A Confederate General from Big Sur / Dreaming of Babylon / The Hawkline Monster

This book was terrific. It is composed of three novels as the title above plainly states. I started reading the Hawkline Monster first because of the raving of a friend. I must say I was quite happy I did so. The tale was strange, supernatural and funny. It had all the hallmarks of a Brautigan novel. This novel takes a long time to get to the Hawkline Monster, plot-wise, but the journey there is one of the reasons that makes Brautigan so much fun to read.

After finishing Hawkline I proceeded to Dreaming of Babylon the middle book. This story was great but not as great as Hawkline. This story if a PI story. It reminded me of Chandler's Big Sleep except this one was much funnier. Putting crazy people in crazy situations is a good formula show more for Brautgan to use.

The last story was my least favorite of the three but at times one of my favorites. Some of Brautigan's individual sentences are quite lovely. It again uses the crazy people in crazy situations formula but it's setting is much different.

If I were you I would read this book. Starting front to back as normal people do might not be a bad idea. That way the greatness builds, though I had no problems reading in the reverse order. show less

I particularly liked Dreaming of Babylon. Didn't like The Hawkline Monster much.