Kilgore Trout
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| Kilgore Trout | |
|---|---|
| First appearance | 1965 |
| Last appearance | 2004 |
| Created by | Kurt Vonnegut |
| Portrayed by | Albert Finney |
| In-universe information | |
| Gender | Male |
| Occupation | Science fiction writer |
| Children | Leon Trotsky Trout |
| Nationality | American |
Kilgore Trout is a fictional character created by author Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007). Trout is a notably unsuccessful author of paperback science fiction novels.
"Trout" was inspired by the name of science fiction author Theodore Sturgeon (1918–1985). Vonnegut was amused by the notion of a person with the name of a fish, and hence substituted "Trout" for "Sturgeon".[1] Trout's appearances in a number of Vonnegut's works have led critics to also view the character as the author's own alter ego.
In an homage to Vonnegut, Kilgore Trout is also the ostensible author of the novel Venus on the Half-Shell (1975), written pseudonymously by Philip José Farmer.
The impetus to create Kilgore Trout as a character, Vonnegut suggested in a 1979 NYPR interview, was the convenience it offered to turn science-fiction plots into humorous parables. "Kilgore Trout was more or less invented by a friend of mine, Knox Burger, who was my editor in the early days. He did not suggest that I do this, but he said, 'You know, the problem with science-fiction? It's much more fun to hear someone tell the story of the book than to read the story itself.' And it's true: If you paraphrase a science-fiction story, it comes out as a very elegant joke, and it's over in a minute or so. It's a tedious business to read all the surrounding material. So I started summarizing [them], and I suppose I've now summarized 50 novels I will never have to write, and spared people the reading of them."[2]
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, while Sturgeon's then more-successful career (mainly as a short-story writer) stretched back to 1938. In fact, at the time of their initial meeting, Sturgeon was the most anthologized English-language science fiction author alive.[3][4]
Sturgeon would continue writing, but his pace dipped noticeably after the end of the 1950s, and he published no original novels after 1961. By the time of Kilgore Trout's first appearance (in 1965's God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater),[5] both Vonnegut and Sturgeon had moved to different cities, and Vonnegut had begun to be perceived as a mainstream author.
The "Kilgore Trout" 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."[6]
While Sturgeon did not resemble Trout in many respects, there were some points of similarity. According to The Los Angeles Times:
Like poor Kilgore Trout, Sturgeon often saw his best work emblazoned with awful titles conjured up by hasty editors — titles such as "The Incubi of Parallel X" (which Sturgeon called "the most horrible title to appear over my byline") or "The Cosmic Rape" or even the mega-awful "The Synthetic Man", that cruel paperback retitling of Sturgeon's greatest and most intricate novel, "The Dreaming Jewels". At first glance, a typical Sturgeon collection might look from afar as awful as something by Kilgore Trout. But once you read the first page, you knew you were in the hands of someone who never wrote a bad sentence.[7]