Brautigan is a little like Vonnegut. And I worship Vonnegut.
His collection of short stories are free-association, simplistic and profound. Richard Brautigan could well become my favorite author and even my favorite poet (though Pablo Neruda and Huxley have taken those slots for years).
Trout Fishing in America, though simple, does not lack depth. Brautigan lets the reader draw either the superficial or the deeper meaning from each story. Far be it from him to try to force meaning onto you. I love this short story collection.
I now own every single book he’s published. I love looking at his covers. Line up the books in chronological order to follow the dark-haired women that inspired the book and some of the love poems that reside in them.
If there’s any time that I could have lived it would be in the 60s near the Bay Area, so that I could hear him read.
Here you will find a story and a biography.
Filed under: Literature Reviews, Richard Brautigan
This is the autopsy of Trout Fishing in America as if Trout Fishing in America had been Lord Byron and had died in Missolonghi, Greece, and afterward never saw the shores of Idaho again, never saw Carrie Creek, Worsewick Hot Springs, Paradise Creek, Salt Creek and Duck Lake again.
The Autopsy of Trout Fishing in America:
“The body was in excellent state and appeared as one that had died suddenly of asphyxiation. The bony cranial vault was opened and the bones of the cranium were found very hard without any trances of the sutures like the bones of a person 80 years, so much so that one would have said that the cranium was formed by one solitary bone… The meninges were attached to the internal walls of the cranium so firmly that while sawing the bone around the interior to detach the bone from the dura the strength of two robust men was not sufficient…. The cerebrum with cerebellum weighted about six medical pounds. The kidneys were very large but healthy and the urinary bladder was relatively small.”
On May 2nd, 1824, the body of Trout Fishing in America left Missolonghi by ship destined to arrive in England on the evening of June 29, 1824.
Trout Fishing in America’s body was preserved in a cask holding one hundred-eighty gallons of spirits: O, a long way from Idaho, a long way from Stanley Basin, Little Redfish Lake, the Big Lost River and from Lake Josephus and the Big Wood River.
It may not make sense out of context. But this collection of stories has been one of the best and toughest that I’ve encountered. “An Autopsy of Trout Fishing in America” is featured within his collection called Trout Fishing in America.
Filed under: Literature Reviews, Richard Brautigan
Richard Brautigan was a poet, a writer, a visionary and a paranoid schizophrenic. He started writing during the 60s. His most well known work is Trout Fishing in America.
In 1994, a man named Peter Eastman Jr legally changed his name to “Trout Fishing in America.” He teaches English in Japan. At around the same time, NPR reported that a couple had named their child “Trout Fishing in America.”
Brautigan had one daughter with his first wife, named Ianthe, who wrote a stunning memoir about Brautigan called You Can’t Catch Death. He committed suicide in 1984 at the age of 49. The exact date is unknown as is the reason.
He wrote a moving poem in 1967 about a world where cybernetics eliminates human labor and returns the balance of nature. It has quickly become one of my favorites.
“All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace”
I 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.
Filed under: Literature Reviews, Richard Brautigan
