In Watermelon Sugar [Mass Market Paperback]

Richard Brautigan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 1973

Death is a place where the sun shines a different colour every day and where people travel to the length of their dreams. Rejecting the violence and hate of the old gang at the Forgotten Works, they lead gentle lives in watermelon sugar. Brautigan expresses the mood of a new generation.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'Delicate, fantastic and very funny...A highly individual style, a fertile, active inventiveness...It's cool, joyous, lucid and pleasant to read' Malcolm Bradbury --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 167 pages
• Publisher: Dell (1973)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0440340268
• ISBN-13: 978-0440340263
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (41 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,120,625 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The most under-recognized work I can think of..., January 9, 2000

By 

Dan Williams (Portland, OR -- USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: In Watermelon Sugar (Mass Market Paperback)

In Watermelon sugar, for me, has been more than a good read -- it has been an obsession. In college I wrote a twenty-page research paper on the subject... and Brautigan's style in this work particularly has continued to fascinate me. So often Brautigan's name is associted with his first success, "Trout Fishing in America." Critics of his time seemed also to be preoccupied with it, to the detriment of his better work. Brautigan himself seemed at times to flaunt that work as a kind of mantlepiece throughout his life.

Folly, I think; In Watermelon Sugar is clearly his best work -- a book as unique as "Trout Fishing," but with the added touch of a uniquely woven plot, something "Fishing" surely lacks.

Myth and Symbolism are handled by Brautigan with the hand of a child at play in a dream. To truly appreciate the book, Brautigan insists that you yourself become like that dreaming child, reaching back toward a place you thought you had forgotten. For instance, does anyone remember associating days of the week with certain colors? What color was Wednsday?

In "In Watermelon Sugar," the sun shines a different color every day, beckoning us back to the hidden realm of things lost but not forgotten -- a place we will never forget...

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Watermelon Sugar: Strange and Sweet, August 24, 2001

By 

diana barnes-brown (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: In Watermelon Sugar (Mass Market Paperback)

I read In Watermelon Sugar on recommendation from a good friend who, like me, is a writer. He simply handed me the slim volume and said, "This is good. Read it." After reading the book, this seems quite an apt introduction. Brautigan deals in exquisite simplicities, spare statements and commands expressing the day-to-day of human life and interaction, and he captures these moments with a striking clarity that leaves no opportunity for disagreement. Yet he frames these details in a world so odd they stand out precisely because of their normalcy. His characters live in a place where everything is made out of watermelon sugar, tigers can talk, and the sun shines a different color every day. Within this odd landscape, Brautigan foregrounds and examines the finer points of human life with a poet's voice and a clever eye. While his words are tender, his wit is sharp and wry, and the combination makes the book a richly textured read, deeply satisfying for anyone with a love of language or life.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Nothing short of astounding..., December 12, 2005

By 

Shmizzle - See all my reviews

This review is from: In Watermelon Sugar (Paperback)

I'm 15 years old and I read this book because there was a referance to it in another book I was reading(I Know This Much is True--another 5-star book) and it sounded intriguing.
Being someone who analyzes things to death, I knew right away that this is the kind of book that you will have your own opinions about and no one's opinions are wrong. For example, I think that iDeath was supposed to symoblize Heaven and the Forgotten Works was Earth(what's been "forgotten")
Anyhoo, the book is a rare work of art and one of the most inspiring works of literature to ever be published.