Point of View

The author tells the story through his point of view, which regularly shifts from the first-person limited to the third-person omniscient. The third-person point of view is used to tell Kilgore Trout's experiences with the timequake, but the author injects his experiences as well via the first-person point of view. The effect is to keep Trout and the author separated until the final chapter, in which they join together for the demonstration of human awareness and its amazing speed.

Since Trout is the author's alter-ego, the point of view is actually all the author's. This is an odd relationship between author and character and one that could degenerate into ego-stroking. However, this danger is avoided by the use of humor. Both Trout and the author become the butts of jokes more often than the other characters, most of whom are caricatures. Usually literature strives to flesh...