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Average Customer Rating:

Hallucinatory, and Great

Customer Rating:

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.

Brautigan's Style is 5 star for me.	Customer Rating:
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.

A lot of hype, not very good	Customer Rating:
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.

Who really cares about trout?

Customer Rating:

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.

He heard the sound of his own drummer

Customer Rating:

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.