Customer Reviews

Revenge of Lawn

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There is (was) no one quite like Richard Brautigan. I've been reading his stuff for more than 25 years and his writing never fails to make me smile or take me to new emotional depths. This classic collection of Brautigan short stories is the master at the height of his creative powers. What a range of creativity on display, from the pathos of "The World War I Los Angeles Airplane" (Winner of the 1969 Best Short Story of the Year) to the whimsical "1/3. 1/3, 1/3".

I used to be a teacher. When my students stumbled into my office, all depressed and angst-ridden, I always sent them home with a Brautigan. They never failed to come back with a smile and deep appreciation.

Richard Brautigan was a complicated man, pursued by demons he could never control. We lost him far too early in life, but thankfully, we have books like "Revenge of the Lawn" to read and treasure over and over again.

A friend introduced me to the works of Brautigan quite recently. I hadn't heard of him before, to my shame.
I wasn't sure what to expect. I was surprised, pleasantly. It's not something that I'd have picked up on a whim. It's not something that I'd have thought that I'd enjoy. I was wrong.

Some of the stories in this collection are achingly beautiful. Some are very short, but evoke a level of emotion that I'd not have thought possible. The brevity and the intensity of his use of language is astonishing.

This is a volume I think that I'll eventually read again and again. I've nothing else in my extensive collection that has the ability to make me laugh one moment, and have me on the verge of tears the next. How could I recommend this more highly ??

When I was a kid growing up in a small town north of Boston, I used to take care of a neighbor's chickens. It was only when the family went to the Cape for vacations. I had to let the chickens out of their coop in the morning. They always seemed glad to see daylight. Though they were hungry, they never got used to me. They'd run around clucking and squawking, wishing I'd disappear and leave them to their chicken business. When I threw food on the ground, they really got wild. They'd run around like crazy. I had to collect the eggs, take them up onto the neighbors' back porch and put them in a basket. The chicken coop stood just before a patch of weeds and brush by a old pond where turtles lived and I could catch tadpoles. I grew up. Then it was the Sixties and I started to read Richard Brautigan. I loved that guy's writing. And you know ? I still love it. He must be one of America's great twentieth century writers, but forgotten. I haven't forgotten him. He's all around, just like chicken. Maybe writing today is more like supermarket frozen chicken, but Brautigan has that feeling of early summer mornings when you hadn't been spoiled by too much living. His work is poignant, funny, sad, and beautiful. You can fill in your own adjectives if you read books like REVENGE OF THE LAWN. I strongly recommend that you do. A lot of his stories are pieces of genius. Describing them only destroys them. You have to read them, each a little haiku of its own. A haiku on a hundred bucks a month. Having a lot of money isn't everything. Just take a good look at life. Chickens are as good a place to start as anywhere. Brautigan killed himself and that was the world's loss. I still miss having more Brautigan stories. I've read them all several times.

While, indeed, Richard Brautigan may "ramble" and this anthology may not seem to possess a central theme, it is still classic Brautigan, an assemblage of previously published short stories, many reflecting the brilliance that was Brautigan. Certainly it shows his creativity and originality and his hold on the "flavor" of what was the late-Sixties in California! Brautigan, while having some shorter novels with success, still seems to be more in control of the short stories. He writes a mean poem, too.

In "Revenge of the Lawn," the emotions he evokes range from the absurd to the poignant--he seems to capture the gamut! The title story is superb, of course, but "Halloween" is hard to beat, as well. The touching revelation of sensitivity in "Corporal" is also unmatched. And who can overlook the brilliance of "1/3, 1/3, 1/3"! The author is able to present a deftness that even Hemingway couldn't achieve! His surreal writing certainly won him many readers' hearts. With him and Lawrence Ferlingetti, the San Francisco scene couldn't have been more representative in literature. Granted, some of his "stuff" is easily dismissable, but when Brautigan was good, he was very good! (Billyjhobbs@tyler.net)

To my mind this is Brautigan's best book, and his finest work is the one-sentence Scarlatti Tilt. He manages to get a whole novel into one sentence. That sentence should be something that every college student reads.

I feel sad that so few will.

Richard Brautigan was an all- American original. He didn't have to tell himself to hear the sound of a different drummer, he simply did. His writing is poetic and metaphoric, and is wild in its perceptions and connections. He covered the territory of the poor and disordered white rural world, and one can feel Raymond Carver on the way in his work. Here in these stories he opens with the tale of his six- foot tall bootlegging grandmother and her wasteland lawn and goes on to chronicle the tales of a whole variety of American misfits. He himself was of course the major one , and his misadventures are a strong part of these stories. What redeems is the language and the imagination, the freshness of seeming to wholly ignore everything respectable and sensible. However I found a problem in it all, the lack of anything coherent or strong to hold on to. There is tremendous perception but no vision . And there is thus through it all a note of forlorness and abandonment as if nothing anywhere is worth enough to deeply and continuously care about it. So while he can be amusing and interesting at times as he goes along he does not , or rather did not really hold my full attention. Perhaps I am wrong but the work is truly original but not to me anyway, inspiring and strengthening.

If you know this man you like this man !
if you like is novels you be found in love with that kind of short strat of novel !

"Revenge of the Lawn" is Brautigan's one "Official" collection of short stories; honestly, though, it is basically an extension of "Trout Fishing in America" but without the central theme. Much of what is here is good for laughs. The title piece, especially, is well-written and poignant. But too much of the book wanders about with no point. And most of the stories are less than a few pages long. Collectors will want it, but neophytes should avoid it; Brautigan was capable of sparking much better grass fires than this