Customer Reviews

Richard Brautigan's Trout Fishing in America, the Pill versus the Springhill Mine Disaster, and In Watermelon Sugar

5 star:		(31)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

The late, great Richard Brautigan was one of America's most talented and original writers. An icon of the 1960's counterculture, Brautigan was more than just another hippie writer, he was the Mark Twain of the 60's! A brilliant satirist with the soul of a poet, Brautigan's works were way ahead of their time, and this volume collects three of his best. "Trout Fishing In America", his most celebrated novel, chronicles the life and times of a fellow named, well, Trout Fishing In America, as he wanders across a bizarre landscape in search of enlightenment, a Zen fisherman, so to speak. "The Pill Versus The Springhill Mine Disaster" is a collection of poetry that mixes lyricism with smarmy humor. "In Watermelon Sugar" is a beautiful, lyrical novel about a group of people living in a commune, supporting themselves by making things out of watermelon sugar in a factory they call the Watermelon Works. That's just an abstract description of the plot - you have to read the book thoroughly to enjoy the unique structure of the narrative. Brautigan was indeed a writer far ahead of his time, combining brilliant Vonnegutesque satire with the homey charm of Mark Twain. Treat yourself to a great read and buy this book!

"In Watermelon Sugar" was the first Brautigan I read, and is still my favorite. In fact, it is my all-time favorite novel in any genre! The language is poetic and lulling, the characters are almost heartwrenchingly real, and the story is subtle and bizarre. I (forcibly) lend this book to everyone I know, and they invariably thank me after having read it.

And that's just one story...

Trout Fishing in America is abstract, disjointed, and witty. Excellent excellent stuff, although in a vastly different form than In Watermelon Sugar. And even if you don't like reading poetry, The Pill versus the Springhill Mine Disaster will make you a fan. It's such simple, elegant, writing and it grabs the reader so effectively that you can't not like it.

Any of these three books are easily worth the price of the collection. All of them together is a treasure.

and ask him kindly to risk another few bucks on "Sombrero Fallout", before consigning Mr. B to the waste paper bin. Not random, I think you'll find. No monkeys in sight. Five star read. As Captain Beefheart or Tom Waits are to popular music, so Mr. B is, I think you'll find.

This is one of three collections of re-released Brautigan. It's the best of the three. TROUT FISHING is his classic. It's unlike anything I've ever read. I felt like someone showed me a new way to use words. A reviewer suggested calling his works "Brautigans," as they're an original artform.

IN WATERMELON SUGAR is my favorite of the eight or so Brautigan's I've read. At once funny, touching, nostalgic, smart, insightful...good stuff.

And THE PILL VS THE SPRING HILL MINE DISASTER is a collection of his poems. To have a collection of his poetry thrown in here with these two fantastic books is just icing on the cake.

Brautigan has been called the last of the Beats. Perhaps he killed the Beat movement by pushing it as far as it would go.

I found this book through that strange feeling I'm sure you must have had in a bookstore, when you just look at a book and know it is a part of you. It inspired me to write poetry, through his sense of wonder merged with deep sorrow and the intricate wordplay. Watermelon sugar, in it's entireity, is a masterpiece. One of those books that just seems perfect; it gives you a sense of calm like the tao, moved me to change myself and my reality, and i've passed it on to whomever i love that will give in. It speaks great truths through metaphor and symbolism. You can tell he has been every character. Trout fishing... well, it is one of his best as well, showing the world through two different entities with the same mind and heart; it heals and inspires, and only the laughing buddha, the trickster poet, the sorrowful and heart wrenching character of brautigan could deliver such a treasure to us. It has inspired people to change their names to it's title, in fact. The only thing this anthology needed was more of brautigan's horror stuff in it... check out the other two volumes.

I was introduced to Brautigan's writing twenty or so years ago. I own several first editions of his books and go back to them again and again. My teenage kids are now amused and intrigued by his stories and I wonder whether this is good or bad for them. Brautigan helps me keep an even keel and realize that this life, this job, this reality are mine only because I choose not to change. I could live in Watermelon Sugar if only I had the balls to go there. Read the stories and gain a balanced perspective.

Brautigan's life ended, at his own hand, in 1984, but his memory lingers on. He has become known as the Mark Twain of the 60s, the New Thoreau, and the Zen Trickster. His voice, ebullient, sad, and comic, is pure American. Brautigan's writing straddles the line between prose and poetry as he follows a guy named (trust me here) Trout Fishing In America across his native land in search of Zen enlightenment. The `chapters' are anecdotes that read as fables and continue to delight after multiple re-readings. If you missed this book the first time around, perhaps because you were into other stuff during the 60s, now's your chance.

Of the three books in this volume, two are classics: Trout Fishing and The Pill.

The third, In Watermelon Sugar, is surreal (OK, MORE surreal) and interesting as an experiment, but not as interesting as the first two.

Trout Fishing comes in a straight line from Whitman and Ginsberg, as modified by Hemingway and Hammett: spontaneity and absolute lack of inhibition, tempered by gemlike use of language.

Funny and eye-opening by turns, the two books redefine fiction and make poetry approachable, simple, Zenlike, and humorous.

Both are pies-in-the-face of pretension and academia. One of the best poems in The Pill Versus is the one about being Poet-in-Residence at Cal Tech: I'm bored, and there's nothing to do.

Do not expect character development or linear plots (or any plots).

Instead, expect to see and be new things.

Nothing this experimental is for everyone, but that's part of the point -- this is, after all, a countercultural effort. Still, Brautigan's rich sense of humor and genrous spirit help to make this accessbile to the average reader. And writers will appreciate that the form is not as "free" as it at first appears. There's a reason why so many writers admire his work -- why Ray Carver, for example, included a Brautigan story in his anthoogy "Short Story Masterpieces." Like this work or not, you've got to give credit where credit is due, and credit is due Brautigan. And readers who are able to put down their preconceptions and able to consider that the author's generous sensibility can extend beyond story to a generosity of form may be surprised at how enjoyable -- and inspiring -- Brautigan's writing still is.

The man is no longer here so its necessary to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Brautigan was in the long tradition of American originals. Thoreau defined it as the person who can't walk in step with the others because he 'hears the sound of his own drummer'.
Brautigan put a number of things together. A kind of clearness in telling about what he was seeing right before him. A kind of whimsical random associativeness which broke up the prose line, and often make it feel as if what was on the page had nothing to do with what had come before it or after it. And most savingly, a kind of humor , this very much connected with the going his own way, and displacing things and putting them in strange order. Surprise. He also had a closeness to America, whether he liked it or not.
I agree with many of the readers about his big problem being that he often seemed to not really know or care what he was talking about. Writing was his business, and whatever came to him that's what made it on the page. So it seems.
But he had a kind of lightness with it all, and he could really sometimes make the reader laugh, which in my opinion, is saying a lot.
I do not know what he really believed, unfortunately.
Reading him is like taking a ride in an amusement park. You enjoy it but you are not exactly sure you know why. And in the end it is not something that is going to stay with you in the strongest way.
Enjoy the reading while you are reading it- and don't expect too much more.