Customer Reviews

Revenge of the Lawn, The Abortion, So the Wind Won't Blow It All Away

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

 

 

With the possible exception of The Hawkline Monster, Revenge of the Lawn represents Brautigan's best work. It is a collection of wonderfully loopy stories that although they may not focus on developing a specific narrative thrust, instead hone in on capturing a real sense of time, place and experience. Each piece is certaintly idiosyncratic and individualistic only to the unique voice that was the late Brautigan. As a fellow native of the Pacific Northwest, I find his work as collected here sentimental, haunting and vividly descriptive and alive. It is also a fine example of regionalistic literature as his work, while abhereing to the old addage "only the most personal is the most universal", simply couldn't occur in any other region of the world- and that makes it live in all geographical locations. The other stories collected here, may loose some of Revenge of the Lawn's focus, they never the less reflect a sadly overlooked American writer.

I remember reading So The Wind Won't Blow it All Away for the first time. I was riding in a greyhound bus with the scent of blue hair ladies in front of me. Brautigan discussed his childhood love of cheesburgers and Superman and I couldn't stop laughing. The bus driver had to pull over and take me off the bus to ask me to shut up. Brautigan is a master of words. His visions are fresh and celebratory. I could read his work over and over. If this is your first Brautigan book you will not be let down. He hasn't written a book that will let you down. This one is no exception. Probably his finest three books in one!

A short time ago it seemed to me that Richard Brautigan was almost as forgotten as the Iron Butterfly, Mr. Natural and other later-century cultural phenomena that were once so much a part of young people's lives; I thought I was one of the few people left who read him. Happily, I was wrong. Brautigan still has something to say to readers at the turn of the 20th Century and "Revenge of the Lawn" is a good way to get to know him. The "stories" (some are just vignettes or even, like "The Scarlatti Tilt", just fragments of prose) reveal the different faces of Brautigan: the playful fantasy-smith, the somber memoirist, the ironic observer from the margins of society, the sexual adventurer, the literary craftsman, and even the loving husband and father. When I first read this book years ago, I just enjoyed the humor and irony. Re-reading it now, I can appreciate its human depths and its technique. "I Was Trying To Describe You To Someone" is Brautigan at his imaginative best, comparing a girl(sorry, feminists--I don't doubt she was really a woman) to a heroic New Deal documentary about rural electrification, which he relates in turn to the Greek myth of Prometheus bringing fire to humankind."Suddenly, heroically, with the throwing of a switch, there was light for the farmer.." In some ways reminiscent of "Letters From My Windmill" by Alphonse Daudet, "Revenge of the Lawn" may be one of the best ways for a new reader to get to know Richard Brautigan. Personally, I can say it has had the same spirit-lifting effect for me in bad times as Daudet's work. Recommended!

When I was an art student at East Carolina University back in the 80's, a friend gave me a copy of REVENGE OF THE LAWN. As I look back now, I realize Brautigan's book was probably the beginning of my slow change from wanting to be an artist to wanting to be a writer. I had never read anything like Brautigan's work before, and for many years I couldn't understand why his stories and poems moved me so. I now understand it is because of Brautigan's ability to make ordinary details sacred. For instance in the story "Coffee" in REVENGE OF THE LAWN, Brautigan says, "Sometimes life is merely a matter of coffee and whatever intimacy a cup of coffee affords." In this tender story about the end of love, Brautigan reveals that the accoutrements needed to make the coffee are laid out at his lover's house "like a funeral service" and that the cup of coffee is "safely inside me like a grave." Herein is the magic of Brautigan's ability: to raise the mundane act of drinking coffee to a ceremony of death.

This is an especially good volume of Brautigan's works. THE ABORTION begins by describing a bizarre library wherein everyone's books are welcomed and handled lovingly by the proprietors. This certainly evokes the hope of every writer--that his or her efforts would be handled lovingly by readers. However, this was not the case with Brautigan's final book, SO THE WIND WON'T BLOW IT ALL AWAY, included in this volume. The critics panned it, often comparing it to the work that first brought him fame and continued to overshadow his subsequent works: TROUT FISHING IN AMERICA. I cannot express strongly enough how wrong I think critics were in their assessment of SO THE WIND WON'T BLOW IT ALL AWAY. Indeed, I believe it is my favorite of all Brautigan's works. It has all the characteristics of his earlier works--idiosyncratic characters, humor, heartbreaking tragedy--but this work seems especially wistful and wise. It is as though Brautigan looked back over his life and captured the whole of it in this one haunting story.

Brautigan's writing has deeply affected many people. Several years ago, I read in the newspaper that a teenaged boy changed his name to "Trout Fishing in America." In the early years of his career, he had many fans. I think his work is timeless and has the power to attract many new admirers.

I discovered Brautigan recently and have been reading everything I can get my hands on of his. There's three collections of three books. The one with TROUT FISHING IN AMERICA and IN WATERMELON SUGAR is the best one to get if you're only going to get one. But this one is good as well.

REVENGE OF THE LAWN, a collection of short stories, has some great two- and three-pagers that display typical Brautigan wit, humor, and insight. Some, as with any collection, are better than others.

THE ABORTION is one of Brautigan's better plots. And I say this because his style and sense of humor is pretty consistent through all of his work, and you either love it or hate it. If you hate it, you won't like any of his stuff. If you like it, then you'll probably like this one. It seems more original than some of his genre parody stories like THE HAWKLINE MONSTER and DREAMING OF BABYLON. It also seems like it may be a little autobiographical, so the emotion in it feels more real.

SO THE WIND WON'T BLOW IT ALL AWAY eerily forshadows Brautigan's suicide. It speaks to the youth in all of us and carries a great sense of nostalgia. Taken in context with his life and its end shortly after writing this book, it feels like a depressed man looking back at the golden years with complete fondness.

Overall, I'd say this is the second best of the Brautigan collections available.

The concept of the narrator's employment in "Abortion" is incredibly genius, original and truly "BRAUTIGAN": A librarian for a library of self-published authors, books are "checked in" sort of like the Library of Congress, cataloged, documented and shelved, usually forever. But the Narrator reads most of the books. The overall description of these characters from "The Abortion" is that they are all losers, trapped in this life; however, they are all longing and yearning for something more. Most of the "cameo appearances" are writers, looking for an audience and wanting to feel important. There is a sense of unfulfillment, an unanswered desire, and sometimes a burning urge for more MEANING in life in all of Brautigan's work. His atmospheres can be funny, awkward and really just plain sad. So the wind won't blow it all away is the perfect ending to his career. The narrator has matured, become disillusioned about life, our political systems, our country, our promise to ourselves as youths, the passing of an era, and his own inability to MAKE A CHANGE. It is most important when reading Brautigan to realize that this man was probably the living breathing MOLD that all other hippies, yippies, counter culture gurus, flower children, etc were made. Brautigan, "the gentle poet of the young," watched his audience of readers grow up, stop caring, become part of the ESTABLISHMENT, get jobs, make careers, raise families, get haircuts, be responsible, drive station wagons, and put this country on the path to where we are now and oh yes, they quit buying his books as well. He noticed the sadness in all of life, not just his. Brautigan had always recognized this in his writing, but he never called by name...being human.

When you get taking yourself much too seriously, either as a writer or as just a human being, pick up anything by Richard Brautigan. He'll delicately shake you from your rigid thinking, point out the delicious ironies of how we all behave. I found great hope when I first picked up these stories - hope that I could tell my stories, too. Brautigan looks straight on at some of the most difficult things, doesn't get his panties in a bunch over form and structure, and makes me laugh out loud in public places, shrug, and go on about life that much lighter!

While people still fight over copies of "The Abortion" in used book stores, some people will be smart enough to buy this latest edition that provides more stories under one binding. While Brautigan provides us with memorable charcters and poetic landscapes, he also has humor and integrity in few words. While the world may wonder at the sad demise of the author, from reading between the lines it is apparent that some authors just "feel things too much". In the tradition of Vonnegut, Richard Brautigan is both ironic and brilliant, political and impertinant, and very, very entertaining

I only knew brautigans work from electronic documents, there is no comparing flipping the pages in excitement to the next great bit of intimate wit that takes you though times and places you never lived in, but the sensations are crisp clear and overwhelming sometimes

If you think Kurt Vonnegut, Tom Robbins and Douglas Adams are great authors you should give Mr. Brautigan a shot. Sadly, he left us too early.
This volume is my favorite. A friend of mine loaned me The Abortion and So the Wind Won't Blow It All Away and I was hooked.

Revenge of the Lawn is a collection of very funny short stories.

The Abortion is a novel about a couple who travel to Tiajuana, Mexico so that the girl-friend can obtain an abortion. The story highlights their travels, but also gives a very moving narration of the couple's self-questioning concerning whether or not they are doing the right thing.

So the Wind Won't Blow It All Away is a moving misadventure story of a group of boys who find a gun and decide to go shoot it.

I hope that The Hawkline Monster, Dreaming of Babylon and Willard and His Bowling Trophies is SOON released for the Kindle as they are also some of Richard Brautigan's best writing.

You will NOT be displeased with this series of books.