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Terry Byrnes' review of Listening to Richard Brautigan
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Review of Listening to Richard Brautigan

by Terry Byrnes?

There is a line from one of Baudelaire's prose poems that sounds like Richard Brautigan: "When I gnaw your elastic and rebellious hair, it seems to me that I am eating memories." Then again, there is a line from Allen Ginsberg? praising Gregory Corso? in exile, and it goes like "All his originality! What's his connection but his own beauty? Such weird haikulike juxtapositions aren't in the American book," and sounds descriptive of Richard Brautigan. Well, here's an opportunity to hear what Richard Brautigan really sounds like; at home brushing his teeth, removing his clothes, shaving, answering the telephone, and even in the studio reading poems, selections from a few of his novels and a short story or two.

What Brautigan does sound like is pretty odd. Sort of like Vincent Price reading the lines of Hamlet's ectoplasmic papa; light —- floating almost —- and quite young; delicate, curiously inflected and yet, at the same time, flat and without much range. One gets the impression that if he yelled, his voice would crack like a 14-year-old's. Not all the sounds, however, are Brautigan's. "Love Poem," for example, is read by 18 different people, singly. Other sounds are made by passers-by and telephones.

Unfortunately, too many of the sounds on this record could have been made by almost anyone. It has much more prose than poetry and, despite the many fine qualities of In Watermelon Sugar, Confederate General and Trout Fishing, they are not meant for repeated listenings. The trouble is that the words stand out more than the performance. I dare anyone to listen to Ginsberg reading Howl and then, after the first hearing, to recite two or three successive lines from the poem. A lot of Brautigan's stuff, admittedly, is lower-key and more understated than Howl, but he still makes me feel as though my ears are bigger than my pelvis. (Poetry, of course, was originally lyric, meant to be performed with musical accompaniment, and even danced to.) Although poets today are more given to open forms, the sense of internal rhythm tends to stick around, and it lends itself to readings well enough that you can forget you are listening to a spoken voice a cappella. The words can be picked up at leisure, but sometimes Brautigan gives us no choice.

Despite this intermittent failure, Brautigan succeeds marvelously with a few of his prose pieces. "Short Stories About California" is read with an enthusiasm that, combined with the content, makes it funny every time you listen. Parts of "Revenge of the Lawn?" work as well. The novel chapters are helped along by sparse, tasteful effects like the sound of a trout stream, or a lamp being blown out. The poetry, which comes mostly under the heading of "... Some Love Poems" and from The Springhill Mine Disaster, is read well and has considerable power. Even with the shorter poems, which are difficult to read, Brautigan pulls through. They follow close and fast enough to blur each other's edges, giving the impression of an entire body — a longer poem.

A few more peculiarities of this record: Its cover, which lists a few details of Brautigan's childhood, like a memory of "the exotic war between Japan and China," has his phone number printed on it. In big letters. 567-3389, which, to the best of my knowledge, is the poet's last known telephone number. The bottom half of the cover features a non-folding diptych; the right half occupied by a winsome creature who looks very much like Ali McGraw in Goodbye, Columbus, and she is holding a telephone and smiling. The left hand side stars Mr. Brautigan leering out of what looks like a closet and proffering a telephone receiver with an on/off switch, to the entire sighted world.

Also, this record is on the longish side. Side one times out at 25:14, and side two, 27:30 —- useful statistics unsupplied on the cover. For the most part, a mixed hour of listening to Richard Brautigan.

Rolling Stone?