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Richard Brautigan
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Richard Brautigan's Trout Fishing in America, The Pill versus the Springhill Mine Disaster, and In Watermelon Sugar Kindle Edition

by Richard Brautigan (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 514 ratings
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Collected in one volume, three counterculture classics that embody the spirit of the 1960s.
 
Included here are three great works by the incomparable Richard Brautigan:
 
Trout Fishing in America is by turns a hilarious, playful, and melancholy novel that wanders from San Francisco through the country’s rural waterways—a book “that has very little to do with trout fishing and a lot to do with the lamenting of a passing pastoral America . . .  An instant cult classic” (Financial Times).
 
The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster is a collection of nearly one hundred poems, first published in 1968.
 
And In Watermelon Sugar expresses the mood of a new generation, revealing death as a place where people travel the length of their dreams, rejecting violence and hate.

During his lifetime, Look magazine observed, “Brautigan is joining Hesse, Golding, Salinger, and Vonnegut as a literary magus to the literate young.” A uniquely imaginative writer of the Beat movement who became an icon of the hippie era, he is still a favorite of readers today.
 
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  1. Print length
    390 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publisher
    Mariner Books
  5. Publication date
    March 1, 1989
  6. File size
    3439 KB
  7. Page Flip
    Enabled
  8. Word Wise
    Enabled
  9. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
  10. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Richard Brautigan (1935–1984) was a god of the counterculture and the author of ten novels, nine volumes of poetry, and a collection of short stories.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B003WMAAL2
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Mariner Books (March 1, 1989)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ March 1, 1989
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 3439 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 390 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 514 ratings

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Richard Brautigan

Richard Brautigan

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Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5 out of 5
514 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Allison Dey
5.0 out of 5 stars Three of my favorite books of all time in one edition
Reviewed in the United States on February 6, 2024
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You either love Brautigan or are completely indifferent to him. If you love him and have lost your original copies, treat yourself.
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Stacey S.
5.0 out of 5 stars Love this author’s style!!!
Reviewed in the United States on October 15, 2023
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What can I say I adore this man’s voice! In watermelon sugar is one of my cherished books and I adore his poetry!
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Erik J. Jacobson
5.0 out of 5 stars Difficult to Say Anything
Reviewed in the United States on September 26, 2013
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Simply one of the best books ever written. It's difficult to say anything meaningful about this book that hasn't already been said. Instead, I'll just insert this poem I wrote while reading it:

Response of Trout Fishing in America

I am reading a book called Trout Fishing in America, and it is the most delicate book in the world. The pages are very yellowbrown, and they feel like they will crumble like stale piecrust if I turn them. The cover has corners missing; its rib it stitched with duct tape, but it does not adhere to the book inside. It’s a newspaper hat in a convertible on the highway.

I think that maybe I shouldn’t read this book, that I should put it away like some Egyptian scarab. Maybe it is the Constitution, and I should not touch it with my indelicate fingers for fear that I rob later generations of its historic significance. I think: maybe I should buy another copy so that this one stays safe on the shelf and I can always look at it like a Japanese in the Louvre.

But I can’t. I know this is what I must read. It has all the warmth and heart of my teenage years, college, drunken poetry, my sad loss of everything, my complacency, indifference, and middlepath numb. It is a stream flowing over me and a diamond shooting through me. These fragile, brittle pages, this dust barely congealed, beats in my hands and in my eyes like Braughtigan’s sadbeautiful soul.
6 people found this helpful
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Amazon Customer
4.0 out of 5 stars Review
Reviewed in the United States on March 8, 2019
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I read a decent bit of magical realism, and all of this carries those elements - I wasn't surprised to learn Haruki Murakami lists him as an inspiration.

The books are definitely products of their time, but that's always going to be the case with fiction, and between reading and not reading this I'd recommend you read it.

Trout Fishing in America is effectively a series of vignettes linked by a common theme (three guesses as to what it is - although sometimes there's no actual trout in the story). The Pill vs the Springhill Mine Disaster is a poetry collection. And then In Watermelon Sugar is the closest thing to a traditional novel here, the chapters are still very short and it's absolutely surreal, but there is an overarching plot and side plots/characters and everything.

Overall I found the prose crisp and evocative, and I've already mentioned the magical realism in the imagery.
11 people found this helpful
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J. Bosiljevac
5.0 out of 5 stars The Brautigan to start with
Reviewed in the United States on September 14, 2004
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This is one of three collections of re-released Brautigan. It's the best of the three. TROUT FISHING is his classic. It's unlike anything I've ever read. I felt like someone showed me a new way to use words. A reviewer suggested calling his works "Brautigans," as they're an original artform.

IN WATERMELON SUGAR is my favorite of the eight or so Brautigan's I've read. At once funny, touching, nostalgic, smart, insightful...good stuff.

And THE PILL VS THE SPRING HILL MINE DISASTER is a collection of his poems. To have a collection of his poetry thrown in here with these two fantastic books is just icing on the cake.

Brautigan has been called the last of the Beats. Perhaps he killed the Beat movement by pushing it as far as it would go.
19 people found this helpful
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Leonard A.
5.0 out of 5 stars Crazy prose.
Reviewed in the United States on August 20, 2021
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I bought this for one of my grandsons. I read every thing Richard Braughtigan wrote when I was in high-school. It irritated my literature teachers, but kept me laughing throughout my most trying years of life. I thought he needed a lift of spirit, with all that's going on today. Braughtigan has some societal wisdom interspersed in his wit also, which may help heal the scars inflicted by human nature. His, and JRR Tolkein's works mean the world to me.
6 people found this helpful
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MidwesternGothic
3.0 out of 5 stars Trout Fishing: Humorous, imaginative, original, but also very uneven
Reviewed in the United States on September 12, 2017
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Trout Fishing in America: Brautigan has an extremely playful approach to language, to words. Sometimes—but by no means always—it could be so playful as to be nonsensical. Sometimes this made it difficult to relate to, as his referents were occasionally lost on me. Sometimes that was part of the fun, but other times it just felt a little too much. Overall, enjoyable but uneven. Some chapters were humorous, interesting, and impressive. Others, just so-so, with a few being even rather dull. Towards the end, it was all getting just a bit tired and I was ready for the experiment to be over.

Trout Fishing in America (1967), The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster (1968), and In Watermelon Sugar (1968) by Richard Brautigan (Mariner Books, 1989).
4 people found this helpful
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victoria So Cal
5.0 out of 5 stars A Great book
Reviewed in the United States on March 19, 2023
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To read again
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Top reviews from other countries

F
5.0 out of 5 stars Okay
Reviewed in Italy on August 26, 2019
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Good book, excellent edition
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Tom Gray
5.0 out of 5 stars Something That We Have Lost
Reviewed in Canada on December 28, 2017
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The Pill versus the Springhill Mine Disaster
I enjoyed reading this series of poems very much I have not read much poetry in the past. I spent a lifetime in engineering reading technical documents and non-fiction. However, in retirement, I have engaged on a project to read the literature which so many instructors tried to teach me in school. Brautigan was one of the authors taught to me in first year college. I suppose that the instructor saw Brautigan’s work as relevant to those of us who were young 40 and 50 years ago. I know I enjoyed the class. With my retirement project, I have found that there are many ways to write history than I had realized . Non-fiction is but one of them but there are many other ways to gain insight into human society and personal human psychology. Engineering is about creating things that are useful and that means having an understanding of human needs and wants. There are many ways to gain such an understanding. Poetry like this is one of those ways.

The poem that most affected me in the collection was: “A Good-Talking Candle”—“I had a good-talking candle last night in my bedroom./ I was very tired but I wanted somebody to be with me, so I lit a candle/ and listened to its comfortable light until I was asleep.” There are a number of these very short poems in the collection. It is with these that, in my opinion, Brautigan is most effective. They are short one or two line lyrics or short stories. They do capture personal emotion. I found the longer poems to be uneven. Some like “All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace” are very effective. Others, however, have obscure and rather precious imagery

In Watermelon Sugar

“In Watermelon Sugar” is a book that is written very simply. It is not a trivial book. It is quite a profound book. It is a book that was of its time. The time was of the 1960s and the 1970s. This was the era of Haight-Ashbury and Woodstock. It was the time when gentleness was the ideal. “In Watermelon Sugar” describes a community that is permeated by that gentleness. iDeath could be regarded as the ideal commune in which people spontaneously cooperate to the benefit of the whole. However, within it are attributes that belie its gentle nature. Just as within the 60s and 70s were the attributes of self-indulgence and irresponsibility that led to the end of the hippie experiment and the rise of the Me generation.

The culture of iDeath lacks a true sense of community. There is no real caring for others just a sense of self and a community that cannot accept the otherne4ss of Margaret. The lack of community in iDeath bred the nihilism of InBoil. It also led to the social rejection and ostracism of Margaret. Margaret’s rejection led to her suicide which was, in turn, met with indifference. There is no sense of loss, regret or remorse in her death. There is no responsibility. There is only a sense of “Me”.

---------------------------------------

“Trout Fishing in America”;

This for me is a book full of memories. In my retirement, I am following a project to revisit the books that people tried to use to teach me the world of literature. I didn’t understand then over 50 years ago, but I think that that that lifetime may have prepared me for what they were trying to teach.

I remember “Trout Fishing in America” from the excerpts provided to us in that first year English literature course at Saint Lawrence in the fall term of 1970. It was only three years in publication then. It meant something to me then and it means something to me now. There is no anger in this book. There is no hate, no evil. It has aspects of “On the Road” as a beat exploration of America and in the late 60s as a rendition of the hippie ideal. There is truth in this book and that truth is something that seems to have been lost of the 50 years since its publication. I spent those 50 years studying and working in high tech. It was nice to read the books account of a pre-tech San Francisco and read about San Jose, Sunnyvale and the rest without the tech domination. Tech has brought some major social changes. Tech has enabled the individual and its social technology has enabled its opposite in factionalism and echo chambers. “Trout Fishing in America” seems to have come from a different time which had different ideals. It is just a book in which people meet each other without suspicion and envy.

I remember this book. I enjoyed the excerpts in class but didn’t have the insight to accept the book for what it was when I tried to read it. I was looking for the big idea and missed it the first time I read it. Just be nice to each other.
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Classic
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 1, 2014
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Write your review here [Required]. Actually it ain't Trout Fishing, it's a three in one of Trout Fishing, another book about iDeath (tell that to Steve Jobs) and a poetry collection. All good.
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Lotte-Lale
5.0 out of 5 stars Richard Brautigan's Trout Fishing in America
Reviewed in Germany on May 1, 2014
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The book arrived promptly and in perfect condition. As I ordered it for a gift, I did not read it myself. Thank you.
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DOUG BLACK
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent
Reviewed in Canada on January 31, 2024
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A great 1960's philosopher.
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