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by Raymond Carver
The prose pieces that make up this uneven collection of prose pieces — it is not a "novel" by any definition of that word — range in length from a few lines to several pages. They are set in and around Livingston, Montana; Tokyo; and San Francisco. There is no ordering principle at work in the book; any selection could go anywhere and it wouldn't make the slightest difference. I think the first, and longest, piece is the best. It's called "The Overland Journey of Joseph Francl and the Eternal Sleep of His Wife Antonia in Crete, Nebraska?". The other pieces have such titles as "Skylab at the Graves of Abbott and Costello?" "Five Ice Cream Cones Running in Tokyo?," "Montana Traffic Spell?," "A San Francisco Snake Story?," "Werewolf Raspberries?," "A Study in Thyme and Funeral Parlors?," "Two Montana Humidifiers?," "What Are You Going to Do with 390 Photographs of Christmas Trees??", "Cat Cantaloupe?," "Chicken Fable?," "Light On at the Tastee-Freez?." You get an idea.
There are 131 of these, and some of them are really good, and they're like little astonishments going off in your hands. Some are so-so, take them or leave them. Others — I think too many — are just filling up space. These last, the space filler-uppers, make you wonder. I mean you want to ask, "Is there an editor in the house?" Isn't there someone around who loves this author more than anything, someone he loves and trusts in return, who could sit down with him and tell him what's good, even wonderful, in this farrago of bits and pieces, and what is lightweight, plain silly stuff and better left unsaid, or in the notebooks?
Still wishing; one wishes there had been more to choose from. One wishes there had been 240 of these little things — or 390, like the number of Christmas tree photos; and then (still wishing) that the author had sat down with this good friend-trusted editor, and they had gone over all the pieces, looking at each piece as you would look at a poem, and looking at how many pieces stack up to make a book. One wishes that this imaginary editor-friend had been stern with the author now and again. "Look here, Richard! This one is just cutesy pie. And this one is finger exercise, laundry list jotting stuff. You want a good book? Keep that one out. But this one, now, this one's a keeper." And out of the 240, or 390, or even these original 131, maybe 90 or 100 had gone into the collection. It could have been a real book then, one filled with amazements and zingers. Instead, we have oh so many little reveries and gentle laid-back sweet notions that the author has been blessed with and saved up to share with us. But they don't need sharing, all of them.
Maybe none of this matters to the author. Maybe it's simply that we are either tuned into his wavelength, or we are not. If we're not, well, I suppose it could be said tough luck, so lump it. Or if our heads are where Brautigan's head is at, then perhaps everything and anything goes. What matter? But I have to believe — I don't have to believe anything; it's just a feeling I have — that Brautigan wants to write the very best he can, and write for grown-up men and women as well as just the easy-to-please younger set.
So you can take this book or leave it. It won't help you along any in this life, or hurt you, to read it. It won't change the way you look at things, or people, or make a dent of any size in your emotional life. It's gentle on the mind. It's 258 pages of reverie and impression, and some sparkly gleamings, of things past and present having to do with the author's life on "this planet Earth."
It's a book by Richard Brautigan called The Tokyo-Montana Express. It's not his best book by a long shot. But he must know this.
Chicago Tribune Book World?
October 26, 1980
reprinted in Raymond Carver's
Call If You Need Me: The Uncollected Fiction and other Prose
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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