Talk:Kilgore Trout

Another appearance
He is also quoted as one of the authors read by Ormus Cama, in The Ground Beneath Her Feet by Salman Rushdie —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.225.66.98 (talk • contribs) 15:35, 14 August, 2005 (UTC)
 * Another reference...

In the game The Matrix Online Kilgore Trout was advertised as today's special at a restaurant.67.167.106.3 (talk) 10:03, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Cause of death
The following makes no sense. Why would someone in 2004 need a psychic to inform him of George Bush's 2000 (s)election?: "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." MJFiorello 04:57, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Clarified. Zsero 21:44, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Kilgore Trout: The Eveningwear?
There appears to be a clothing store in Cleveland, OH named Kilgore Trout. I found a copy of Kilgore Trout Forum, which does not contain any pictures of wide open beavers, but rather looks to be a J. Peterman knock off.

The clothing store also shows up on google maps. —Superluser (talk • contribs) 22:07, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Picture
I think the picture should be Kurt Vonnegut's drawing of Kilgore Trout (about to become a vagabond) and not the cover of a novel with no actual connection to the Vonnegutiverse. Thoughts? Max22 04:52, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Since you ask, i think both pictures should be used. Why not? --Jerzy•t 14:58, 27 September 2016 (UTC)

Further Trivia
A friend of mine about 15 years ago now (early 90's) was in a band called "The Kilgore Trout Combustion." They went on to get a record contract and record an album called "Pure Bunk." Their record company, due to a perceived copywrite problem, asked them to swap their name and the name of the album. Thus they became "Pure Bunk" with an album called "The Kilgore Trout Combustion."

In case you are interested, I doubt you will find anything about them anywhere, but their style could be described as "heavy industrial music" which was a developing thing at the time, and they came from Brisbane, Australia.

203.5.155.234 05:38, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

.. a few years ago a little note has been added by me and then deleted by somebody for no reason. The point is that "Kilgore Trout" is the vanguard fusion-rock band. Proof for example. Whatever. It didn't make sense. Fuck it.

Trout's Age At Death
In Timequake, Vonnegut mentions that Trout is 84 years old at death. Vonnegut himself was aged 84 when he met with his end. Is this worthy of mention on either the Kilgore Trout or Kurt Vonnegut pages? Jimmy 04:54, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Venusonahal.gif
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BetacommandBot (talk) 02:33, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Self-Awareness
I have always thought it was fascinating that in "Breakfast of Champions" Trout comes across Vonnegut and suspects that Vonnegut is actually his creator and that he is but a character in a novel. Perhaps this should be mentioned in the page as it is a fairly unique quality for a character to suspect his existence as such. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.153.29.23 (talk) 22:32, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

The Sturgeon Connection
Are there any better references to this part, and in particular the claim that Vonnegut would have admitted more freely that Trout was based on Sturgeon had he not been as unsuccessful as a writer? I'm asking because: JöG (talk) 21:26, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
 * The referenced Vonnegut quote seems sarcastic and can be interpreted as "Yeah, it said so in his obituary so it must be true ..."
 * (The quote in the Wikipedia article itself doesn't match the source, and seems less obviously sarcastic.)
 * Vonnegut does not acknowledge it in his 1999 foreword to The Collected works of T. S. Vol. VII. In fact, he seems to dispute it ...

Maybe Trout is, or became, a composite
Obviously Kilgore Trout was initially based on Ted Sturgeon, but because he and Vonnegut were friends -- and Sturgeon was in fact one of the more elegant and capable sf writers of that time -- Trout's huge flood of great-ideas-and-horrible-writing sounds a lot more like Philip K. Dick's meth-crazed oevre. 2600:8800:7025:7000:5D9B:1504:2B1:BE98 (talk) 08:45, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

Better documentation of Kurt Vonnegut's interaction with Richard Geis
As it stands, the article currently reads as follows:

At least one actual published work is attributed to 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's zine

This section does not read very well and I do not feel it properly communicates exactly what happened between Vonnegut and Geis. For example, the article does not explain that Geis, under the impression that Vonnegut wrote Venus on the Half-Shell, published a scathing review of the work and of how he perceived Vonnegut's actions in his magazine(Science Fiction Review.) As it reads currently, it seems that Vonnegut was simply upset at the use of the name of his character for the novel because of the confusion it caused, even though in reality Vonnegut gave Farmer his express permission to write under that name.

SFR issue #12 Where Geis published his review of Venus on the Half-Shell

SFR issue #13 Where Geis details his conversation with Vonnegut following his review.

I am going to submit an edit to the article with more context, I simply created this talk post for posterity and for discussion if others feel strongly one way or the other about the edit. 24.115.153.68 (talk) 04:37, 26 April 2023 (UTC)