Dreaming of Babylon: A private eye novel, 1942 (Hardcover)

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

You are in San Francisco, and you need a private eye. Nobody's left but C. Card. When you hire C. Card, you have scraped the bottom of the private eye barrel. The fast, funny, slam-bang adventures of seedy, not-too-bright C. Card are a delight to both the mind and the heart. The book was originally published in 1977. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

About the Author

Richard Brautigan's comic genius and countercultural vision of American life made him a literary idol of the 1960s and 1970s. His books became required reading for the beat generation, and Trout Fishing in America sold more than two million copies throughout the world. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 220 pages
• Publisher: Delacorte Press/S. Lawrence; 1st Printing edition (1977)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0440021464
• ISBN-13: 978-0440021469
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,380,936 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Brautigan touch and the private eye novel, February 3, 2004

By	LGwriter "SharpWitGuy" (Astoria, N.Y. United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

Ya gotta know by now that nobody writes like Richard Brautigan. He's a force unto himself and sorely missed. In Dreaming of Babylon, 1977, he's gotta 40s gumshoe, C. Card, who's so broke he has to borrow a friend's gun 'cause he can't afford his own. But the gun has no bullets so he has to find them somewhere as well. What a guy.

The title refers to C's tendency to picture himself in a land of imagination that takes him far away from the everyday world into a place that rewards him with a beauteous dame (natch) and all kinds of pleasures and stuff. With chapter titles like "Mustard", "A Babylonian Sand Watch", and "Barcelona", it's not hard to tell C. loves fantasizing a lot, as well as moving back and forth between that and the nitty gritty stuff of life.

Of course every chapter is 2 or 3 pages; the largest is 6. Here's a great little excerpt: "'You've broken your mother's heart', she'd always say then and I'd answer, 'Don't say that, Mom, just because I'm a private detective. I still love you.'"

C. has to solve a murder (of course; otherwise this wouldn't be a private eye novel) and the things that happen to him are funny and ridiculous and strange and tense and just plain dumb sometimes. But that's life, ain't it? He goes about his business like a goofball sometimes and sometimes he actually has enough smarts to put two and two together--when he's not off in Babylon somewhere....

You don't read Brautigan for a linear plot and non-whimsical writing. You don't read him if you want characters who take themselves seriously embedded in worlds of text whose author also takes himself seriously. You read Brautigan 'cause you know he's gotta sense of humor nobody else ever did, does, or will have. You read him 'cause he's a guy whose heart is a whole lot bigger than a breadbox and who thinks with it really well. You read him because he knows how to tell a story that makes you laugh and sigh a little and maybe understand a little better how to be in this world.

Read him.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Dreaming of Babylon...sadness, futility, and dreamscapes, October 30, 1997

By	[e-mail] (Ohio, USA) - See all my reviews

Brautigan's "Dreaming of Babylon" chronicles the dreamscape of a down-on-his-luck private eye. Drawing in seedy tones, he explores the inner dreamscape of the character. The escapism of the protagonist, as well as the hopelessness, mirror those Brautigan felt in this stage of his career. The inventive turns of phrase and wry humour are there, but an underlying sadness permeates the plot; the outcome, failures, and cramped, small dreams are known from the beginning. The protagonist is a stand-in for Brautigan, much as in "Sombrero Fallout" and other later works. As one who owns all his fiction, I think of this as one of the sadder books. Andy Reeves

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Brautigan's strange slice of mystery, June 18, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Dreaming of Babylon (Paperback)

"Dreaming of Babylon" is Brautigan's spoof of the mystery world. In it, we encounter a blundering private eye who discovers a dead body in his apartment. As he sets out to solve this mystery, we discover he has a problem with "dreaming of Babylon," which is a sort of daydream-as-narcoleptic state. Fun, without a doubt. But the writing is hurried and simple, and this just doesn't feel like he was into it. With a little more focus, this could have been more exciting. As it is, it still provides hours of literary fun