This is one of Brautigan's rather slight efforts, a product of its times that would be unlikely to find a publisher today, or, indeed, tomorrow. It did just fine, though, in the middle 60s.

The narrator inhabits a place called watermelon sugar, where watermelon sugar is itself one of three essential building materials. Watermelon sugar seems also to be a state of mind. He lives in a shack and takes his meals at iDEATH, which appears to be a commune; one of its malcontents, inBOIL, has left and now lives near the Forgotten Works; he will return to set an example through suicide, which apparently fails to make much impact on his former friends at iDEATH. And there are a lot of trout.

Brautigan is doing many of the same things that he did in Trout Fishing in America. He's come up with a nonsense phrase, "in watermelon sugar," which he repeats until it suggests all kinds of values, as does "trout fishing in America." But unlike Trout Fishing in America, this narrative is basically linear and unsurprising, and not in the least funny. It suffers, above all, from a signal failure to be interesting. The writing, furthermore, is generally mundane; this is definitely not Brautigan at his best.

Maybe the only interesting thing here is the question of how the book views communal living. The members of iDEATH all seem to be quite happy, living their simple lives in which not very much happens. But they also seem to pass their lives in a curiously anaesthetized state: they are unconcerned by the gruesome deaths of inBOIL and his gang, and Margaret's brother reacts to her suicide by saying, simply, "It's for the best. She had a broken heart." Perhaps only Margaret, who shares inBOIL's interest in forgotten things, is capable of suffering a broken heart. Her former friends react to her death by bricking up her room, filled with forgotten things, according to their custom. They're unemotional and ahistorical, and do what thou wilt is the whole of their law. Although this book is viewed as a hippie tract, it seems perhaps to be more skeptical of its times than one might expect.

But all this does not excuse it. This slim, slight volume is an artifact of its times, and a clear indication of why Brautigan has been written off as a flash in the 1960s' cultural pan.

This book is something of a head shaker for me. I enjoyed reading Willard and His Bowling Trophies, but this read a bit like the Eloi run amok. In a land where every sunrise is a different color, and watermelon sugar provides all sorts of sustenance, including ink from the seeds, and the commune lives and works in iDEATH, but an anti-hero named inBOIL lives with the Forgotten Things until he leads a revolt from the dumping ground that is Forgotten Things. There were hints of a terrible event in the past, but the commune itself is relatively content to let things just go on as they are. I liked this book, but I’ll be switched if I can tell you exactly what happened and why it happened. Very short, less than 120 pages, but somehow very compelling. ( )

I'm sorry, but what? In Watermelon Sugar was a complete and utter waste of time and I question the people who find any value in it whatsoever. I like symbolism and ambiguity as much as the next person but if there was was any meaning to be found in this pretentious drivel, then it was lost on me.

It could just be Brautigan's writing style, but everything seemed very sparse. Even iDeath, for all its color changing suns and watermelon galore and intelligent tigers, seemed superficial. It seemed as if Brautigan put those things in there for the hell of it.

I was also disturbed by the inhabitants of iDeath. They remain unaffected by near everything. Even as iBoil and his gang cut off their noses, ears, fingers, the people of iDeath remain completely calm and indifferent. Margaret's suicide is just as easily brushed off.

Very simply, this book seemed to be written by a hippie while on an acid trip. It was pointless. May it fall into obscurity. ( )

A surreal and beautifully written novel. It doesn't make much sense but rewards repeated readings. This was one of my favorite books in high school when I was really into things from the 1960's counterculture. It also is by far Brautigan's best novel. ( )

Accepting that being dated should not be a fault this short fantasy remains a favorite. ( )