( 1982 ) Who Am I This Time ? ( 1982 ) Displaced Person ( 1985 ) Kurt Vonnegut 's Monkey House ( 1991 ) Harrison Bergeron ( 1995 ) Mother Night ( 1996 ) Breakfast of Champions ( 1999 ) 2081 ( 2009 ) 2BR02B : To Be or Naught to Be ( 2016 ) Characters and concepts Kilgore Trout Billy Pilgrim Eliot Rosewater Eugene Debs Hartke Rabo Karabekian RAMJAC Ilium Bokononism Granfalloon Ice - nine Related Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library Family Jill Krementz ( second wife ) Mark Vonnegut ( son ) Edith Vonnegut ( daughter ) Kurt Vonnegut, Sr. ( father ) Bernard Vonnegut ( brother ) Bernard Vonnegut, Sr. ( grandfather ) Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Breakfast_of_Champions&oldid=793585005 '' Categories : 1973 American novels American novels adapted into films Novels by Kurt Vonnegut Novels set in Ohio Postmodern novels Self - reflexive novels Dystopian novels Metafictional novels Hidden categories : Pages to import images to Wikidata Goodreads book ID not in Wikidata Talk Contents About Wikipedia Български Čeština Eesti فارسی Italiano Magyar 日本 語 Polski Русский Српски / srpski Svenska Türkçe Edit links This page was last edited on 2 August 2017, at 17 : 52. 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Question: where did the phrase breakfast of champions come from
Answer: the well-known slogan for Wheaties breakfast cereal