Kilgore Trout
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Kilgore Trout is a fictional character created by author Kurt Vonnegut. Said to be a fictionalization of the real author Theodore Sturgeon, Trout appears in several of Vonnegut's books, in which he performs a variety of roles: he acts as a catalyst for the main characters in God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater and Slaughterhouse Five, while in others, such as Breakfast of Champions, Galápagos, and Timequake, Trout is an active character who not only helps advance the story, but is vital to it.
Trout is usually described as an unappreciated science fiction writer whose works are used only as filler material in pornographic magazines. However, his books are appreciated by his only fan, Eliot Rosewater — another of Vonnegut's characters — who has a near-complete collection of Trout's works.
Kilgore Trout's presence in Vonnegut's novels is somewhat of a puzzle – in Breakfast of Champions, he has, by the end, become something of a father figure; in other novels, he seems to be something like Vonnegut in the early part of his career.
Besides appearing in Vonnegut's novels, the Kilgore Trout character appeared in the 1999 filmed version of Breakfast of Champions, directed by Alan Rudolph; Trout was portrayed by the actor Albert Finney.
Vonnegut has revised Trout's biography on several occasions. In Breakfast of Champions, he was born in 1909 and died in 1981. In Timequake, it was 1931 to 2001. Both death dates were set in the future as of the time the novels were written. More recently, Vonnegut "reported" the death of Kilgore Trout by suicide by Drāno in an article for In These Times magazine. Trout "died" at midnight on October 15, 2004 in Cohoes, New York, following his consultation with a psychic, who informed him that George W. Bush would win the U.S. Presidential election by a vote of 5-to-4 in the Supreme Court.
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".
References to Kilgore Trout have appeared in various other media. On their album Mare Vitalis, the band Appleseed Cast included a song entitled "Kilgore Trout". The novelist Robert Rankin spoofed the chararacter by naming one of the many fictional authors in his books "Kilgore Sprout".ja:キルゴア・トラウト fr:Kilgore Trout