In Watermelon Sugar

The second novel in this book is In Watermelon Sugar, which is a more interesting exercise than Trout Fishing in America, in my opinion. In Watermelon Sugar at least bears the pretense of being a novel, with characters and a plot, rather than random anecdotes from the author's past.

I'd read that Brautigan wasn't comfortable being characterized as a hippie writer, but this novel is set on a commune, for crying out loud (and that just shows how disconnected I am from the sixties, if I hear "commune" and immediately think "hippies", right?) Regardless, this really interesting and a little weird -- the commune has a strange name (iDeath) there are talking tigers (real tigers with the power of speech? People called "tigers"? Something else?), the Sun is a different color each day (and on one day, sound doesn't travel), the people make things with "watermelon sugar", and there's a junkyard-type place (ruins of a past civilization) called the Forgotten Works.

Narrated by an unnamed character, and contained all these fantastic happenings, this is an entertaining, poetically written novel that's a little heartbreaking and definitely unusual. Would recommend.

Trout Fishing in America

Richard Brautigan's Trout Fishing in America has one of the most hyperbolic blurbs I've ever seen:

"But there is nothing like Richard Brautigan anywhere. Perhaps, when we are very old, people will write 'Brautigans', just as we now write novels. Let us hope so. For this man has invented a genre, a whole new shot, a thing needed, delightful, and right . . ."

 The above is from the San Francisco Sunday Examiner & Chronicle (what?) but still, wow. I can understand enjoying this novel more than I did. I can understand loving this novel. I can't understand the above reaction. Trout Fishing in America is a perfectly acceptable, engaging collection of anecdotes, featuring a nice sense of humor and easily digested prose, but I wouldn't say it's anything transcendent. Whether that says something about me, I wouldn't know.

Trout Fishing in America kinda reminds me of some of the works of Kurt Vonnegut, although Brautigan doesn't bother to create any characters to advance the plot -- the novel consists solely of stories of fishing, stories of the author's trip through the West with his wife and child, and reminisces from the past. It's an easy enough read that I'd definitely recommend it, although I wouldn't say it's particularly profound.