Amusingly of the 60s and 70s; the way they were. ( )

I must say I was a little askance at the generally lukewarm to negative reviews on Brautigan. I wonder that if to appreciate him, you had to have been there. The sixties and seventies were a time of turmoil in America. Riots in inner cities and on college campuses were common. It looked like the country was falling apart. And in the midst of this is Richard Brautigan, writing calm personal books about relationships, about innocents trying to come of age. I never laughed so hard in my life at this book. It's perfect for reading aloud. Brautigan was kind of a counter-culture hero when he was writing. he became 'kind of' famous. His books started coming out in hardback. Then they stopped selling as widely. Brautigan becamse kind of a carcicature of himself, an aging hippy in a world that was finally moving on. He was an alcoholic. He never drove. He was the cliched introspective and tortured writer. He committed suicide. We lost a great writer. He would have done better. ( )

Sort of a buddies novel from the crazy counterculture days of the '60's, when this was considered an instant classic. Now, in the grim and responsible 21st Century, a story about two society dropouts who wander through existence aimlessly seeking food, shelter, sex and drink without having to work for them or accept any of the responsibilities thereof, just grates. After a while one grows numb to Jesse and Lee Mellon's childishness, and a small appreciation of Brautigan's occasional luminous phrases can establish itself. And I am intrigued by the notion that Big Sur was a member of the Confederacy during the War Between the States. It's just crazy enough, it might just possibly be true. At least, Brautigan makes it believable, and that's something. ( )

I have a soft spot for this book. I think it's the humour that got to me as much as anything else - a few neat turns of phrase and I'm anyone's. I especially like when the narrator runs into an old friend in the street and lies about never seeing him - to his face. I think that's how the joke goes.

The story itself is brief and somewhat slight, the link to the civil war and the confederate general more ambiguous and tenuous than one would necessarily like, but I like the ending, which stretches of into infinity, and is happy. ( )

A very different book. Narrator Jesse drops out and leaves San Francisco for a jobless and moneyless existence in the Big Sur of the early sixties with his ne'er-do-well friend Lee Mellon, a man who claims his ancestor was a general in the Confederate army.

After making it through some tough times - little or no food, female companionship, or peace and quiet at night due to an evil frog army, their luck starts to change and a certain uneven beauty comes over their simple lives.

Although the novel is set in the early sixties and seems to bridge the gap between the beat and hippie generations, there are many callbacks throughout to the civil war - a hundred years before - and the parallels between Lee Mellon and his ancestor are tenuous-to-nonexistant, almost to the point of being non-explicable (maybe they share the theme of being seen as something you are not?).

This is the first of Brautigan's books I have read and was happy to find out this was not his best. If you like beat/hippie lit it is probably worth a read, but it just wasn't good enough to recommend to a general audience. ( )