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.
"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 . . ."
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.
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