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by Andrew Calcutt? and Richard Shephard?
Born in Tacoma, Washington, Brautigan was influenced by the Beat writers and specifically the San Francisco renaissance poets (Michael McClure?, Kenneth Rexroth, Gregory Corso?, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Allen Ginsberg?). His first publications were poetry volumes including The Galilee Hitchhiker (1958) and The Octopus Frontier (1960).
Brautigan's first novel, A Confederate General from Big Sur (1964), won critical acclaim. His next, Trout Fishing in America (1967), was a commercial success, selling over 2 million copies worldwide. Detailing the search for the perfect fishing spot, the book took in San Francisco city parks, Oregon woodlands, Idaho campsites and a Filipino laundry. The failure to find the spot symbolised the cultural aridity of mainstream American life. Both books exhibit Brautigan's inimitable style: imaginative fantasy where the normal laws of reality and the traditional logic of fiction are cast aside in favour of brilliant free-thinking bejewelled with a charmingly whimsical poetic innocence. They are the embodiment of hippiedom.
Around the time of Trout Fishing, Brautigan became involved with the San Francisco Mime Troup and the Diggers — radical activists who donated free food to itinerants, scoffed at the meaningless psychedelic rituals enacted in Haight-Ashbury, and distributed leaflets to drug-addled hippies, saying: 'How long will you tolerate people transforming your trip into cash?' and `Your style is being sold back to you.'
As the summer of love went sour, so Brautigan's books lost their naivety. They retained their quirky style (some chapters were only two sentences long) but each one was darker than its predecessor. The change in Brautigan's mood, from psychedelic optimism to Nixon-era paranoia, is discernible in the contrasting titles of his stories and prose/poems: Please Plant this Book (1968), combining verse and packets of seeds, and Loading Mercury with a Pitchfork (1976), expressing his increasingly pessimistic sense of absurdity.
For some critics, Brautigan's early naivety is now as embarrassing as love beads. Modern ears are more tuned to his darker, later voice, as heard in Sombrero Fallout (1931) [sic] and The Tokyo-Montana Express (1980).
His final book, So the Wind Won't Blow it All Away, appeared in 1982. Rather than go the way of his old Mime Troup/Digger colleague Peter Cohon, aka Jagged Edge film star Peter Coyote, who also does voiceovers for car adverts, a depressed Brautigan shot himself. It was several weeks before his body was discovered.
MUST READ Revenge of the Lawn, Sombrero Fallout, The Tokyo-Montana Express, Trout Fishing in America
READ ON (Ken Kesey)), Terry Southern?, Robert Stone?, Kurt Vonnegut?
Cult Fiction: A Reader's Guide
Lincolnwood IL: Contemporary Books, 1999: 30-31
Copyright note: My purpose in putting this material on the web is to provide Brautigan scholars and fans with ideas for further research into Richard Brautigan's work. It is used here in accordance with fair use guidelines. No attempt is made regarding commercial duplication and/or dissemination. If you are the author of this article or hold the copyright and would like me to remove your article from the Brautigan Archives, please contact me at birgit at cybernetic-meadows.net.
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