Kilgore Trout

Kilgore Trout is a fictional character created by author Kurt Vonnegut. He was originally created as a fictionalized version of author Theodore Sturgeon (Vonnegut's colleague in the genre of science fiction—Vonnegut was amused by the notion of a person with the name of a fish, Sturgeon, hence Trout^[1]), although Trout's consistent presence in Vonnegut's works has also led critics to view him as the author's own alter ego. Trout is also the titular author of the novel Venus on the Half-Shell, pseudonymously written by Philip José Farmer.

Origins of the character

In 1957, Theodore Sturgeon moved to Truro, Massachusetts, where he befriended Vonnegut, then working as a salesman in a Saab dealership. At the time, both were writing in the genre of science fiction (Vonnegut had already published Player Piano, retitled Utopia 14 in paperback). By the time of Kilgore Trout's first appearance (in 1965's God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater), both had moved to different cities, and Vonnegut had begun to be perceived as a mainstream author. The name was a transparent reference to the older writer (substituting "Kilgore" for "Theodore" and "Trout" for "Sturgeon"), but since the characterization was less than flattering (both Sturgeon and Trout were financially unsuccessful and seemingly slipping into obscurity), Vonnegut did not publicly state the connection, nor did Sturgeon encourage the comparison. It was not until after Sturgeon's death in 1985 that Vonnegut explicitly acknowledged the matter, stating in a 1987 interview that "Yeah, it said so in his obituary in the New York Times. I was delighted that it said in the middle of it that he was the inspiration for the Kurt Vonnegut character of Kilgore Trout."^[2]

Appearances in Vonnegut books

Trout appears in several of Vonnegut's books, though Vonnegut habitually changes details about his life and circumstances with each appearance. Trout is consistently presented as a prolific, but unappreciated science-fiction writer; other details, including his general appearance, demeanor and his dates of birth and death, vary widely from novel to novel. (Perhaps the most extreme instance of this occurs in Jailbird, wherein "Kilgore Trout" is merely a pseudonym of Dr. Robert Fender, a novelist and prison inmate.) Vonnegut makes no attempt to reconcile these differences, with each version of Trout presumably existing in separate universe from the others.

Trout performs a variety of roles in Vonnegut's works: he acts as a catalyst for the main characters in Breakfast of Champions; God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater; and Slaughterhouse-Five, while in others, such as Jailbird and Timequake, Trout is an active character who is vital to the story. Trout is also described differently in several books; in Breakfast of Champions, he has, by the end, become something of a father figure, while in other novels, he seems to be something like Vonnegut in the early part of his career. In Hocus Pocus, Trout is not mentioned by name, but the protagonist is deeply affected while reading a Trout-like science fiction story. In early novels, Kilgore Trout lives in Ilium, New York, a fictional town based on Troy, New York (Vonnegut lived and worked in nearby Schenectady for some time). In later novels, Trout inhabits a basement apartment in Cohoes, an ailing mill community. While living in Cohoes, Trout works as an installer of "aluminum combination storm windows and screens." The ghost of Trout's son Leon Trotsky Trout is the narrator of the novel Galápagos.

Trout, who has supposedly written over 117 novels and over 2000 short stories, is usually described as an unappreciated science fiction writer whose works are used only as filler material in pornographic magazines. However, he does have at least three fans: Eliot Rosewater and Billy Pilgrim—both Vonnegut characters—have a near-complete collection of Trout's work or have read most of his work; in Galápagos, Leon Trotsky Trout goes on leave in Thailand and meets an unnamed Swedish doctor who is a fan of Kilgore Trout. This doctor helps Leon desert the US Marine Corps and defect to Sweden, where he receives political asylum as a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War.

Vonnegut revised Trout's biography on several occasions. In Breakfast of Champions, he is born in 1907 and dies in 1981. In Timequake, he lives from 1917 to 2001. Both death dates are set in the future as of the time the novels were written. More recently, in an article for In These Times Vonnegut "reports" that Kilgore Trout commits suicide by drinking Drāno.^[3] Trout "dies" at midnight on October 15, 2004 in Cohoes following his consultation with a psychic, who informs him that George W. Bush would once again win the U. S. Presidential election by a vote of 5-to-4 in the Supreme Court. The epitaph on his tombstone reads, "Life is no way to treat an animal."

In Breakfast of Champions, Kilgore Trout has part of his right ring finger bitten off by the book's other main character, Dwayne Hoover, when Kilgore attends an arts festival in the Midwest. Trout also has an encounter with his creator, Mr. Vonnegut, in the final chapter. Vonnegut tells him that he is setting him free, in much the same way that Leo Tolstoy freed his serfs, and that the rest of his life will be much happier: his work will be republished by reputable publishers, and his ideas will become very influential, leading to him winning the Nobel Prize for medicine. However, Vonnegut cannot grant Trout's request to "make me young."

In Jailbird (1979), Kilgore Trout is revealed to be the only lifer in the Federal Minimum Security Adult Correctional Facility near Finletter Air Force Base, Georgia. Jailbird, narrated by the fictional character Walter F. Starbuck, shows Kilgore Trout to be the only American convicted of treason during the Korean War. Kilgore Trout is the pseudonym for Dr. Robert Fender. His doctorate is in veterinary science. While in prison, Fender writes many science fiction novels under another pseudonym, Frank X. Barlow, as well. In addition to writing science fiction novels, Fender is the chief clerk in the supply room of the prison.

Galápagos is narrated by Leon Trotsky Trout (1946–1986), the son and only child of Kilgore Trout. Leon ran away at the age of 16, ashamed of his father, and never had any contact with him thereafter, until his death, when Kilgore appeared at the door of the "blue tunnel" that leads to the Afterlife. Kilgore appears at the door to the tunnel, urging his son to enter and proceed to the Afterlife. Three times Leon refuses, on the grounds that he wants to see more of human life in the hope of understanding it. During Kilgore's fourth appearance at the entrance to the blue tunnel, he threatens his son: if Leon doesn't leave the Earth immediately, the blue tunnel won't appear again for one million years. Since Kilgore has never lied to Leon, Leon knows this will come true. He is momentarily distracted by events on Earth, and the tunnel disappears. Galápagos contains several flashback scenes that explain the breakup between Kilgore and his wife. Leon states that he became a US Marine because his father was one. Trout's appearance in Galápagos is somewhat problematic for Vonnegut's continuity because the novel explicitly states that Kilgore dies before 1986, when the events of the novel take place. Yet Timequake finds him alive more than ten years later. In Galápagos, Leon uses his omniscient status as a ghost to confirm that he never fathered a child, so that Kilgore never had any descendants.

In Timequake Kilgore's creed is "You were sick, but now you are well again. And there's work to be done." The novel also features Trout's last and presumably only poem:

When the tupelo

Goes poop-a-lo

I'll come back to youp-a-lo

Trout accidentally becomes a great hero, rescuing many lives after the timequake, and finally receives a measure of acclaim: he spends his last days in a literary colony, honored for his heroism and some of his discarded works, which were preserved by a security guard.

In A Man Without a Country, Vonnegut receives a brief phone call on January 20, 2004 from Kilgore Trout in which they discuss George W. Bush's State of the Union Address and the imminent death of the Earth due to human carelessness.

Trout in other authors' works

At least one actual published work is attributed to a Kilgore Trout: the novel Venus on the Half-Shell, written by Philip José Farmer but published under the name "Kilgore Trout." For some time it was assumed that Vonnegut must have written it; when the truth of its authorship came out, Vonnegut was reported as being "not amused"; in an issue of the semi-pro zine Science Fiction Review, published by Richard E. Geis, Geis claimed to have received an angry, obscenity-laden telephone call from Vonnegut about what Farmer had said about the book in Geis' zine.^[4]

Trout is referred to in Salman Rushdie's magical realism novel The Ground Beneath Her Feet-- "Books by famous American writers... science fiction by Kilgore Trout,..."

Trout was portrayed by Albert Finney in the 1999 film version of Breakfast of Champions, directed by Alan Rudolph.

In the novel Fallen Angels by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle and Michael Flynn, the folksinging fan Jenny Trout (a character based on real-life folksinger Leslie Fish) is said to be the daughter of Kilgore Trout.

In The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier, Trout is referenced in passing as having written stories for a gentleman's magazine called Stagman, an obvious sendup of Playboy.

In The World of Kurt Vonnegut: The Bell Curse, by Kevin G. Summers, Trout appears for the first time in a licensed work.

Works by Kilgore Trout

Novels

• Barring-gaffner of Bagnialto or This Year's Masterpiece (novel mentioned in Breakfast of Champions)
• The Big Board (novel mentioned in Slaughterhouse-Five)
• The Era of Hopeful Monsters (novel mentioned in Galápagos)
• First District Court of Thankyou (novel mentioned in Jailbird and God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater)
• The Gospel from Outer Space (novel mentioned in Slaughterhouse-Five)
• The Gutless Wonder (novel mentioned in Slaughterhouse-Five)
• How You Doin'? (novel mentioned in Breakfast of Champions)
• Maniacs in the Fourth Dimension (novel mentioned in Slaughterhouse-Five)
• The Money Tree (novel mentioned in Slaughterhouse-Five)
• Now It Can Be Told (novel mentioned in Breakfast of Champions)
• Oh Say Can You Smell? (novel mentioned in God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater)
• The Pan-Galactic Memory Bank (novel mentioned in Breakfast of Champions)
• The Pan-Galactic Straw Boss a.k.a. Mouth Crazy (novel mentioned in Breakfast of Champions)
• The Pan-Galactic Three-Day Pass (novel mentioned in God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater)
• Plague on Wheels (novel mentioned in Breakfast of Champions)
• The Smart Bunny (novel mentioned in Breakfast of Champions)
• The Son of Jimmy Valentine (novel mentioned in Breakfast of Champions)
• 2BR02B (novel mentioned in God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater)
• Venus on the Half-Shell (novel first mentioned in God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater)

Short stories

• Albert Hardy (short story mentioned in Timequake)
• An American Family Marooned on the Planet Pluto (short story mentioned in Timequake)
• Asleep at the Switch (short story mentioned in Jailbird)
• Bunker Bingo Party (short story mentioned in Timequake)
• The Dancing Fool (short story mentioned in Breakfast of Champions)
• Dog's Breakfast (short story mentioned in Timequake)
• Dr. Schadenfreude (short story mentioned in Timequake)
• Empire State (short story mentioned in Timequake)
• Gilgongo! (short story mentioned in Breakfast of Champions)
• Golden Wedding (short story mentioned in Timequake)
• Hail to the Chief (short story mentioned in Breakfast of Champions)
• No Laughing Matter (short story mentioned in Timequake)
• The Planet Gobblers (short story mentioned in Palm Sunday)
• The Protocols of the Elders of Tralfamadore (short story mentioned in Hocus Pocus – no author attributed, but bears many elements characteristic of Trout's work. Tralfamadore is mentioned by Eliot Rosewater in God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater. Tralfamadore is also a main element of the plots of The Sirens of Titan and Slaughterhouse-Five)
• The Sisters B-36 (short story mentioned in Timequake)
• This Means You (short story mentioned in Breakfast of Champions)

Memoir

• My Ten Years On Automatic Pilot (nonfiction book mentioned in Timequake)

Play

• The Wrinkled Old Family Retainer (play mentioned in Timequake)

Pop Culture References

• In the 1995 Capcom SNES English version of the RPG Breath of Fire II, a character named Kilgore asks one of the main characters to steal from another character, named Trout.
• There is a men's clothing store in Pepper Pike, Ohio named Kilgore Trout
• Kilgore Trout is the pseudonym used by a writer for the satire website Chronicle.SU
• I Would Set Myself On Fire For You - The First Word That Comes To Mind. The lyrics are a passage from Timequake, referencing Kilgore Trout.
• In the Criminal Minds episode "Fear and Loathing", Kilgore Trout is mentioned as being a "geeky" thing Prentiss enjoys.
• In the Supernatural season four episode The Monster At The End of This Book, Chuck Shurley tells Sam and Dean that his new book is "Kilgore Trout" Vonnegut, as opposed to Slaughterhouse-Five or Cat's Cradle Vonnegut.
• "Kilgore Trout" is the 9th track on The Appleseed Cast's Mare Vitalis album.
• Some of Robert Rankin's novels (The Brightonomicon, The Greatest Show off Earth) feature an author named Kilgore Sprout.
• The closing credits for Friends (With Benefits) begin with "dedicated to the memory of Kilgore Trout who always made me laugh no matter what."

Notes

See also

• List of fictional books invented by Kurt Vonnegut