Richard Brautigan's Trout Fishing in America, The Pill versus The Springhill Mine Disaster, and In Watermelon Sugar

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The late, great Richard Brautigan was one of America's most talented and original writers. An icon of the 1960's counterculture, Brautigan was more than just another hippie writer, he was the Mark Twain of the 60's! A brilliant satirist with the soul of a poet, Brautigan's works were way ahead of their time, and this volume collects three of his best. "Trout Fishing In America", his most celebrated novel, chronicles the life and times of a fellow named, well, Trout Fishing In America, as he wanders across a bizarre landscape in search of enlightenment, a Zen fisherman, so to speak. "The Pill Versus The Springhill Mine Disaster" is a collection of poetry that mixes lyricism with smarmy humor. "In Watermelon Sugar" is a beautiful, lyrical novel about a group of people living in a commune, supporting themselves by making things out of watermelon sugar in a factory they call the Watermelon Works. That's just an abstract description of the plot - you have to read the book thoroughly to enjoy the unique structure of the narrative. Brautigan was indeed a writer far ahead of his time, combining brilliant Vonnegutesque satire with the homey charm of Mark Twain. Treat yourself to a great read and buy this book!

"In Watermelon Sugar" was the first Brautigan I read, and is still my favorite. In fact, it is my all-time favorite novel in any genre! The language is poetic and lulling, the characters are almost heartwrenchingly real, and the story is subtle and bizarre. I (forcibly) lend this book to everyone I know, and they invariably thank me after having read it.

And that's just one story...

Trout Fishing in America is abstract, disjointed, and witty. Excellent excellent stuff, although in a vastly different form than In Watermelon Sugar. And even if you don't like reading poetry, The Pill versus the Springhill Mine Disaster will make you a fan. It's such simple, elegant, writing and it grabs the reader so effectively that you can't not like it.

Any of these three books are easily worth the price of the collection. All of them together is a treasure.

Brautigan's life ended, at his own hand, in 1984, but his memory lingers on. He has become known as the Mark Twain of the 60s, the New Thoreau, and the Zen Trickster. His voice, ebullient, sad, and comic, is pure American. Brautigan's writing straddles the line between prose and poetry as he follows a guy named (trust me here) Trout Fishing In America across his native land in search of Zen enlightenment. The `chapters' are anecdotes that read as fables and continue to delight after multiple re-readings. If you missed this book the first time around, perhaps because you were into other stuff during the 60s, now's your chance.

This is one of three collections of re-released Brautigan. It's the best of the three. TROUT FISHING is his classic. It's unlike anything I've ever read. I felt like someone showed me a new way to use words. A reviewer suggested calling his works "Brautigans," as they're an original artform.

IN WATERMELON SUGAR is my favorite of the eight or so Brautigan's I've read. At once funny, touching, nostalgic, smart, insightful...good stuff.

And THE PILL VS THE SPRING HILL MINE DISASTER is a collection of his poems. To have a collection of his poetry thrown in here with these two fantastic books is just icing on the cake.

Brautigan has been called the last of the Beats. Perhaps he killed the Beat movement by pushing it as far as it would go.

Brautigan was a very weird man. I understand he went on to take his own life. That's a shame, but honestly I can kind of see the suicidal mindset in him if the man he writes about in the first-person in these is a real reflection of how he truly thought. He was a grouch and mean-spirited to the people around him. He clearly thought he was smarter than everybody else and his writings show he probably wasn't. A lot of people say this book is original but it's not, it's more like...typical midling-talent hack writing with countercultural, back-to-earth themes. He wanted to shock and tease and praise a simple life all at once and be non-tactfully frank about certain things to the point of grossness, and that's not my cup o' tea. Other than the poignant "childhood Kool-Aid" piece, the only part I liked in any of these books was in "Trout Fishing" when Brautigan caught a humpbacked fish whose odd manner of swimming he compared to Lord Byron's limp. Even that wasn't spectacular. Also, his wife should have left him over all the mean things he said about her. She must've been a saint to put up with him. I honestly don't see why any of these books make for good reading. They're a waste of time.

(If by some cosmic chance you ever happen to read this review, Zik, wherever the heck you are in this decade, sorry I lied about liking this but I didn't want to be rude about your favorite book. Since you "borrowed" those CD's of mine that I never saw again, I wish I'd have admitted how sucky I thought Brautigan was at the time.)

This book really doesn't do much for me. Maybe 10 years ago it might have. This sort of "I'm just going to write whatever I see in front of me and then make a silly non-sequiter out of the next sentence and call it symbolism" is a somewhat lost effort on me. Maybe not lost, but not that effective. I think it masks the reality that the book just isn't very good.

I guess there was a time and place for this. The book is from 1967 or thereabouts. Maybe if I was in college in 1967, and I read this book, I would have been thrilled. But it isn't 1967, and I'm not in college. So I trudged through this book and proclaimed, "Whatever."

I agree with one reviewer who says, "...you have to keep in mind that at that time, if it didn't make much sense if was always considered good." I generally agree with this. I think it's still true to an extent now. You see this in books and music. If you throw together a completely unfathomable set of thoughts, sounds, or colors, someone is going to say that it's a masterpiece. People will then feel threatened that they don't get it. Dominoes fall and people feel obligated to agree that it's a masterpiece, because they're an idiot otherwise.

Whatever, maybe I'm an idiot. But the book's symbolism and abstract ideas are usually either silly or shallow. There are moments when I was entertained. So the book isn't exactly useless in that regard. But as an overall unit, it's lacking in anything other than brevity. Thus, if the obscure metaphor is lost on you, you can try to snare the next one in 2 or 3 pages. So you got that going for you. Which is nice.

Unless you're sure you'll like this book, I would pass on it. Otherwise, you'll meander from start to finish and wonder why you read it in the first place, much like I did. I don't see any thrilling reason to read this, so it's hard for me to recommend it to anyone.

In the end, whatever. Not my cup of tea.

Richard Brautigan's Trout Fishing in America could have been a real classic for the ages. That is, it could have been a classic if it wasn't about trout fishing and if it wasn't written by Richard Brautigan. Brautigan seems directionless as usual here, leaping haphazardly from one place in time to another. Just when he comes up with an interesting line or word, he seems to forget about it and leave you hanging while he goes off to some other world. His writing is the equivalent of sitting in a chair under a tree drinking MD 20/20, suddenly falling onto your back, and then staring up at the leaves and wishing that it all meant something quite profound. And that is where the problem lies--Brautigan wants the grander themes and ideas of the world to be expressed in his books, but he never does the legwork to get you there. You feel teased after reading his poems, like a girl who says she'd like to date you, then leaves you to go swimming at the YWCA, and you never hear from her again. Do you see where I'm going here? You can't make lemonade out of a sourpuss. Brautigan never gave it his best shot, and unfortunately, he left the world without having said very much to it.

I found this book through that strange feeling I'm sure you must have had in a bookstore, when you just look at a book and know it is a part of you. It inspired me to write poetry, through his sense of wonder merged with deep sorrow and the intricate wordplay. Watermelon sugar, in it's entireity, is a masterpiece. One of those books that just seems perfect; it gives you a sense of calm like the tao, moved me to change myself and my reality, and i've passed it on to whomever i love that will give in. It speaks great truths through metaphor and symbolism. You can tell he has been every character. Trout fishing... well, it is one of his best as well, showing the world through two different entities with the same mind and heart; it heals and inspires, and only the laughing buddha, the trickster poet, the sorrowful and heart wrenching character of brautigan could deliver such a treasure to us. It has inspired people to change their names to it's title, in fact. The only thing this anthology needed was more of brautigan's horror stuff in it... check out the other two volumes.

Welcome to the 20th Century...albeit nearly too late...

Although Brautigan is thought of as a "hippie" writer, merely because of his era, and how he dressed in the photographs that became his book covers, his writing was postmodern, surreal, absurd, funny, and biting in a way that was actually far, far ahead of its time. His minimalism preceded Ray Carver, his absurdity and wordplay preceded Tom Robbins, and his sadness wrapped in hilarity preceded Thomas McGuane and David Foster Wallace. He was a pace-setter, a benchmark, a nonconformist and a true American original. Trout Fishing in America is probably the most efficient effluent of his unique genius. Random key strikes? I question not your taste but your reading comprehension.

My sister-in-law doesn't get the Peter Sellers' movie "Being There" and she would not appreciate Brautigan either. If you don't normally enjoy abstract and funny material, then you should not buy this book. I started reading it and said to myself "what the hell is this?" After picking "Trout Fishing" back up and starting over it makes perfect sense. I really wish that Brautigan had not commited suicide in 1984, because had he lived he would see that an entirely new fan base caught up to him and his style of literature. I am amazed at how he thought up some of this stuff, because it is both so unusual and at the same time so dead on the money that it really makes you laugh and shake your head.

The genious of this book's two short stories, "Trout Fishing" and "Watermelon Sugar" lie in the author's ability to create organipomorphic imagery. That is, he is brilliantly able to attribute live qualities to dead stuff. This is neatly captured in the cover photo of the book itself, as the author poses next to a statue of Benjamin Franklin that has been given reverential status in the opening chapter of the book, "speaking" to welcome the reader. But if you think this book is about animatronics appreciation, the following quote will give you more of an idea of Brautigan's idea of literary metamorphism: "...books that become virgins again through the organic process of music, [wearing] their ancient copyrights like new maidenheads."

The two short stories complement each other. All of the dialogue in Watermelon Sugar is written in a salt-of-the-earth, homily fashion--short of how trouts would converse with each other, assuming that trouts don't talk about race cars, briefcases or flak vests. There is very little intrusion of the modern world's hustle and violence. What saves these stories from being too folksy is the incongruous imagery, like the glass coffins at the bottom of rivers that glow at night or huge statues of vegetables.

There is a real sweetness underneath it all, but an interesting, fresh sweetness. It's not canned trout, it's the sweetest fresh trout sushi.

The man is no longer here so its necessary to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Brautigan was in the long tradition of American originals. Thoreau defined it as the person who can't walk in step with the others because he 'hears the sound of his own drummer'.
Brautigan put a number of things together. A kind of clearness in telling about what he was seeing right before him. A kind of whimsical random associativeness which broke up the prose line, and often make it feel as if what was on the page had nothing to do with what had come before it or after it. And most savingly, a kind of humor , this very much connected with the going his own way, and displacing things and putting them in strange order. Surprise. He also had a closeness to America, whether he liked it or not.
I agree with many of the readers about his big problem being that he often seemed to not really know or care what he was talking about. Writing was his business, and whatever came to him that's what made it on the page. So it seems.
But he had a kind of lightness with it all, and he could really sometimes make the reader laugh, which in my opinion, is saying a lot.
I do not know what he really believed, unfortunately.
Reading him is like taking a ride in an amusement park. You enjoy it but you are not exactly sure you know why. And in the end it is not something that is going to stay with you in the strongest way.
Enjoy the reading while you are reading it- and don't expect too much more.

and ask him kindly to risk another few bucks on "Sombrero Fallout", before consigning Mr. B to the waste paper bin. Not random, I think you'll find. No monkeys in sight. Five star read. As Captain Beefheart or Tom Waits are to popular music, so Mr. B is, I think you'll find.

I read him when he was first published and I just read him again.
I don't think he's any good. Especially, when he was first released, you have to keep in mind that at that time, if it didn't make much sense if was always considered good. Not to say that that didn't work some times. I just don't feel that it worked here.
His writing, especially his poetry is so one dimentional that if there is any interest generated it doesn,t stay with you and soon you wonder why you ever liked it in the first place. Kind of like most "pop" rock. It's catchy and you might like it for a few listens but then it's time to find something with more guts.

I'm sorry to put a sour 2-star review to this book, which seems to be well liked by many people based on reading the Amazon reviews.

I think the problem is that I don't GET this book. There were some good lines and poetry that really cracked me up, but in general, I don't understand the point of his writing.

I almost think that there is NO POINT AT ALL; hence, reading this book is a waste of time. Or, maybe there is something important going on which I'm completely missing due to my thick head.

If it is the latter, would someone please enlighten me (and please try to do that without insulting my intelligence). I need some guiding hands in understanding this book. Then, I will try to read it again.

If it is the case that "some books are for you, and some books aren't," then this book wasn't for me and it's hard to explain why. The ideas in this book seem so scattered that my concentration completely dissipated.

I see that the people who bought this book liked Kerouac, Vonnegut, and Bukowski, all of whose work I admire a lot...

In an era when even baseball players entertain themselves by pondering questions like "Why do we park in driveways and drive on parkways ?," absurdists have an awfully tough row to hoe; we are all absurdists now. If the ironic viewpoint ever did offer a useful perspective on Man's existence, and it likely did, we have long since passed that point and have slid into a period when irony has nearly degraded us all into cultural nihilists. A little skepticism goes a long way, but push it too far and it will eventually consume everything in it's path.

Particularly dangerous is that strain of literature which, by discarding narrative structure, continually shifting points of reference, and toying with the meanings of words and phrases, ultimately tends to suggest that coherent communication may be impossible. There is a peculiar kind of arrogance at work in such manipulation of language, which is intended to obscure, rather than to reveal. It is so individualistic and relativistic as to only be truly accessible to the author himself, or to those who are willing to make the study of that author and his writings their own life's work. If language can't communicate, why is the author writing words down and why should we read them ?

Oddly enough, one of the best descriptions I've ever found of this tendency was in a police procedural : The Death of a Joyce Scholar: A Peter McGarr Mystery (1989)(Bartholomew Gill 1943-) (Grade: B+); it reads in part :

And since the form of the novel as written from Richardson to Joyce was exhausted, Samuel Beckett turned around and attempted to exhaust the form in its 'negative' image, as it were--the novel of incompetence. By incompetence Beckett does not mean novels written by incompetent authors. He means that, unlike Joyce, he cannot assume the possibility of communication among human beings, much less between human beings and the collective unconscious.

For Beckett words don't work. They are an imposition, given us by others after our births; they really can't describe our own particular experiences in our own individual terms. Also, when we speak words, we need somebody else to hear and acknowledge them. A witness. In other words, we can't say us in our own terms for anybody's ears but our own. And if we were to try, say, by speaking out all the words of the Others once and for all, we would find that there's nothing to say, since Western civilization assumes that we are no more than what we were when we were born--a tabula rasa, a void, un neant, a nothing. And nothing can only be described by silence.

Such is the inevitable end result of this philosophy, man rendered silent.

There is a famous incident wherein Boswell says to Samuel Johnson that they can not refute Bishop Berkeley's theory that we can not prove that matter exists but can only know that we perceive it. Johnson thereupon kicked a rock and said : "I refute it thus." This does not necessarily disprove Berkeley's argument in purely logical terms, but amply demonstrates the uselessness of the theory. Similarly, one is tempted to respond to Beckett by telling him to yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater. There simply is some fundamental level at which absurdism is itself so patently ridiculous as not to be worth talking seriously. Kind of ironic, huh ?

All of which brings us to Trout Fishing in America, the best known, and seemingly the best, work of the Beat novelist and poet Richard Brautigan. As a cover blurb on my decrepit Delta Books addition says :

Mr. Brautigan submitted a book to us in 1962 called TROUT FISHING IN AMERICA. I gather from the reports that it was not about trout fishing. -an editor at The Viking Press

The book isn't really about anything, in the conventional sense. It's chapters are loosely unified by a repeated reference to fishing for trout in America (mostly Brautigan's native Pacific Northwest) and to a character named Trout Fishing in America, and a hotel named Trout Fishing in America, and a book titled Trout Fishing in America, and so on... Metaphors twist back on themselves; meanings multiply; even the cover photo of the book (see above) and the statue in the picture become integral to the text. It is playful, often amusing, frequently frustratingly obscure, and it's hard to see what it all adds up to.

Thankfully, Brautigan has the good sense to keep it brief and not to strain for greater meaning than his verbal tricks will support. And in a final odd twist, he tells the reader in the penultimate chapter that he's always wanted to "write a book that ended with the word Mayonnaise." However, in the final chapter, he actually ends with the word "mayonaise."

GRADE : C

I was introduced to Brautigan's writing twenty or so years ago. I own several first editions of his books and go back to them again and again. My teenage kids are now amused and intrigued by his stories and I wonder whether this is good or bad for them. Brautigan helps me keep an even keel and realize that this life, this job, this reality are mine only because I choose not to change. I could live in Watermelon Sugar if only I had the balls to go there. Read the stories and gain a balanced perspective.

Of the three books in this volume, two are classics: Trout Fishing and The Pill.

The third, In Watermelon Sugar, is surreal (OK, MORE surreal) and interesting as an experiment, but not as interesting as the first two.

Trout Fishing comes in a straight line from Whitman and Ginsberg, as modified by Hemingway and Hammett: spontaneity and absolute lack of inhibition, tempered by gemlike use of language.

Funny and eye-opening by turns, the two books redefine fiction and make poetry approachable, simple, Zenlike, and humorous.

Both are pies-in-the-face of pretension and academia. One of the best poems in The Pill Versus is the one about being Poet-in-Residence at Cal Tech: I'm bored, and there's nothing to do.

Do not expect character development or linear plots (or any plots).

Instead, expect to see and be new things.

Nothing this experimental is for everyone, but that's part of the point -- this is, after all, a countercultural effort. Still, Brautigan's rich sense of humor and genrous spirit help to make this accessbile to the average reader. And writers will appreciate that the form is not as "free" as it at first appears. There's a reason why so many writers admire his work -- why Ray Carver, for example, included a Brautigan story in his anthoogy "Short Story Masterpieces." Like this work or not, you've got to give credit where credit is due, and credit is due Brautigan. And readers who are able to put down their preconceptions and able to consider that the author's generous sensibility can extend beyond story to a generosity of form may be surprised at how enjoyable -- and inspiring -- Brautigan's writing still is.

Brautigan creates a bizarre landscape in lyric prose and weaves in dream-like imagery of utopia and nonsense. His experimental themes are provocative, beautiful. His world of Zen fishermen, tigers with beautiful voices, and commune shined on by a multicolour sun is one that can only be experienced by buying this book RIGHT NOW.

I had such a hard time believing the negative reviews I just read of this book here. Still, I can see that certain people just "don't get" Brautigan and probably don't get surrealism. That is the point. You aren't supposed to "get" what you read, you are just supposed to experience the feelings that are evoked. It is a trick to release your linear mind and explore things in a different way. I love Trout Fishing in America which, to me, seems to be a series of unrelated stories that somehow all relate a unique (American) feeling of freedom which he calls "Trout Fishing in America". Maybe it is because I grew up in rural Northern California, but his voice always feels so familiar to me--it is a great comfort and fills me with nostalgia. In Watermelon Sugar gives me such a lovely feeling to read. I love that story. Don't take it literally--these stories take place beneath the surface.

I was always a fan of Surrealist art, poetry and literature from the earlier part of the century. This is the 60/70's American counterpart. Richard Brautigan had a wonderful creative imagination with a special gift for analogies and metaphor. I love the way he imbues inanimate objects with life. I just read So The Wind Won't Blow It All Away which was a really sweet tale about childhood in the forties in the Pacific Northwest. Brautigan saw the disappearance of an old free, creative way of life here being replaced by mass media. Here is some text that struck me from that story:

"It looked like a fairy tale functioning happily in the post WWII gothic of America before television crippled the imagination of America and turned the people indoors and away from living out their own fantasies with dignity.

In those days people made their own imagination like homecooking. Now our dreams are just any street in America lined with franchise restaurants. I sometimes think even our digestion is a soundtrack recorded in Hollywood by the television networks."

Amen to that, I'm getting out of the house and away from this computer!

I have read just about all of Brautigan's books, and never with disappointment. They are all so good that it is hard to pick a favorite. .-- Sam Yulish, author of WHERE HAVE ALL THE HIPPIES GONE and THE HESITANT PSYCHIC AND OTHER STRANGE STORIES.

I bought this book after my brother-in-law recommended it but was not impressed. Some of the stories are somewhat entertaining, but most seem pointless or weird for the sake of being weird.

This book is a great work of fiction. Truly, a fantastic collection of thoughts (Now were is that bottle of port? )

You know the old story about an infinite number of monkey at an infinite number of typewriters would eventually produce every book in the English language? I am guessing they would finish Brautigan's ouevre first, since it is as close as I have ever seen to the random striking of keys.

I brought the book with me to Hawaii. I bought the new Shawn Mullins CD recently (you know, the song Lullabye aka Roc-A-Bye) and on one of the songs he mentions a character he ran into that "looked a lot like Richard Brautigan..." And I kept asking myself: Self? Who's Richard Brautigan!? Never heard of him. I'm an avid music listener, reader, and well versed on several things, I guess, but never heard of Richard Brautigan... and wondered why this singer thought enough of him to invoke his name on his album. Anyway, I'm shopping a few days later for some books to bring on my trip and just as serendipitously as possible my eyes run over the name "Richard Brautigan" and the above-titled book of Trouts, Pills and Watermelons. I was intrigued to say the least. I bought the book (along with the new Tom Wolfe book f.y.i.) and left the next day for Hawaii. I've been called "lyrical" by the one I love, and when I started reading Brautigan, this was the only word that kept coming to mind... as I read these works staring at the beautiful Pacific and beyond. I'm not sure what to think yet, and I suppose it's not worth analyzing. But I was enlightened about SOMETHING with this book. I like it very much. It is beyond explanation. It is more a feeling. It seems to have been written for people's enjoyment... and that I did. And now I know WHO Richard Brautigan is, I think.

Brautigan brings a sense of bizarre affliction to his interpretation of reality. Reality becomes unorthodox while a town is (apparently)plopped down in the middle of our world that is constructed out of that sturdy stuff called watermelon sugar. TFIA is another gem following the hems of playful imagination that makes reality seem as absurd as a functional government. Is there a purpose to these two novels, or are they just an experiment in lagnguage to blur and confuse the distinction between reality and imagination, prose and poetry? It doesn't matter either way because once inside Brautigan's fantasy-mind you'll wonder "why can't i live there?". Sandwiched in between the two are some "diamond gems" of poetry; irreverent, simple, beautiful; the essence of Brautigan's novels bears the same light as his poetry.

My pop is a big trout fisherman and when I got him an original copy of TFIA, he read some of it, looked at me funny and never mentioned it again. This book is not for everyone. If you can identify with it, you'll really dig it. There's a poem in the middle collection called "Map Shower" if you memorize this and recite it at the right time, she'll forget her headache.

A wonderful collection. The opening novel, "Trout Fishing..." is considered by many to be Brautigan's best. Although the plot is to be debated as well as the character development, this novel is worth it for the descriptions alone, and the icing is the 'mayonnaise chapter'. The Pill vs... is a collection of poetry. Often very short poems. I've never read something so moving in as many lines as most of the poetry in this collection. Brautigan's wit and perception literally radiates off the page at you. In Watermelon Sugar is, if you ask me, Brautigan's absolute best work. It's funny, sad, touching, and weird. All at once. I highly reccomend the collection - money can't be better spent.

I'm struck by the strong polarization of reviews for Trout Fishing in America. That tells me right away that there is something worth investigating here.

I have read this book countless times over the past 30 years, and I am still at a loss to explain its charms. Yes, on the surface, it seems like a bunch of disconnected and aimless stories. But they all have a way of burrowing into the psyche, and I find myself carrying little fragments of the book around in my head all of the time. There are images, ideas and phrases in the book that are reminiscent of vivid dream fragments. In some ways, it is like music, because I can remember exactly when and where I was when I read certain passages.

I feel sorry for those who don't "get" it. It is not a linear story with a beginning, middle, and end and clever character development, so I can understand their frustration. But the point of the book isn't what it says, but what it does. It isn't a story, it's an experience. You may read through several chapters at a sitting without feeling one way or another about it, but then find little pieces coming to mind in the following days.

And it is all grounded in some basic truth. The stories all have an uncanny directness about them, and typically involve the basic elements of living... the earth, a house, rain, a road, a stream, fish, the sun, friendship, history, ketchup, kool-aid, mayonnaise.

I sort of did this backwards. First I read You Can't Catch Death: A Daughter's Memoir by Richard Brautigan's daughter, Ianthe. Then I read the book that put Brautigan on the literary map, Trout Fishing in America. And I didn't get it. Just to make sure I didn't miss anything, I read it again. I still don't get it. And maybe that's the point. The collection of stories, all that in some (sometimes random) way, shape or form, relate to the subject of trout fishing in America is odd to the point of weirdness. Normally, I like odd, but not when it contains (as this does) totally vulgar stuff, notably contained in Sea Sea Rider, Worsewick, and Trout Death by Port Wine. Guess you'd need to know more about the writer (though I feel I know plenty, at least from his only child's view) to appreciate it. More likely, it's just not my cup of tea.

Good companion read: You Can't Catch Death by Ianthe Brautigan. My kind of odd: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami; Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman by Haruki Murakami; and Tales from Outer Suburbia by Shaun Tan.

I didn't really get this book, it still held my interest, don't get me wrong, but the book, for the most part, seems like random thoughs, included to take up space. I've heard the book is suppose to be some masterpieace of poetry, but this masterpieace I don't see. Not to say that there are not any poetic passages in the book, there are lots, and they show you many themes into the book. A good example of a poetic passage is in the "my name" chapter, where the author shows you that you don't need a name to fit into society. But a good example of wasted space in the book is the multiple chapters that they speak of the bat under the plank press.

So if you like very abstract poetry, you should try this book, but if your not the type that can get poety, you should probly stear away from this book.

Trout Fishing in America is very dated. I suppose those people who were "of the age" when this book originally came out in 1967 might relate to it. For me, I was offended by the use of phrases such as "my woman", when referring to the mother of his child. The book left me with the impression that this was a man who thought others should do for him, that he wouldn't help with anything unless asked. Very "me, me, me" - a sure sign of a self-involved sixties child. The Pill versus the Springhill Mine Disaster, originally published in 1968, is a book of poetry which is better than Trout Fishing, although still dated. There were several poems that were quite enjoyable. The best of the three books contained in this volume is In Watermelon Sugar, originally written in 1964. It has extremely brief chapters, but at least it has a continuous, occasionally surreal story that you can follow. I liked his way of naming things, and I'd like to explore Bolinas, California, where this book was started, just to see what his inspiration was.

This first time I ever picked up a Richard Brautigan novel, I became hooked. I am now an avid fan and I'm always encouraging people to give him a chance. Try it...you won't be dissapointed. This book ia a "MUST HAVE" for your collection. It just gets better with every read. I should know...I've read it several times. His writing style is very avant-guard. His poetry is great...but his novels are pure Watermelon Sugar. Trout Fishing in America is brilliant. Please read this book...love it and then share it. Let me end this reveiw with one of my fav. poems from Springhill Mine Disaster.

(I've Never Had It Done So Gently Before

The sweet juices of your mouth are like castles bathed in honey. I've never had it done so gently before. You have put a circle of castles around my penis and you swirl them like sunlight on the wings of birds. R.B.)

Beautiful...and very Brautigan.

Trout Fishing in America is of course one of our greatest works of art in Amerika. If you've ever taken LSD or been hurt by a woman (or man), you need to read this. By the by...this book has almost NOTHING to do with fishing.

Do you feel blue ? perhaps things don't go your way right now ? Your boss in on your case and everybody around you nagging ? Then let Brautigan show you his world and his thoughts on that world through this book. A clever , layed back book on everyday issues and nothing really. Three different approaches to three different worlds, the vacation, the real and the mind. Do your self a favor, digest this publication.

this collection has been the best .in water melon sugar made my mind wonder about life in general and how real it all was and poor margaret.i am a simple person who can tell you in plan ol laymens terms this book is the greatest. read with and open mind

I got through about 55 pages or so and could not force myself to go on. I liked the music of the 60's but the quasi-intellectual nonsense and philosophy that came out of that period is, in my opinion, a joke -- not to be taken seriously. This work fits right in with the truckload of other work from that period. The writer ended by blowing his head away with a 44-magnum which I would probably have to do myself if I wrote stuff like this for a living.

Brautigan's work was and is a symbolic garden of delights. Get this book and take it on a picnic with that special someone. Between verses in TROUT FISHING offer thy friend that tenderist choice: "cherry kool-aid or tropical punch?"

I was browsing through Amazon, looking for some of my old-time favorites. When I came to Richard Brautigan I almost dropped my bisquit. It's Springhill Mine, not Mind, Disaster. Oh well, if we didn't make mistakes, I guess we'd all be deities.

So I finally decided to try out this Kindle thing and this was the first book I purchased because it's an old favorite. The three books are as good as ever, but the Kindle edition has a lot of typos which I suspect are from a lazy OCR transcription.

Hopefully these things get ironed out eventually, otherwise, going from print to Kindle is like transferring all of your good-quality music CDs to poorer-quality digital files (oh, wait I'm doing that too).

My review of the book: five stars

for the Kindle edition: three stars

This used to be one of my favorite books. I'd forgotten about it until I heard or saw something on the "tube". Interesting views.

I noted in a recent review of a film documentary about the literary exploits and influences of the "beat" generation of the 1950s on my generation, the "Generation of `68", that we were a less literary generation. That was one of the things that drew me to the beat literary figures like Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William Burroughs, among others. Our generation was driven more by the sound of music and fury. Although I believe that statement holds up over time it is not true that there were no literary figures who tried to express for us what the landscape of mainstream American was like, and why it desperately needed to be changed. Enter one Richard Brautigan and his exploration on that theme, "Trout Fishing In America"

This little book drew my attention first for its cover (see linked "Wikipedia" entry for a view) more than anything literary since I was not then familiar with Brautigan's name or work. However, the photograph of Brautigan and his "muse" showed me all I needed to know to go inside. He (and she) look exactly like the poster children for the San Francisco experience of the 1960s. And like god's own vision of what the American West would have been populated with if the "greed heads" hadn't gone and burned up, mined, polluted, and otherwise destroyed everything they could get their hands on (and more).

And that last statement can stand, my friends, for Brautigan's motivation in writing this book. In a series of vignettes not, unfortunately, always creating a seamless plot Brautigan gives an alternative look at some funny, weird, crazy American types as he travels throughout the West in the early 1960s alone at times, and with wife and child at others. The title of the book recurs in several variations throughout (as sport, as a name, as a place, etc.). If you like a little off-beat theme, or are just curious about what those "hippies" were up to in the 1960s here is one of our own. Trout fishing, indeed.