Customer Reviews

So the Wind Won't Blow It All Away

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Richard Brautigan's story of a young boy whose life is forever changed by the decision not to eat a hamburger is simultaneously sweetly amusing and heartbreakingly tragic. That this novel is out of print, especially in light of his death in 1984, is equally tragic. If you read no other Brautigan work, read this novel.

From a survey of reviews of Brautigan's work here at Amazon, it seems he is lost to Gen X or whatever they're calling "youth" these days. They don't "get" him, but maybe they should avoid "Trout Fishing in America" which is supposed to be his all-time classic. The three that truly deserve a place in the canon are "The Hawkline Monster," "Willard and his Bowling Trophies" (both written while Brautigan was in the ascendant) and this one, "So the Wind Won't Blow it All Away," his semi-autobiographical elegy to a lost America; not sentimental or maudlin, but mournful and challenging. I have never forgotten the scene of Brautigan and another soaking-wet ragamuffin shooting apples with .22s in an abandoned orchard, while the rain poured. "We were Pacific Northwest kids!" he shouts with defiant joy. The terminal scene, with the couple who take their couch with them fishing, teaches that living one's dreams necessarily entails exhibiting one's "eccenctricity" (actually authenticity). Brautigan did away with himself in his 40s due to a wife who fled, along with a career on the skids and alcohol (allegedly), but readers of this book know there was more to it than those merely contributing factors. Brautigan didn't want to pick up the pieces of his self after it had been homogenized and processed as we are now, in an age where we spend so much time staring at TV sets and video screens, and being stared at in return by "security" cameras. Suicide is a terrible wrong, but this little volume shows that Brautigan did not wish to endure the torments of a 21st century-style modernity, for fear of how he would be diminished by it. I liked him for many disparate and "crazy" reasons, including the fact that he was a true Oregonian westerner, Montana transplant and disparager of everything for which Woody Allen stands. Bruatigan and Keoruac could only have been Americans...The wind has blown a lot of it away, but maybe not all.

It is terrible to think of what Brautigan must have gone through in the final years of his life that lead him to suicide. But one of those things was definitely reflection. Here, he leaves behind his tradional creative bursts and settles in for a lush, almost southern-gothic-like novel. But it is the nostalgia tainted by a cruel and adult world. As a reader, you feel blown through the small town landscapes Brautigan gusts at you. But when you realize where he was headed, the symbolism of the central (child) character with the gun is bone-chilling. Had Brautigan recovered, and continued in this style, he would have had a whole new lease on writing. As it is, we have one example; and that one example is astonishing

Though his earlier books still tend to hog the spotlight, sad Richard's swan song is a gem, with dark depths and a weight far beyond that of some of his more playful works. It's a tight, compact piece that really sings, however mournfully, and it's a shame it was received with an indifference that may have nailed in one more plank on the ladder to Brautigan's unfortunate demise. Its reissue in one volume with "Abortion" and "Lawn" will hopefully get the book the attention it deserves, among both the converted and the un.

I agree with those below who consider this Brautigran's best work. I'll add that SO THE WIND is among my favorite books of all time, fiction or nonfiction. It does take you to an absolutely singular emotional/geographic landscape. Each sentence feels like it's reeling you further and further into the truth. I first read the book when I was 23, on the advice of a friend. It blew me away. :) Still does.

I have come to realize that the character in So the Wind won't blow it all away by Brautigan is me. I took every incorrect road that is possible and then took on the agony of regret with starving grace. I live now like that character. Always writing down nonsense symbols because words mean nothing anymore. I should not have gone to that picnic just like the character should not have bought bullets. I feel like I am the character though I too dream of the "thing" that I cannot see.