Customer Reviews

The Abortion: A Historical Romance 1966

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This is one of the best works of Richard Brautigan. One day a man who lives in a unique library meets a girl who has perfect beauty, and a strange love story starts off. The plain and beautiful style, which has influenced Raymond Carver, is easy to read, but what it says is never a simple matter: this book is written about the loneliness that everyone who lives in this modern world has. But you needn't worry that you'll get depressed after you read this. I assure you that, instead, you'll feel a gentle optimism at the end of the novel.

Somewhere out there maybe there's a library for all the books never published, by people who weren't authors, for readers who weren't interested. Maybe my reviews should be sent there ! Richard Brautigan imagined himself working in such a place, where the overflow was stored in caves (but what about seepage? Whoa, man, what a bummer !) He no doubt thought melancholy thoughts about how his own writings would wind up just in such a place. But as for me, that's the wrong tune. He captured so much about his times, about human nature, about life itself in those minimalist little chapters of his. THE ABORTION is more lineal than his other works-it has a plot that he sticks to, a plot that even got me feeling tense as with some kind of pop thriller. He meets a most beautiful girl who is disgusted with her own beauty, doesn't feel it becomes her true soul. She settles down with the author in his weird library, a place where he has been hiding away from the "real world" for three years. But one thing leads to another, and an abortion becomes necessary. Given the way our great nation is going, someday soon this book is going to be burned; read it while you can. The couple fly down to San Diego, cross over to Tijuana, and find the abortionist. What happens ? Meatball doesn't reveal endings. Sorry.

The Brautigan humor, the whimsical observations plunked down in the middle of a totally different conversation. I like non-sequiturs. Perhaps enlightenment is found in such bouncing, scintillating simplicity. In any case, if you liked any others of Brautigan's work, you'll like this one for sure. Read the rest of them too. Richard Brautigan is gone. We will not see his like again, more's the pity.

"The Abortion" by Richard Brautigan may be one of the greatest works of American literature. A simple story of a librarian at an unusual library in San Francisco, who accompanies his girlfriend to a Tijuana abortion, the book spares no detail, but is so spare as to let the imagination run wild; yet is so precise that no scar is left on the mind. It can be read in an afternoon, and will impress one forever

Intensely personal. Utterly sentimental. Very few would suppose Brautigan's "Historical Romance" The Abortion was a work of speculative (let alone science) fiction. Recently however, in a short narrative Dave McKean put forth an interesting proposition. He states that the lost library so lovingly described throughout the book is the perfect metaphor for the world wide web...

Richard Brautigan's writing speaks directly to my soul. I cannot read more than a line or two of his prose without getting the eerie feeling that if I could somehow magically distill my feelings to their perfect essence (which is far beyond my abilities) the result would still fall far short of the understanding of who I am, so effortlessly expressed in his stories. I have never read an author whose writing more poignantly captured such overpowering feelings of love, isolation, and (perhaps frighteningly) understanding. I cannot recommend this book (or any of Brautigan's books) highly enough. I would have given it 25 stars, if it had been possible.

this book is my favorite book of all time. the subject matter is simple but the but the style of the writing is amazing and keeps your interest. the book is about a man who works and lives in a library and has lived there for a few years. the books contained in the library are written by random people who drop the books off when they are finished writing them. eventualy the character meets a beautiful insecure woman who he falls in love with. she later becomes pregnant and they end up on a trip to mexico to get an abortion.

i know it does not sound that exciting but i swear the writing and the characters make the book truely enjoyable.

The main character is a librarian at a different type of library. At this library, books by writers who can never hope to be published are given a place in the world. The librarian lives in the library, always answer the silver bell which signifies some new aspirant. They are treated kindly, and told that they can leave their book on any shelf once it has been entered into the registry. The narrator falls in love with Vida, a shy and awkward girl who is trapped in the body of what may be the most beautiful woman on earth. They live together happily for a period of months until she becomes pregnant, necessitating a trip to an abortion doctor in Tijuana, which is also the librarian's first exit from the library in three years.

The Good and the Bad:

What a breath of fresh air. Brautigan's book just sails right by, with every page containing a reason to smile or visualize a stunning metaphor. As with his Hawkline Monster, this is a slightly surreal world in which whimsy overtakes reason. Positives include interesting and believable characters, awesome metaphors, witty dialogue, and a good feel for pacing. The flavor of the book is similar to Kerouac in that there is a sense of wild abandon and randomness that moves the characters along, but it is far superior in almost every aspect.

If I had to choose a negative, I guess I would say that I was slightly confused at the ending, in which the librarian has become a hero on a college campus. I don't get a sense of why he is needed or held up, because he is no longer a librarian. Also, Brautigan includes himself as a character, and that's just too self-indulgent.

Brautigan manages to create colorfully impeccable descriptions of extraordinary characters and locales in this deeply human perspective on one woman's abortion experience. More "real" a story than some of his other novels, but still very much within Brautigan's unmistakably fantastic world. An easy read you will never forget.

This book is pure beauty with all the graphic descriptions. pure brillance......

This book is one of the most god-awful pieces of "literature" that I have ever laid eyes on. I would really like to have a serious heart-to-heart with anyone who gave this thing over one star. This guy just pukes out the weirdest, most ill-fitting similies and metaphors (not to mention he's a ridiculous sexist pig).

An under-achieving 5th grader taking his first creative writing course could do better than this. I mean, c'mon...just read this line: "Her stomach was so unbelievably thin that it was genius and I wondered how there could be enough intestines in there to digest any food larger than cookies or berries."

Dude. Lay off the LSD. Seriously. You're hurting your brain.