C (Indifferent).

One of Brautigan's longest books, and it's just a series of unconnected ramblings. I think they're meant to be prose poems? But it's more like a collection of things somebody might say to fill silence in a conversation.

(Feb. 2024) ( )

Having just read "The Hawkline Monster: A Gothic Western" by Brautigan & having liked it but feeling a bit unsatisfied by what easy reading it was I turned to this not knowing what to expect but expecting a novel of similar ilk - but instead this.. is different.. AND given my taste for inventiveness.. I was PLEASED. This is somewhat unique. I wdn't call it a novel.. it's more a collection of ruminations couched in a writing style that keeps it away from being any established genre in particular.. &, YET, it's still easy-ish reading.. but probably a bit too original for a general readership. There's so much here. He manages to tell short tales in a fairly concise way but still manages to twist the language around in ways I found engaging.

& the tragedy of his having committed suicide haunts me: in "No Hunting Without Permission" there's this: Brautigan's been having a bad day, he phones a 'friend':

"[..] At one point toward the end of our thousand-mile little chat, I said: "Well, I've just been fishing and writing. I've written several little short stories this week."

""Nobody cares," my friend said. And he was right."

W/ friends like that who needs enemies, right? I HOPE Brautigan's 'friend' committed suicide.

In "Skylab at the Graves of Abbott and Costello", he wrote:

"If you are expecting something dramatic to be revealed about chickens and their place in the firmament, forget about it. What I am about to reveal here could not be used as the plot for a disaster movie starring Burt Reynolds as a chicken rancher who takes the law in his own hands with brilliant cameo appearances by Reggie Jackson, Lillian Carter, Red Buttons, Bill Walton, Elizabeth Taylor, the graves of Abbott and Costello, and also starring Charlton Heston as "Oak.""

Now that's near the beginning. The last paragraph:

"I think you get the picture of what was going on in my mind except that I have not told you the reason for this story. Sometimes I feel just like the chicken who got all six ears of corn on his head."

Were the paragraphs in between worth it? Definitely.

Then there's "Hangover as Folk Art". I've written a note to myself that suggests I shd quote this in full. Feeling not up to that at the moment, even though it's short, I'll let one paragraph quasi-suffice:

"Normally, a real bad hangover bites the dust when the sun goes down. It dies like a snake. This hangover didn't die at all. It changed into folk art made from my central nervous system, my stomach and the little stretches of imagination I call my brain."

As usual, his development is brilliant. Good short story writers are expected to develop & surprise as quickly as possible & Brautigan is damned good at that. In "California Mailman" he manages to take the presumably common occurrence of disappointing mail & turn it into a story (not really) about ESP, dreams, cults, whatnot. All this in less than a page. It's funny, it's sad, it's a big accomplishment in a small space, a droll short story 'haiku'. "Cold Kingdom Enterprise" in its entirety:

"Once upon a time there was a dwarf knight who only had fifty word [sic] to live in and they were so fleeting that he only had time to put on a suit of armor and ride swiftly on a black horse into a very well-lit woods where he vanished forever."

Of course, it's a 50 word story. The 1st Flash Fiction, perhaps?

"The Menu / 1965" took me by surprise. He writes about visiting San Quentin prison & getting the menu for food fed to prisoners on Death Row there. Then he takes the menu & shows it to friends. Everyone is disturbed by this. Some seem to think that the Death Row prisoners are being fed too well. Whatever Brautigan's motives, whatever people got out of this, this was, indeed, a strange story ripe w/ implication every wch way. A sample paragraph from it:

"I carried the menu in a Manila envelope past innocent and unassuming people going to the store to buy halibut steak for dinner and then to fall asleep while watching television on Channel 7."

I like the way he uses meandering to rope in people apparently unrelated to the story.

& then there's "Castle of the Snow Bride": another one that took me by surprise: a description of his ultimate fantasy porn film told in such a way that one isn't exactly sure whether it's imaginary or not - as if even the author isn't sure whether it's imaginary or not.

Brautigan wrote 2 more bks after this. If they advanced on what he accomplished here they must really be something. ( )

Richard B. married a Japanese lady, and produced this curious work. This book muses about life in a Mixed Culture Marriage, personified by the stations on a fictitious railway line. ( )

The author of generally wonderful fiction writing ("Trout Fishing in America") and poems, here presents a series of small sketches drawn from Tokyo and Montana very loosely from the stops on the route of a fast but imaginary train. As described by the author:

"Though the Tokyo-Montana Express moves at a great speed, there are many stops along the way. This book is those brief stations: some confident, others still searching for their identities.
The "I" in this book is the voice of the stations along the tracks of the Tokyo-Montana Express." ( )