Mayonnaise

Thanks for reading, you guys. Trout Fishing is a weird little book and RB was a pretty weird guy but I think it was worth the time. But now we find ourselves at the end of the summer and we're moving on.

I'm going to finish up with a little music from a band called Trout Fishing in America. They are 2 extremely gooofy dudes that sing silly songs to kids. Somehow, it's perfect.



Farewell Richard Brautigan. You wrote a bunch of books. Maybe we'll read another one sometime.

P.S.
Mayonnaise.

One morning last week

"One morning last week, part way through the dawn, I awoke under the apple tree, to hear a dog barking and the rapid sound of hoofs coming toward me. The millennium? An invasion of Russians all wearing deer feet?"


pg. 94

That's the spirit

"Go on ahead and try for him. He'll hit a couple of times more, but you won't catch him. He's not a particularly smart fish. Just lucky. Sometimes that's all you need."


pg. 90

The Surgeon

There's a chapter called The Surgeon about 2/3 through the book. The narrator is fishing and talking with a young surgeon who is bitter and frustrated and struggling to find happiness. He is moving around the country, searching for the ideal place to hunt & fish because he is tired of working. He's looking for a place to match the picture in his head and he becomes more and more disillusioned every time reality falls short of the ideal.

I think that's really what Trout Fishing in America is all about - RB's idea of America, how it clashes with reality as he experiences it, and how they, rarely but sometimes, line up perfectly.

The chapter ends like this:

"I talked to the surgeon a little while longer and then said good-bye. We were leaving in the afternoon for lake Josephus, located at the edge of the Idaho wilderness, and he was leaving for America, often only a place in the mind."


ALSO

Sturgeon is a fish and that's close to Surgeon, so...

ALSO

If you look at the word "surgeon" for too long it starts to look like it's spelled wrong even though it's not and I know because I checked.

A good sentence

"I'm visiting some friends, a young burglar and his wife."

pg. 76

Gee, You're so Beautiful That It's Starting to Rain

 Oh, Marcia,
I want your long blonde beauty
to be taught in high school,
so kids will learn that God
lives like music in the skin
and sounds like a sunshine harpsichord.
I want high school report cards
     to look like this:

Playing with Gentle Glass Things
      A

Computer Magic
      A

Writing Letters to Those You Love
     A

Finding out about Fish
     A

Marcia's Long Blonde Beauty
     A+!


Richard Brautigan
from The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster, 1968