This is the first time I've met Trout Fishing in America. And although I fished almost everyday in my youth and caught hundreds of Trout, I never realized that the guy with me was Trout Fishing in America. We'd always stop at Ledet's Supermarket and buy bread, ham, and a small jar of mayonnaise on our way to the trout rooms. We'd sit in our small boat with corks bobbing in the room and eat ham sandwiches. We'd look at the sky and see rabbits, angels, or toaster ovens in the clouds. And we'd appreciate the freedom to sit in a little boat with corks bobbing and eating ham sandwiches... with mayonnaise.

This book is a travel book of sorts. It reintroduced me to America. And streams. With trout. In another time. Trout Fishing in America is alright.

I remember mistaking and old woman for a trout stream in Vermont, and I had to beg her pardon.

'Excuse me,' I said. 'I thought you were a trout stream.'

'I'm not,' she said. ( )

1095 Trout Fishing in America a novel, by Richard Brautigan (read 22 Nov 1970) My niece told me this was a favorite book of hers. It makes no sense at all. Dada is sense personified compared to this book. ( )

The book is made up of a series of short essays (for want of a better word) that are all vaguely around the idea of “Trout Fishing in America”. In some “Trout Fishing in America” is more or less what you would think it means, tales of fishing across the USA, but more often the phrase turns up to mean something completely different. It is often the name of a person, it is the name of hotel in one place and in my favourite story, it is a slogan written on school jackets.

There were parts of it that I enjoyed but other parts I found frustrating. Brautigan can obviously write and I would have liked to see his talent used in a sustained way rather than the fragmented style here. ( )

`Trout death by port wine' is surely up there among the best of short stories although it is a chapter rather than a story. ( )

Nope, I didn’t get it. Not one, single thing. And you might say that lately I don’t get much, but if you have time, you should read it (it’s very short) and explain it to me. Please. Show me the protest against the American myth (aside from things like America is a place that exists only in your imagination and a couple of other similar ideas). Show me why “Trout fishing in America” is, in turn, the name of a person, a hotel, the act of fishing, another person (Trout fishing in America Shorty) in a series of stories that are loosely (if at all) connected, and that don’t even make sense in themselves. Why is trout a symbol? Why mayonnaise? Why not apple pie? (apple pie seems to be very American in a lot of books). Why, why, why? It’s frustrating.

http://meerchant.wordpress.com/2008/0... ( )