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by Andrew Gard?
Richard Brautigan made a name for himself in the 1960s by writing unconventional stories and poems that displayed intelligence and wit. "Trout Fishing in America," arguably his best book and certainly his most famous, sold more than 3 million copies and made Brautigan a minor pop culture icon.
As the years passed, Brautigan's popularity ebbed. His later work failed to catch the public's attention and often drew heavy fire from critics. He drifted deeper into depression, his alcoholism becoming more severe, until he committed suicide in 1984.
Sixteen years later, Brautigan has a new novel in print. "An Unfortunate Woman," completed shortly before his death, is being published simultaneously with "You Can't Catch Death," a collection of anecdotes and essays by his daughter, Ianthe. Each book captures the tragedy of the author's suicide. Neither has much else to offer.
A novel in name only, "An Unfortunate Woman" reads more like a series of journal entries. It spans a period of six months during which the narrator, indistinguishable from Brautigan himself, flies back and forth across the continent, apparently in search of an appropriate place to reflect upon a neighbor who has recently hung herself.
The scenes Brautigan describes are unexceptional. He watches a man eat a doughnut, contemplates a pigeon on a street corner, debates whether to take a walk. There is no attempt to create characters, plot or narrative tension. Even the deceased neighbor, the unfortunate woman of the book's title, is dealt with only in passing. Her purpose is to reflect Brautigan's dark state of mind.
In fact, the frequent references to loneliness, death and decay, coupled with the reader's knowledge of Brautigan's fate, form the primary attraction of "An Unfortunate Woman."
"The passenger thought about their past together," runs a typical passage, "of first meeting, then becoming lovers, and days and nights together, crossing from one decade into another and then events crumbling away into blank years and the silence of emotional ruins." This sort of unintntional foreshadowing lends a measure of substance to an otherwise hollow book.
Ianthe's "You Can't Catch Death" fits neatly alongside "An Unfortunate Woman." Loosely written, with only a semblance of structure or organization, it is a collection of memories, dreams and vignettes, from both the past and present. Again, it is only the aura of tragedy and the reader's sympathy for the author that hold the book together.
Ianthe remembers her father as two different people, one playful and doting, the other depressed and usually drunk. "This was the cycle of our lives, dark lonely despair one day and the hope of daffodils planted for a future the next," she writes. "My life was woven in the fabric of his an there were not many boundaries, yet the extraordinary quality of this hope is why I'm still alive... When he was present all was well, and when he wasn't I endured."
Much of "You Can't Catch Death" deals with Ianthe's attempt to reconcile these two personalities into a single man, and in doing so to understand his suicide.
In one of the book's better moments, this healing process leads Ianthe on a quest to find her paternal grandmother, who for years Richard had refused to acknowledge. She describes at length the time they spend becoming acquainted, looking at pictures, and comparing notes. Her prose is simple and to the point. Ianthe seems content to let the story tell itself, realizing that such scenes do not require embellishment.
Rarely in her book does Ianthe treat her father as a public figure, preferring to remember him as a man taher than as an author. When she does touch upon his career, it is usually only to defend the evolution of his work.
"His writing had only gotten better," she explains, "but times had changed, and during the wave of conservatism that had swept the eighties, people were distancing themselves from the sixties and confused this time with my father's writing." Despite her pain she never became bitter, always remaining her father's greatest fan.
Both "An Unfortunate Woman" and "You Can't Catch Death" draw their strength from the circumstances under which they were created. Neither is particularly well written, neither contains any real insight. But within each lies the tragic drama of a doomed man, and it is this that redeems them both.
The Plain Dealer?
July 16, 2000: 12
Copyright note: My purpose in putting this material on the web is to provide Brautigan scholars and fans with ideas for further research into Richard Brautigan's work. It is used here in accordance with fair use guidelines. No attempt is made regarding commercial duplication and/or dissemination. If you are the author of this article or hold the copyright and would like me to remove your article from the Brautigan Archives, please contact me at birgit at cybernetic-meadows.net.
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