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Robert Edward Bell's essay on 'An Unfortunate Woman'
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The Endless Walk Of Richard Brautigan

by Robert Edward Bell

There are shadows surrounding the lives for those of us left or willing to face the dawnings of another precipice left by the glimmering brightened hues left after another morning has passed, letting these colors like some eternal summer stream downwards upon the soul like a river into eternity. Through this departing twilight few travelers, least of all may it be said writers, dare to venture; for the number of those returning from these distant shores, roaming into unknown territories, past the damp darkening forests named eternity often fall into the hallways of memory forever. Death awaits as a guide to this hidden doorway of light hiding amongst this land of shadow and form. Richard Brautigan was a writer who was not unfamiliar with these lands carrying distant cliffs; whose edges often frighten the best of writers away from their dangerous peaks and crevices. He was not stranger to these distant crevices, remote outreaches of the mind, the hallowed sacred grounds where the last footsteps of a man must reach before he rests coming to the end of this journey of life. That death permeates the writings of Richard Brautigan is no secret, for it seemed to be a major theme in his works. Even his few novels, where he diverted from his normal preoccupation with the morbid themes of death, decay, and an utterance for the beauty for lost things.

The book begins with a letter written in the first person narrative. He is writing to an anonymous person N. He tells of a telephone call that he receives informing him on the death of one of his dearest and closest friends. He makes several references to eating watermelon with his friend, some of them mixed with several auspicious passages referring to nature. Could this be a reference to Watermelon Sugar, or an earlier novel ? Who knows ? Is the watermelon sugar an allegory Is the watermelon an allegory serving as an opposite to the imagery of death that consistently fill the works of Richard Brautigan. He interrupts his friend in the middle of intercourse with a lover to eat watermelon and contemplate the tragic death of their friend. In this case, Brautigan seems to be dealing with the seriousness of death with the guise of humor that made him so popular with a generation and then concludes the passage with,

"I had gone to my friend's house to talk about it when I interrupted her lovemaking. The watermelon was just some kind of funny excuse to talk about my grief and try to get some perspective on the fact that I can never call you again on the telephone and tell you something like I've just done that basically only your sense of humor could appreciate." (1)

The story is told through a series of imaginative journal entries, some finished, some skipped over in lost time. The author uses a variety of literary techniques to keep the pace of the story clean and flowing with an even logical tempo. Flashbacks are used from an earlier viewing before he jumps back, typical Brautigan, into a journal entry. Often, the present moment will jump into this period of recollection, invading the past with a current thought or idea. Brautigan uses the art of minimalism to perfection, as he strips useless words from context, tells the story in with a straightforward style mixed with his own unique style of humor, and simplifies the strength of the English language, so that he deals with complex themes in a style that is simple and void of dangling adjectives, clauses, or verb syntax. He throws in surprises throughout his prose, adding changes that speed or slow down the flow of the plotline. He tells stories within stories, switches to past and then draws the future into the ever-present present. He changes the order of the sequence in events, so that the novel presents itself as a neatly tied package for his reader to enjoy.

The introductory preface begins with a short and simple letter describing the tragic death of his close friend by suicide. In those moving and emotional declaration of his love for her friendship, he shows us a feeling of that emotional loss that every human experiences at some point in his or her life with the sort of antipathy that moves the reader with the heart, seeking the emotional rendering of loss through the feeling of the moment. The letter R may be a reference to the author himself. At this point, the preface as the rest of the book, becomes confusing. When Brautigan uses the first person narrative, is he referring to his own thoughts and actions or is he referring to a character that exists in fiction, whom he has created. Like Hunter S. Thompson? or Jack Kerouac, it is often difficult to determine when the first person speaks for the thoughts of Richard Brautigan himself, and when these thoughts refer to a fictional character of the imaginary literary mind.

Where is the real Richard Brautigan and when does fiction surface and take over the subconscious prose of self-biography. This is a question that seems to rise over and over again in the writings of Brautigan, especially the prose more so than the poetry, making it almost impossible to determine when the author enters the narrative, and when the image created by Brautigan speaks inside the prose. As Brautigan describes the discovery of a shoe in the middle of a busy intersection, he begins the first page of his novel, but even in this first paragraph, the realities become blurred, as he races from one idea to the next, filling the reader with more and more imagery until his point is made. In this case, his humor comes across, and he gives us a picture of the beauty of the world contained in the smallest of everyday human experiences.

"I saw a brand-new woman's shoe lying in the middle of a quiet Honolulu intersection. It was a brown shoe that sparkled like a leather diamond. There was no apparent reason for the shoe to be lying there such as it playing a part among the leftover remnants of an automobile accident and there were no signs that a parade had passed that way, so the story behind the shoe will never be known." (2)

He continues with this passage displaying his humor in full form.

"Did I mention of course I didn't, that the shoe had no partner ? The shoe was alone, solitary, almost haunting. Why is it that when people see one shoe, they almost feel uncomfortable if a second is not about ? They look for it. Where is the other shoe ? It must be around here someplace. With this auspicious beginning, I'll continue describing one person's journey, a sort of free-fall calendar map, that starts out what seems like years ago, but has actually been just a few months physical time." (3)

As can be seen, the lines blur as the narrator describes his hop-scotch travel around the country. Berkley, Montana, Maui. The names pass by the reader so fast, that the places become mixed up in a jumble of names, dates, and places, until it is hard to determine where this narrator has actually visited. Close to Brautigan's life ? You bet. So close, that it seems that Brautigan may have put a lot of his own personal self, emotions, and ego into this short last work of minimalistic prose. The story proves haunting not only in the themes that he expouses on the written page, but in some of the conclusions that Brautigan eventually concludes. One of these can be seen in the reflective quote placed at the beginning of the book by his daughter.

"Iphigenia: A new home you make for me, Father Where will it be ?

Agamemnon: Now stop---it's not right For a girl to know all of these things.

Iphigenia: Father, over there when you have done All things well, hurry back to me from Troy !

Euripides Iphigenia in Aulis." (4)

As scholars read this work, it becomes increasingly clear that there was a great deal more going on with Brautigan's emotional state than many of his close friends may have realized. On visiting Haight Ashbury, I met an old acquaintance of the now famous but long deceased poet and prose writer, novelist.

"He was a beautiful man who had warm intellect and a wonderful sense of humor. Everyone in Haight Ashbury was shocked when we had learned that this wonderful man had ended his life."

Comments such as the one above are frequent around San Francisco, and lead one to ponder the complexities of Brautigan's emotional state. Like many writers, the clues may be found hidden in the pages of his works. In an, "Unfortunate Woman", his preoccupation of death may have masked the horrors that a literary mind might encounter when dealing with the last ultimate mystery. Sometimes as has been said the lines between genius and madness are often skewed. Obviously, Brautigan was not mad, but when a writer walks in the shadows for too long, the end results may prove tragic, for even poets need their sunlight. Brautigan's fate may have been sealed from standing in the shaded places that inhabit the secret places of the mind for too long.


Suite 101
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