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When I was around 11 or 12 I spent a considerable amount of time snooping around my older sister’s room. She had a little bookshelf with only one book on it amidst all the nick-nacks. My aunt gave her the book and it was obvious she never opened it. It was So The Wind Won’t Blow It All Away and the cover photo really freaked me out.
One day I read the book. All Brautigan books can be read in a day. The book was really sad and funny but mostly sad. If the narrator had just bought a hamburger that day, things would have been different. Later I read that this was the last book Brautigan published before blowing his brains out. The foreshadowing became quite apparent after the fact.
In High School I remember having these dreams where I lived above a funeral parlor and they seemed so real and out of left field. Then I remembered this book and re-read it. The narrator lived above a funeral parlor for a bit.
After college I moved to Portland, Oregon. One of my best friends, Dylan, began reading Trout Fishing In America. He said there was a guy named “Trout Fishing In America” in Ojai, California, where he was from. I read Trout Fishing too, then In Watermelon Sugar, and A Confederate General in Big Sur. Powell’s books had tons of Richard Brautigan hardcovers, well worn and ratty but first editions. I hadn’t realized RB was from the Northwest when I read him as a kid, but now that I live out here it made total sense. Soon, I had read everything he wrote. The Abortion was a favorite. I remember giving it to my sister for Christmas (a different sister than the one who I stole So The Wind… from) and the family being a little weirded out by the title. “It’s a really nice book,” I said, “It’s about a guy who lives in a library where anyone can put a book they write. One kid enters a book about a pancake.”
When Dylan told his father he was reading RB his father told a story regarding young Dylan and the author himself. Dylan was probably 3 or 4 and he and his dad were walking down a hill in San Francisco (one of RB’s homes, along with Montana, and Japan) and RB was walking up the hill. His dad recognized RB instantly, his long blonde hair and trademarked mustache were legendary, not to mention on the cover of all his books. Apparently young Dylan and RB were really intrigued with each other and stared at each other intently and when they passed they both turned around and walked backwards, still staring, one going up hill and one going down. I thought it was a great story.
When I pulled out So The Wind… for my third re-read I thought about my aunt who gave my sister the book. She lived in SF in the late 60’s and 70’s and knew Kesey and such so I wondered if she ever met RB. The next day I saw a note on the refrigerator that my aunt had called. She had never called before, she lived in Mexico. Turns out she didn’t know RB. Instead she offered to pay for my trip to Mexico as a graduation present from college. Right on. Oh yeah and for years I played in a band called The Lawn (originally with Dylan), named after the Brautigan collection Revenge of The Lawn. So now I present Richard Brautigan.
Biographical Snippets from Wikipedia (read full entry)
Brautigan was born in Tacoma, Washington to Bernard Frederick Brautigan, Jr. (July 29, 1909 — May 27, 1994) a factory worker, laborer, and World War II veteran, and Lulu Mary “Mary Lou” Keho (April 7, 1911 — September 24, 2005) a waitress. His father broke his relationship with Mary Lou eight months before Richard was born. Brautigan said that he met his biological father only twice, though after Brautigan’s death Bernard Brautigan was said to be unaware that Richard was his child, saying “He’s got the same last name, but why would they wait 45 to 50 years to tell me I’ve got a son.”
Throughout his childhood, Brautigan lived in extreme poverty; he told his daughter stories of his mother sifting rat feces from their supply of flour to make flour-and-water pancakes. Because of Brautigan’s impoverished childhood, he and his family found it difficult obtaining food, and on some occasions would not be able to eat for days. He lived with his family on welfare and moved to various homes in the Pacific Northwest before settling in Eugene, Oregon in 1944. Many of Brautigan’s childhood experiences were included in the poems and stories that he wrote from as early as the age of 12 through his high school years. His novel So the Wind Won’t Blow It All Away is loosely based on childhood experiences including an incident where Brautigan accidentally shot the brother of a close friend in the ear, injuring him only slightly.
Hospitalization
On December 14, 1955, Brautigan was arrested for throwing a rock through a police-station window, supposedly in order to be sent to prison and fed. He was arrested for disorderly conduct and had to pay a $25 fine; however, he was instead committed to the Oregon State Hospital on December 24, 1955, after police noticed patterns of erratic behavior.
At the Oregon State Hospital Brautigan was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and clinical depression, and was treated with electroconvulsive therapy twelve times. While institutionalized, he began writing The God of the Martians, a manuscript that remains unpublished. On February 19, 1956, Brautigan was released from the Oregon State Hospital and briefly lived with his mother, stepfather, and his siblings in Eugene, Oregon. He then left for San Francisco, where he would spend most of the rest of his life, except for periods of time spent in Tokyo and Montana.
Writing career
In San Francisco, Brautigan sought to establish himself as a writer and was known for handing out his poetry on the streets and performing at poetry clubs.
Brautigan’s first published book was The Return of the Rivers (1958), a single poem, followed by two collections of poetry: The Galilee Hitch-Hiker (1958), and Lay the Marble Tea (1959). During the 1960s Brautigan became involved in the burgeoning San Francisco counterculture scene, often appearing as a performance-poet at concerts and participating in the various activities of The Diggers. Brautigan was also a writer for the newspaper Change, an underground newspaper created by Ron Loewinsohn.
In the summer of 1961, Brautigan went camping with his wife and his daughter in the Idaho Stanley Basin. While camping he completed the novels A Confederate General From Big Sur and Trout Fishing in America. A Confederate General from Big Sur was his first published novel and met with little critical or commercial success. But when his novel Trout Fishing in America was published in 1967, Brautigan was catapulted to international fame and labeled by literary critics as the writer most representative of the emerging countercultural youth-movement of the late 1960s, even though he was said to be contemptuous of hippies (as noted in Lawrence Wright’s article in the April 11, 1985 issue of Rolling Stone.) Trout Fishing in America has so far sold over 4 million copies worldwide.
Suicide
In 1984, at age 49, Richard Brautigan had recently moved to Bolinas, California, where he was living alone in a large, old house. He died of a self-inflicted .44 Magnum gunshot wound to the head. The exact date of his death is unknown, and his decomposed body was found by Robert Yench, a private investigator, on October 25, 1984. The body was found on the living room floor, in front of a large window that looked out over the Pacific Ocean. It is speculated that Brautigan may have ended his life over a month earlier, on September 14, 1984, after talking to former girlfriend Marcia Clay on the telephone.
Brautigan once wrote, “All of us have a place in history. Mine is clouds.”
NOVELS (most info culled from www.brautigan.net)
A CONFEDERATE GENERAL FROM BIG SUR – 1964
The Novel’s Protagonist
According to Newton Smith, the novel is the story of a character in Big Sur who imagines himself to be a general in the Confederate army, told by a narrator working on a textual analysis of the punctuation of Ecclesiastes. (Smith 123)
More specifically, Lee Mellon, the novel’s protagonist, believes he is the descendent of the only Confederate General to have come from Big Sur and is himself a seeker after truth in his own modern-day (1957) war against the status quo and the state of the Union. Brautigan’s friend Price Dunn was the model for the novel’s Lee Mellon.
Theme
The novel’s theme was the domination of imagination over reality: both a curse and a blessing. Imagination was presented as an uncontrollable force from which people received comfort, hope, and despair. This theme was reprised in all Brautigan’s subsequent novels.
TROUT FISHING IN AMERICA – 1967
Inspiration for the Novel
Pierre Delattre recalled a fishing trip with Brautigan and how Brautigan lamented not being able to capture the magic of “his trout fishing book” on paper.
Then one afternoon back in North Beach we went into a hardware store so that he could buy some chickenwire for his bird cage. Suddenly he seized the pen from my pocket, the notebook from my shoulder bag, ran out and over to a park bench, and started to scribble a story about a man who finds a used trout stream in the back of a hardware store. The next day, we stopped to chat with a legless-armless man on a rollerboard who sold pencils. Brautigan called him “Trout Fishing in America Shorty,” and wrote a story about him. From then on, trout fishing ceased to be a memory of the past, but the theme of immediate experience and Brautigan’s book made him a rich and famous writer.
The early acceptance of the novel was positive. Critics hailed Brautigan as a fresh new voice in American literature. For example, Newton Smith said, ‘Trout Fishing in America altered the shape of fiction in America and was one of the first popular representatives of the postmodern novel. . . . The narrative is episodic, almost a free association of whimsy, metaphors, puns, and vivid but unconventional images. Trout Fishing in America is, among other things, a character, the novel itself as it is being written, the narrator, the narrator’s inspirational muse, a pen nib, and a symbol of the pastoral ideal being lost to commercialism, environmental degradation, and social decay’.
Excerpt:
Mayonnaise.
IN WATERMELON SUGAR – 1968
First published in 1968, In Watermelon Sugar was Richard Brautigan’s third published novel and, according to Newton Smith, his most serious: a parable for survival in the 20th c[entury]. [It] is the story of a successful commune called iDEATH whose inhabitants survive in passive unity while a group of rebels live violently and end up dying in a mass suicide.
Inspiration for the Novel
Several possible inspirations for the novel are noted. iDEATH may have been a utopian parable for the artistic/literary community of Bolinas, California where Brautigan wrote this novel. A possible inspiration for the “Forgotten Works” may have been a Sears Department store across from Brautigan’s apartment at 2546 Geary Street. Brautigan moved to this typical turn-of-the-century San Francisco apartment in 1965, where he lived until 1975 (Michael McClure 41). The view of San Francisco from across the bay in Marin County was another possible inspiration for the Forgotten Works. Another possible inspiration was Brautigan’s separation from his wife, Virginia Alder, on 24 December 1962.
Excerpt:
“In Watermelon Sugar the deeds were done and done again as my life is done in watermelon sugar. I’ll tell you about it because I am here and you are distant.
Wherever you are, we must do the best we can. It is so far to travel, and we have nothing here to travel, except watermelon sugar. I hope this works out.
I live in a shack near iDEATH. I can see iDEATH out the window. It is beautiful. I can also see it with my eyes closed and touch it. Right now it is cold and turns like something in the hand of a child. I do not know what that thing could be.
There is a delicate balance in iDEATH. It suits us.
The shack is small but pleasing and comfortable as my life and made from pine, watermelon sugar and stones as just about everything here is.
Our lives we have carefully constructed from watermelon sugar and then travelled to the length of our dreams, along roads lined with pines and stones.
I have a bed, a chair, a table and a large chest that I keep my things in. I have a lantern that burns watermelontrout oil at night.
That is something else. I’ll tell you about it later. I have a gentle life.
I go to the window and look out again. The sun is shining at the long edge of a cloud. It is Tuesday and the sun is golden.
I can see piney woods and the rivers that flow from those piney woods. The rivers are cold and clear and there are trout in the rivers.
Some of the rivers are only a few inches wide.
I know a river that is half-an-inch wide. I know because I measured it and sat beside it for a whole day. It started raining in the middle of the afternoon. We call everything a river here. We’re that kind of people.
I can see fields of watermelons and the rivers that flow through them. There are many bridges in the piney woods and in the fields of watermelons. There is a bridge in front of this shack.
Some of the bridges are made of wood, old and stained silver like rain, and some of the bridges are made of stone gathered from a great distance and built in the order of that distance, and some of the bridges are made of watermelon sugar. I like those bridges best.
We make a great many things out of watermelon sugar here — I’ll tell you about it — including this book being written near iDEATH.
All this will be gone into, travelled in watermelon sugar.”
THE ABORTION: AN HISTORICAL ROMANCE – 1971
Plot
The plot of The Abortion follows a young man, the narrator, who works and lives in the library, a Brautigan world of lonely pleasure, where he meets a woman. After impregnating the woman, the narrator supports her abortion. In the process he learns how to reenter human society.
Inspiration for the Novel
The inspiration for the library is factual. The abortion is more problematic.
Excerpt:
The 23
Ah, it feels so good to sit here in the darkness of these books. I’m not tired. This has been an average evening for books being brought in: with 23 finding their welcomed ways onto our shelves.
I wrote their titles and authors and a little about the receiving of each book down in the Library Contents Ledger. I think the first book came in around 6:30.
MY TRIKE by Chuck. The author was five years old and had a face that looked as if it had been struck by a tornado of freckles. There was no title on the book and no words inside, just pictures.
“What’s the name of your book?” I said.
The little boy opened the book and showed me the drawing of a tricycle. It looked more like a giraffe standing upside down in an elevator.
“That’s my trike,” he said.
“Beautiful,” I said. “And what’s your name?”
“That’s my trike.”
“Yes,” I said. “Very nice, but what’s your name?”
“Chuck.”
He reached the book up onto the desk and then headed for the door, saying, “I have to go now. My mother’s outside with my sister.”
I was going to tell him that he could put the book on any shelf he wanted to, but then he was gone in his small way.
THE HAWKLINE MONSTER: A GOTHIC WESTERN
Background
First published in 1974, The Hawkline Monster was Richard Brautigan’s fifth published novel, and the first to parody a literary genre. Subtitled “A Gothic Western,” the novel was well received by a wider audience than Brautigan’s earlier work.
As in earlier novels, Brautigan played with the idea that imagination has both good and bad ramifications, turning it into a monster with the power to turn objects and thoughts into whatever amused it.
WILLARD AND HIS BOWLING TROPHIES – A PERVERSE MYSTERY
Background
First published in 1975, Willard and His Bowling Trophies was Richard Brautigan’s sixth published novel and the second to parody a literary genre: sado-masochism in this case. The novel, as all others by Brautigan, dealt with the isolation of people from each other.
Inspiration for the Novel
In real life, Willard was a papier mache sculpture, a bird about four feet high painted red, white, and orange with big, round eyes, a pot belly, and long beak created by Brautigan’s friend Stanley Fullerton. Brautigan and Price Dunn enjoyed elaborate practical jokes on each other as part of passing Willard back and forth between themselves.
SOMBRERO FALLOUT: A JAPANESE NOVEL
Background
First published in 1976, Sombrero Fallout was Richard Brautigan’s seventh published novel and the third to parody a literary genre. Subtitled “A Japanese Novel,” it featured two interrelated stories. The first was about a sombrero falling from the sky and its affect on humanity. In the second story, the narrator of the first thinks about his Japanese ex-lover who had recently moved out of his apartment.
DREAMING OF BABYLON: A DETECTIVE NOVEL 1942
Background
First published in 1977, Dreaming of Babylon was Richard Brautigan’s eighth published novel and the fourth to parody a literary genre. Subtitled “A Private Eye Novel 1942” it parodied hard-boiled Grade-B detective stories.
THE TOKYO-MONTANA EXPRESS
Background
First published in 1980 (special Targ edition published 1979), The Tokyo-Montana Express, a collection of one hundred and thirty-one “stations” inspired by memories of Japan and Montana, January-July 1976, that seem to form a somewhat autobiographical work, was Brautigan’s ninth published novel. Brautigan, defending the unique form of this novel, said each section of the novel represented a separate stop along a journey, a station along a metaporical rail line joining Japan and Montana. Common themes running through these stations include Brautigan’s disillusionment with aging, the search for identity, the diversity of human nature, and cultural differences between Montana and Japan. A few stations deal with Shiina Takako, owner of The Cradle, a Tokyo bar patronized by writers and artists, and Brautigan.
SO THE WIND WON’T BLOW IT ALL AWAY
Background
First published in 1982, So the Wind Won’t Blow It All Away was Richard Brautigan’s ninth published novel and the last published before his death in 1984. Focused around the death of a young boy in a shooting accident in a western Oregon town on Saturday, 17 February 1948. Although he never confirmed or denied the connection, the story was thought to be autobiographical, built on an incident that happened to Brautigan at age thirteen.
Actually, the story was created from two separate incidents. The first involved Brautigan, his best friend Pete Webster, and Pete’s brother, Danny. The three were duck hunting in the Fern Ridge wetlands, near Eugene, Oregon. Brautigan was separated from the other two. Brautigan fired at a duck and a pellet from his shot struck Danny in the ear, injuring him only slightly. About the same time, Donald Husband, 14-year-old son of a prominent Eugene attorney, was shot and killed in a hunting accident off Bailey Hill Road. Brautigan’s incident and that involving Husband became one in this novel (Bob Keefer and Quail Dawning 2H).
The novel sold less than 15,000 copies, and was ignored or dismissed by critics.
AN UNFORTUNATE WOMAN: A JOURNEY
Background
First published in France in 1994 (U.S. edition published 2000), An Unfortunate Woman was Richard Brautigan’s tenth published novel. Written before his death in 1984, this novel was published post-humously. The theme was an exploration of death through the oblique ruminations on the suicide death of one female friend, and the death by cancer of another, Nikki Arai.
STORIES
REVENGE OF THE LAWN
Background
First published in 1971, Revenge of the Lawn: Stories 1962-1970, a collection of sixty-two stories, was Brautigan’s first published collection of stories.
Unlike previous books by Brautigan, the front cover did not feature a photograph of him and a woman friend. This one featured a photograph of a woman, alone, sitting at a table in front of a cake. The woman is Sherry Vetter, from Louisville, Kentucky. Vetter taught at St. Anthony’s, a girl’s Catholic High School in Long Beach, California, during the academic year 1968-1969. She then moved to San Francisco. Years later, after marrying, Vetter settled with her husband in Port Royal, Kentucky.
Brautigan, and the book, were awarded the Washington Governor’s Writing Award for 1972.
POETRY
Richard Brautigan published ten volumes of poetry, as well as several individual poems.
The Return of the Rivers
The Galilee Hitch-Hiker
Lay the Marble Tea
The Octopus Frontier
All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace
Please Plant This Book
The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster
Rommel Drives On Deep into Egypt
Loading Mercury with a Pitchfork
June 30th, June 30th
As an author, Brautigan is noted for his poetry which often turns dramatically on metaphorical whimsy.
By his own account, this expertise was a difficult achievement.
I love writing poetry but it’s taken time, like a difficult courtship that leads to a good marriage, for us to get to know each other. I wrote poetry for seven years to learn how to write a sentence because I really wanted to write novels and I figured that I couldn’t write a novel until I could write a sentence. I used poetry as a lover but I never made her my old lady. . . . I tried to write poetry that would get at some of the hard things in my life that needed talking about but those things you can only tell your old lady.
— Richard Brautigan. “Old Lady.” The San Francisco Poets. Ed. David Meltzer. New York: Ballantine Books, 1971. 293-294.
All Watched Over
by Machines of Loving Grace
by Richard Brautigan
I’d like to think (and
the sooner the better!)
of a cybernetic meadow
where mammals and computers
live together in mutually
programming harmony
like pure water
touching clear sky.
I like to think
—(right now, please!)
of a cybernetic forest
filled with pines and electronics
where deer stroll peacefully
past computers
as if they were flowers
with spinning blossoms.
I like to think
—(it has to be!)
of a cybernetic ecology
where we are free of our labors
and joined back to nature,
returned to our mammal brothers and sisters,
and all watched over
by machines of loving grace.
The Sitting Here, Standing Here Poem
Ah,
sitting here in the beautiful sunny morning!
–Santa Barbara, listening to
—Donovan singing songs
—about love, the wind and seagulls.
I’m 32 but feel just like a child
I guess I’m too old now to grow old
—Good!
I’m alone in the house because she’s asleep
—in the bedroom.
She’s a tall slender girl
—and uses up the whole bed!
My sperm is singing its way
through the sky of her body
—like a chorus of galaxies.
I go into the bedroom to look at her.
I’m looking down at her. She’s asleep.
I’m standing here writing this.
The Buses
Philosophy should stop
at midnight like the buses.
Imagine Nietzsche, Jesus
and Bertrand Russell parked
in the silent car barns.
RECORDINGS
I was lucky enough to stumble upon the Listening To Richard Brautigan LP just as I was getting into his works, back in 1995. This video has some recording excerpts…
It’s kind of annoying how they do the typing thing, but it’s a way to hear his crazy “Big Bird” voice.
Thanks to Dennis, long live Richard Brautigan.
More Links:
The Richard Brautigan Archives
The Brautigan Pages
You Can’t Catch Death: A Daughter’s Memoir by Ianthe Brautigan
Brautigan Week at Falcon vs. Monkey
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p.s. Hey. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, B. Good luck with the tier upping. If it’s any consolation, about half of Europe is making the same move. Not France yet, knock on wood. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. I didn’t like ‘Chicago 7’ at all. I haven’t seen the others, but the word on ‘Mank’ definitely seems to tag it as stinko. Nice that you heard from your old friend. I’m Skyping with my oldest friend in the next days. New FaBlog! Everyone, Mr. Ehrenstein’s FaBlog is newly updated with an entry entitled Putin’s Puta Goes Kaputt !. ** Misanthrope, Oh, yes, I remember that now about your eardrum’s burst. Well, your ears look great from the outside if that means anything. Super sucks, man. Healing vibes galore to you and to that David fella. ** Bill, Funnily, I got two messages on Facebook yesterday from Paris acquaintances who are good friends of that particular escort, and they sung his praises when out of the sack. My experience of that interesting project including you got waylaid until today (I hope) due to the sudden death of my trusty earphones. Yes, Joel Lane. Wow, I haven’t thought about him in ages. He’s very good, and I know and like the collection you speak of, and I knew him personally a little when he and I were both Serpents Tail authors way back when. I wonder what he’s up to these days. I’ll find out. Wednesday’s greetings. ** Steve Erickson, I think the snowflake emoji refers mostly to crystal meth but it wouldn’t surprise me if it’s also signalling that its employer thinks cocaine is a bit of all right as well. Curious to see your music list, natch. ** Armando, Hi. Yes, the interview was really excellent! That’s a form you’re pretty masterful at, it seems. I’ve never been to Lacoste or Sade’s castle. I need to find out where it is in France. Seems like something one could hit whilst on a road trip, and Zac and I are thinking of a road trip just to kill the stuck-in-Paris thing a little. No, shit, I didn’t get your thing, but it could be sitting at the concierge’s apartment, and I’ll check hopefully today if he’s around. The system of mail delivery in this building can be annoyingly labyrinthine. ** Brian O’Connell, Hi, Brian. They were a highlight: I agree. The lockdowns are absolutely adding a new, higher level of insanity and/or lying to the escorts’ and slaves’ texts, which, from my perspective, has made them even more useable/arty. The Magic Museum is actually pretty nice and worth a pop in next time you’re in this neck. I’m a huge Paris booster, so of course I encourage you’re visit. Plus I can show you the cool stuff that the guidebooks don’t think are iconically Parisian enough. Well, a bunch of countries right around France are locking up extremely tight, so, even with the curfew, we’re still pretty lucky at the moment. I assume if your friends are asking to watch ‘Salo’ they must have an idea of what they’re in for? If nothing else, it’ll probably prove to be a good conversation starter. If that happens, share the vibe if you feel like it. My week ahead is pretty busy. Today I’m training out to the distant-ish Paris suburb Nanterre to see a run-through of Gisele vienne’s new piece. Tomorrow my friends Zac and Michael Salerno and I will gather to eat a Xmas Buche. Friday is a big meeting about the haunted house attraction lecture and a Zoom with a US friend. The weekend itself is a ?. I hope your today and the next couple of 24 hour segments pay off. Have you gotten through your finals? ** Right. Back in the late 60s and early 70s, it was a sign of one’s coolness to carry around and possibly even read a Richard Brautigan book. He was a very groovy thing. Nowadays he’s just kind of a minor cult figure and writers’ writer. And years ago a long lost d.l. of this blog made a post about him that I have now breathed life back into. Very interesting if you’re interested. See you tomorrow.
Now available in North America 