One of Brautigan's best, 12 Dec 2006
A truly beatiful book that has to be in my Top 10 of all time.
A story about an idyllic community that is blighted by some tragic events, yet still manges to retain a sense of happiness and harmony.
I remember my father being surprised that I saw so much beauty in this book, because the things that he took from it were the upset, suffering, and death. And to an extent I can see his point of view, but for me the positive outways the negative. Maybe he's just a bit more cynical than me.
I for one love it and always will.

Sad and psychadelic novella, 29 Apr 2006
`IWS' was written in 1964 as the social revolutions that were to define the 1960s were beginning to take shape, and many people felt that humanity was moving into a more peaceful phase, leaving the old ways of doing things behind. Brautigan's novella is suffused with this ethos. It is about the inhabitants of a village called iDEATH, who live simple peaceful lives, working the land and enjoying each other's company. iDEATH's past has been more bloody, as tigers roamed the countryside, attacking villagers (albeit apologetically, claiming that it was simply in their natures), but the tigers were hunted to extinction. iDEATH's past is also represented by the Forgetten Works, an area on the outskirts that is filled with reminders of the old days: scattered trinkets that represent the pointless gewgaws of mechanisation and consumerism, for which the villagers no longer have a need. iDEATH is a village in which the revolution has already occurred, and most of the people are much happier for it. However, a gang of hard drinking men, lead by inBOIL, cannot cope with their new existence, and retreat to the Forgotten Works. inBOIL eventually leads his men to a revolution, of sorts, to show the inhabitants of iDEATH what he thinks of their society. Their act is shocking, and leads to great sadness among the villagers.
Brautigan's novella is very beautiful and very surreal. iDEATH is wonderful in its simplicity, and the encroaching of any sort of unpleasantness on their community seems like a gross intrusion on a land that deserves better. This, I think, was Brautigan's feeling about humanity, and he conveys his message very well. `IWS' only took me a couple of hours to read, but it has stuck in my head, which I think is the true test of a novella. Despite being very much of its time, `IW' is still a wonderful read.


Special, very special, book, 18 Jun 2004
Richard Brautigan's way with words is so simple and yet so touching- he knows exactly where to hit every time. 'In watermelon Sugar' converges planes of surrealism and childlike beauty, with the simple and the true, and does it extremely successfully. I first found his books in a Kafka bookshop in Prague and remember being so pleased with them after reading them that I felt smug and content for days! A trite thing to say no doubt but Brautigan has that effect on you.

One of the most beautiful books written, 23 Apr 2002
Richard brautigan has an amazing way with words. He has an ability to say exactly what you are feeling, yet are incapable of expressing, in the simplest way. He made me remember the beauty in a string of letters. "Hands are very nice things, especially after they have travelled back from making love". I have read most of his books and this is my favourite by far. It was one of the first I read and it got me hooked.
This book is very surreal but at the same time it is possible to relate to it. To understand what he was trying to tell us about his fictional community, iDEATH. That it represents the death of the individual in society.
It is a very simple, beautiful book that I can read over and over and see in a different way every time.

One of Brautigan's best, 12 Dec 2006
A truly beatiful book that has to be in my Top 10 of all time.
A story about an idyllic community that is blighted by some tragic events, yet still manges to retain a sense of happiness and harmony.
I remember my father being surprised that I saw so much beauty in this book, because the things that he took from it were the upset, suffering, and death. And to an extent I can see his point of view, but for me the positive outways the negative. Maybe he's just a bit more cynical than me.
I for one love it and always will.

Sad and psychadelic novella, 29 Apr 2006
`IWS' was written in 1964 as the social revolutions that were to define the 1960s were beginning to take shape, and many people felt that humanity was moving into a more peaceful phase, leaving the old ways of doing things behind. Brautigan's novella is suffused with this ethos. It is about the inhabitants of a village called iDEATH, who live simple peaceful lives, working the land and enjoying each other's company. iDEATH's past has been more bloody, as tigers roamed the countryside, attacking villagers (albeit apologetically, claiming that it was simply in their natures), but the tigers were hunted to extinction. iDEATH's past is also represented by the Forgetten Works, an area on the outskirts that is filled with reminders of the old days: scattered trinkets that represent the pointless gewgaws of mechanisation and consumerism, for which the villagers no longer have a need. iDEATH is a village in which the revolution has already occurred, and most of the people are much happier for it. However, a gang of hard drinking men, lead by inBOIL, cannot cope with their new existence, and retreat to the Forgotten Works. inBOIL eventually leads his men to a revolution, of sorts, to show the inhabitants of iDEATH what he thinks of their society. Their act is shocking, and leads to great sadness among the villagers.
Brautigan's novella is very beautiful and very surreal. iDEATH is wonderful in its simplicity, and the encroaching of any sort of unpleasantness on their community seems like a gross intrusion on a land that deserves better. This, I think, was Brautigan's feeling about humanity, and he conveys his message very well. `IWS' only took me a couple of hours to read, but it has stuck in my head, which I think is the true test of a novella. Despite being very much of its time, `IW' is still a wonderful read.


Special, very special, book, 18 Jun 2004
Richard Brautigan's way with words is so simple and yet so touching- he knows exactly where to hit every time. 'In watermelon Sugar' converges planes of surrealism and childlike beauty, with the simple and the true, and does it extremely successfully. I first found his books in a Kafka bookshop in Prague and remember being so pleased with them after reading them that I felt smug and content for days! A trite thing to say no doubt but Brautigan has that effect on you.

One of the most beautiful books written, 23 Apr 2002
Richard brautigan has an amazing way with words. He has an ability to say exactly what you are feeling, yet are incapable of expressing, in the simplest way. He made me remember the beauty in a string of letters. "Hands are very nice things, especially after they have travelled back from making love". I have read most of his books and this is my favourite by far. It was one of the first I read and it got me hooked.
This book is very surreal but at the same time it is possible to relate to it. To understand what he was trying to tell us about his fictional community, iDEATH. That it represents the death of the individual in society.
It is a very simple, beautiful book that I can read over and over and see in a different way every time.

Overrated then, still overrated, 11 Mar 2008
I read this rather smug, self-congratulatory book decades ago and thought it didn't deserve the hype it received. Why it should be trundled out again is beyond me.

quirky, literary travel writing at its best, 04 Mar 2007
Far from proving some critics right that his work was "for the [19]'70s", Richard Brautigan seems to be faring pretty well into the new millennium. Seems like the books are selling pretty well on Amazon, there's a new (2007) collection of essays on him, a new German publisher has taken up the books, etc. "Trout Fishing" is an American classic, "in the American grain." Idiosyncratic, teasing, surreal, yes, but some great real fishing narratives there too, up with that episode in "The Sun Also Rises" and the classic work of Roderick Haig-Brown (whose ecological writing I recommend if you don't know it). "Trout Fishing" is also a narrative of the American West, specifically Idaho--Sawtooth, River of No Return Wilderness areas, etc. Interesting to note that Brautigan was travelling through Idaho in the summer in which Hemingway killed himself there--mentioned in passing in the text; I don't remember if there is a mention of Brautigan in Ketchum. In part too a family narrative--the narrator, his wife (Virginia; "Ginny"; although mostly called "the woman who travels with me") and his one-year or so old daughter (Ianthe). All of the travels are fictionalised, one believes, but not perhaps altogether so. Anyway, this is the novel which seems to have the most going for it, is taught most (I believe) of his work world-wide. There's a lot in it--time I think for a proper definitive edition, with maps, etc. But a lot of fun too!

Grows over the years, 12 Dec 2006
After discovering my father's Richard Brautigan collection when I was 12 and reading 'A Confederate General from Big Sur' and 'The Hawkline Monster', reading "Trout Fishing in America' seemed a bit of a disappointment to me. From rich, descriptive, beautiful chapters to a seemingly unrelated, mix of random stories.
But that was when I was 12 !
In the last 16 years I have come back to it again and again and have loved it.
All the little stories, descriptions, and characters mesh together perfectly to form a most enjoyable book that doesn't lose anything over time, no matter how many times you come back to it.

Buy this book, then find a trout stream., 01 Sep 2003
Loved or hated, 'Trout Fishing in America' should not be ignored - a modern classic that spawned an original slant on the post-beat novel.
The metaphor - 'Trout Fishing in America' - is explained candidly in the first three chapters, or 'seductions', then woven into the fabric of experience like a sun ray threading through a grey cloud sky. Brautigan took the 'Road Novel' format and applied it to record journeys along the highways and byways of mind.
Written during a time when many young writers, artists and politicians were committed to searching for an alternative America, the book seeks to explore landscape as a memory of former conditions. Brautigan's prose invokes a quirky and unexpected beauty in all its events in a way that no-one else has quite managed since.
I first read the book (with awe) in 1969 as an undergraduate, subsequently holding dear everything else that the man ever produced. Not his best work but essentially THE FIRST - That's why you really should purchase and read this book.

A chain of rural beat vignettes about trout and life., 23 Dec 1998
Richard Brautigan traipses across the United States looking for good trout fishing and possibly satisfaction. It's a meandering chain of vignettes with occasional plot and some lovely rural prose. A real contrast with the angrier urban beat stars: the actual time and setting of the adventures seem to trickle into the story, instead of bashing through the narrative. I think Brautigan projected a subtle sense of disappointment with the time, but contentment with the life.

One of Brautigan's best, 12 Dec 2006
A truly beatiful book that has to be in my Top 10 of all time.
A story about an idyllic community that is blighted by some tragic events, yet still manges to retain a sense of happiness and harmony.
I remember my father being surprised that I saw so much beauty in this book, because the things that he took from it were the upset, suffering, and death. And to an extent I can see his point of view, but for me the positive outways the negative. Maybe he's just a bit more cynical than me.
I for one love it and always will.

Sad and psychadelic novella, 29 Apr 2006
`IWS' was written in 1964 as the social revolutions that were to define the 1960s were beginning to take shape, and many people felt that humanity was moving into a more peaceful phase, leaving the old ways of doing things behind. Brautigan's novella is suffused with this ethos. It is about the inhabitants of a village called iDEATH, who live simple peaceful lives, working the land and enjoying each other's company. iDEATH's past has been more bloody, as tigers roamed the countryside, attacking villagers (albeit apologetically, claiming that it was simply in their natures), but the tigers were hunted to extinction. iDEATH's past is also represented by the Forgetten Works, an area on the outskirts that is filled with reminders of the old days: scattered trinkets that represent the pointless gewgaws of mechanisation and consumerism, for which the villagers no longer have a need. iDEATH is a village in which the revolution has already occurred, and most of the people are much happier for it. However, a gang of hard drinking men, lead by inBOIL, cannot cope with their new existence, and retreat to the Forgotten Works. inBOIL eventually leads his men to a revolution, of sorts, to show the inhabitants of iDEATH what he thinks of their society. Their act is shocking, and leads to great sadness among the villagers.
Brautigan's novella is very beautiful and very surreal. iDEATH is wonderful in its simplicity, and the encroaching of any sort of unpleasantness on their community seems like a gross intrusion on a land that deserves better. This, I think, was Brautigan's feeling about humanity, and he conveys his message very well. `IWS' only took me a couple of hours to read, but it has stuck in my head, which I think is the true test of a novella. Despite being very much of its time, `IW' is still a wonderful read.


Special, very special, book, 18 Jun 2004
Richard Brautigan's way with words is so simple and yet so touching- he knows exactly where to hit every time. 'In watermelon Sugar' converges planes of surrealism and childlike beauty, with the simple and the true, and does it extremely successfully. I first found his books in a Kafka bookshop in Prague and remember being so pleased with them after reading them that I felt smug and content for days! A trite thing to say no doubt but Brautigan has that effect on you.

One of the most beautiful books written, 23 Apr 2002
Richard brautigan has an amazing way with words. He has an ability to say exactly what you are feeling, yet are incapable of expressing, in the simplest way. He made me remember the beauty in a string of letters. "Hands are very nice things, especially after they have travelled back from making love". I have read most of his books and this is my favourite by far. It was one of the first I read and it got me hooked.
This book is very surreal but at the same time it is possible to relate to it. To understand what he was trying to tell us about his fictional community, iDEATH. That it represents the death of the individual in society.
It is a very simple, beautiful book that I can read over and over and see in a different way every time.

Overrated then, still overrated, 11 Mar 2008
I read this rather smug, self-congratulatory book decades ago and thought it didn't deserve the hype it received. Why it should be trundled out again is beyond me.

quirky, literary travel writing at its best, 04 Mar 2007
Far from proving some critics right that his work was "for the [19]'70s", Richard Brautigan seems to be faring pretty well into the new millennium. Seems like the books are selling pretty well on Amazon, there's a new (2007) collection of essays on him, a new German publisher has taken up the books, etc. "Trout Fishing" is an American classic, "in the American grain." Idiosyncratic, teasing, surreal, yes, but some great real fishing narratives there too, up with that episode in "The Sun Also Rises" and the classic work of Roderick Haig-Brown (whose ecological writing I recommend if you don't know it). "Trout Fishing" is also a narrative of the American West, specifically Idaho--Sawtooth, River of No Return Wilderness areas, etc. Interesting to note that Brautigan was travelling through Idaho in the summer in which Hemingway killed himself there--mentioned in passing in the text; I don't remember if there is a mention of Brautigan in Ketchum. In part too a family narrative--the narrator, his wife (Virginia; "Ginny"; although mostly called "the woman who travels with me") and his one-year or so old daughter (Ianthe). All of the travels are fictionalised, one believes, but not perhaps altogether so. Anyway, this is the novel which seems to have the most going for it, is taught most (I believe) of his work world-wide. There's a lot in it--time I think for a proper definitive edition, with maps, etc. But a lot of fun too!

Grows over the years, 12 Dec 2006
After discovering my father's Richard Brautigan collection when I was 12 and reading 'A Confederate General from Big Sur' and 'The Hawkline Monster', reading "Trout Fishing in America' seemed a bit of a disappointment to me. From rich, descriptive, beautiful chapters to a seemingly unrelated, mix of random stories.
But that was when I was 12 !
In the last 16 years I have come back to it again and again and have loved it.
All the little stories, descriptions, and characters mesh together perfectly to form a most enjoyable book that doesn't lose anything over time, no matter how many times you come back to it.

Buy this book, then find a trout stream., 01 Sep 2003
Loved or hated, 'Trout Fishing in America' should not be ignored - a modern classic that spawned an original slant on the post-beat novel.
The metaphor - 'Trout Fishing in America' - is explained candidly in the first three chapters, or 'seductions', then woven into the fabric of experience like a sun ray threading through a grey cloud sky. Brautigan took the 'Road Novel' format and applied it to record journeys along the highways and byways of mind.
Written during a time when many young writers, artists and politicians were committed to searching for an alternative America, the book seeks to explore landscape as a memory of former conditions. Brautigan's prose invokes a quirky and unexpected beauty in all its events in a way that no-one else has quite managed since.
I first read the book (with awe) in 1969 as an undergraduate, subsequently holding dear everything else that the man ever produced. Not his best work but essentially THE FIRST - That's why you really should purchase and read this book.

A chain of rural beat vignettes about trout and life., 23 Dec 1998
Richard Brautigan traipses across the United States looking for good trout fishing and possibly satisfaction. It's a meandering chain of vignettes with occasional plot and some lovely rural prose. A real contrast with the angrier urban beat stars: the actual time and setting of the adventures seem to trickle into the story, instead of bashing through the narrative. I think Brautigan projected a subtle sense of disappointment with the time, but contentment with the life.

Raw and unrefined Brautigan, 12 Dec 2006
I agree with an earlier review that says Brautigans style is not yet fully developed and I think that this is a plus. He is far more expressive for it.
This book is a collection of a young Brautigan's earlier works, featuring poetry and short stories varying from the happy, to the sad, to the funny, to the purely bizarre.
A nice wee read for the Brautigan fan and the Brautigan beginner alike.

A book for anybody who likes to be amused...., 28 Feb 2001
This book will make you laugh, cry and laugh even more. It is truly a marvelous insight into the bizarre but beautiful mind of Richard Brautigan.

His work clearly shows the influence of other popular writers of the time but his unique and inspirational style (though not yet fully developed) is ever-present, ready to take over at any given oppurtunity. Not yet affected by fame and fortune, Brautigan seems much happier, more innocent but also more fragile than later in his career and this difference is what makes this book so interesting to read.

I recommend this book to absolutely everybody; whether you are aquainted with Brautigan's work or not- it has an undeniable universal appeal which has lasted for nearly 50 years and, hopefully, will last much much longer.

One of Brautigan's best, 12 Dec 2006
A truly beatiful book that has to be in my Top 10 of all time.
A story about an idyllic community that is blighted by some tragic events, yet still manges to retain a sense of happiness and harmony.
I remember my father being surprised that I saw so much beauty in this book, because the things that he took from it were the upset, suffering, and death. And to an extent I can see his point of view, but for me the positive outways the negative. Maybe he's just a bit more cynical than me.
I for one love it and always will.

Sad and psychadelic novella, 29 Apr 2006
`IWS' was written in 1964 as the social revolutions that were to define the 1960s were beginning to take shape, and many people felt that humanity was moving into a more peaceful phase, leaving the old ways of doing things behind. Brautigan's novella is suffused with this ethos. It is about the inhabitants of a village called iDEATH, who live simple peaceful lives, working the land and enjoying each other's company. iDEATH's past has been more bloody, as tigers roamed the countryside, attacking villagers (albeit apologetically, claiming that it was simply in their natures), but the tigers were hunted to extinction. iDEATH's past is also represented by the Forgetten Works, an area on the outskirts that is filled with reminders of the old days: scattered trinkets that represent the pointless gewgaws of mechanisation and consumerism, for which the villagers no longer have a need. iDEATH is a village in which the revolution has already occurred, and most of the people are much happier for it. However, a gang of hard drinking men, lead by inBOIL, cannot cope with their new existence, and retreat to the Forgotten Works. inBOIL eventually leads his men to a revolution, of sorts, to show the inhabitants of iDEATH what he thinks of their society. Their act is shocking, and leads to great sadness among the villagers.
Brautigan's novella is very beautiful and very surreal. iDEATH is wonderful in its simplicity, and the encroaching of any sort of unpleasantness on their community seems like a gross intrusion on a land that deserves better. This, I think, was Brautigan's feeling about humanity, and he conveys his message very well. `IWS' only took me a couple of hours to read, but it has stuck in my head, which I think is the true test of a novella. Despite being very much of its time, `IW' is still a wonderful read.


Special, very special, book, 18 Jun 2004
Richard Brautigan's way with words is so simple and yet so touching- he knows exactly where to hit every time. 'In watermelon Sugar' converges planes of surrealism and childlike beauty, with the simple and the true, and does it extremely successfully. I first found his books in a Kafka bookshop in Prague and remember being so pleased with them after reading them that I felt smug and content for days! A trite thing to say no doubt but Brautigan has that effect on you.

One of the most beautiful books written, 23 Apr 2002
Richard brautigan has an amazing way with words. He has an ability to say exactly what you are feeling, yet are incapable of expressing, in the simplest way. He made me remember the beauty in a string of letters. "Hands are very nice things, especially after they have travelled back from making love". I have read most of his books and this is my favourite by far. It was one of the first I read and it got me hooked.
This book is very surreal but at the same time it is possible to relate to it. To understand what he was trying to tell us about his fictional community, iDEATH. That it represents the death of the individual in society.
It is a very simple, beautiful book that I can read over and over and see in a different way every time.

Overrated then, still overrated, 11 Mar 2008
I read this rather smug, self-congratulatory book decades ago and thought it didn't deserve the hype it received. Why it should be trundled out again is beyond me.

quirky, literary travel writing at its best, 04 Mar 2007
Far from proving some critics right that his work was "for the [19]'70s", Richard Brautigan seems to be faring pretty well into the new millennium. Seems like the books are selling pretty well on Amazon, there's a new (2007) collection of essays on him, a new German publisher has taken up the books, etc. "Trout Fishing" is an American classic, "in the American grain." Idiosyncratic, teasing, surreal, yes, but some great real fishing narratives there too, up with that episode in "The Sun Also Rises" and the classic work of Roderick Haig-Brown (whose ecological writing I recommend if you don't know it). "Trout Fishing" is also a narrative of the American West, specifically Idaho--Sawtooth, River of No Return Wilderness areas, etc. Interesting to note that Brautigan was travelling through Idaho in the summer in which Hemingway killed himself there--mentioned in passing in the text; I don't remember if there is a mention of Brautigan in Ketchum. In part too a family narrative--the narrator, his wife (Virginia; "Ginny"; although mostly called "the woman who travels with me") and his one-year or so old daughter (Ianthe). All of the travels are fictionalised, one believes, but not perhaps altogether so. Anyway, this is the novel which seems to have the most going for it, is taught most (I believe) of his work world-wide. There's a lot in it--time I think for a proper definitive edition, with maps, etc. But a lot of fun too!

Grows over the years, 12 Dec 2006
After discovering my father's Richard Brautigan collection when I was 12 and reading 'A Confederate General from Big Sur' and 'The Hawkline Monster', reading "Trout Fishing in America' seemed a bit of a disappointment to me. From rich, descriptive, beautiful chapters to a seemingly unrelated, mix of random stories.
But that was when I was 12 !
In the last 16 years I have come back to it again and again and have loved it.
All the little stories, descriptions, and characters mesh together perfectly to form a most enjoyable book that doesn't lose anything over time, no matter how many times you come back to it.

Buy this book, then find a trout stream., 01 Sep 2003
Loved or hated, 'Trout Fishing in America' should not be ignored - a modern classic that spawned an original slant on the post-beat novel.
The metaphor - 'Trout Fishing in America' - is explained candidly in the first three chapters, or 'seductions', then woven into the fabric of experience like a sun ray threading through a grey cloud sky. Brautigan took the 'Road Novel' format and applied it to record journeys along the highways and byways of mind.
Written during a time when many young writers, artists and politicians were committed to searching for an alternative America, the book seeks to explore landscape as a memory of former conditions. Brautigan's prose invokes a quirky and unexpected beauty in all its events in a way that no-one else has quite managed since.
I first read the book (with awe) in 1969 as an undergraduate, subsequently holding dear everything else that the man ever produced. Not his best work but essentially THE FIRST - That's why you really should purchase and read this book.

A chain of rural beat vignettes about trout and life., 23 Dec 1998
Richard Brautigan traipses across the United States looking for good trout fishing and possibly satisfaction. It's a meandering chain of vignettes with occasional plot and some lovely rural prose. A real contrast with the angrier urban beat stars: the actual time and setting of the adventures seem to trickle into the story, instead of bashing through the narrative. I think Brautigan projected a subtle sense of disappointment with the time, but contentment with the life.

Raw and unrefined Brautigan, 12 Dec 2006
I agree with an earlier review that says Brautigans style is not yet fully developed and I think that this is a plus. He is far more expressive for it.
This book is a collection of a young Brautigan's earlier works, featuring poetry and short stories varying from the happy, to the sad, to the funny, to the purely bizarre.
A nice wee read for the Brautigan fan and the Brautigan beginner alike.

A book for anybody who likes to be amused...., 28 Feb 2001
This book will make you laugh, cry and laugh even more. It is truly a marvelous insight into the bizarre but beautiful mind of Richard Brautigan.

His work clearly shows the influence of other popular writers of the time but his unique and inspirational style (though not yet fully developed) is ever-present, ready to take over at any given oppurtunity. Not yet affected by fame and fortune, Brautigan seems much happier, more innocent but also more fragile than later in his career and this difference is what makes this book so interesting to read.

I recommend this book to absolutely everybody; whether you are aquainted with Brautigan's work or not- it has an undeniable universal appeal which has lasted for nearly 50 years and, hopefully, will last much much longer.

Snap shots of his earlier days., 20 Dec 2006
A collection of stories that are snap shots of life in America as seen by Richard Brautigan.
Ranging from childhood in Tacoma, through to California in the 60's.
His ability to squeeze a rich and vivid story into as little as a single page is incredible, and possibly made more meaningful as he is writing about his own life and experiences.
A must have Brautigan.

One of Brautigan's best, 12 Dec 2006
A truly beatiful book that has to be in my Top 10 of all time.
A story about an idyllic community that is blighted by some tragic events, yet still manges to retain a sense of happiness and harmony.
I remember my father being surprised that I saw so much beauty in this book, because the things that he took from it were the upset, suffering, and death. And to an extent I can see his point of view, but for me the positive outways the negative. Maybe he's just a bit more cynical than me.
I for one love it and always will.

Sad and psychadelic novella, 29 Apr 2006
`IWS' was written in 1964 as the social revolutions that were to define the 1960s were beginning to take shape, and many people felt that humanity was moving into a more peaceful phase, leaving the old ways of doing things behind. Brautigan's novella is suffused with this ethos. It is about the inhabitants of a village called iDEATH, who live simple peaceful lives, working the land and enjoying each other's company. iDEATH's past has been more bloody, as tigers roamed the countryside, attacking villagers (albeit apologetically, claiming that it was simply in their natures), but the tigers were hunted to extinction. iDEATH's past is also represented by the Forgetten Works, an area on the outskirts that is filled with reminders of the old days: scattered trinkets that represent the pointless gewgaws of mechanisation and consumerism, for which the villagers no longer have a need. iDEATH is a village in which the revolution has already occurred, and most of the people are much happier for it. However, a gang of hard drinking men, lead by inBOIL, cannot cope with their new existence, and retreat to the Forgotten Works. inBOIL eventually leads his men to a revolution, of sorts, to show the inhabitants of iDEATH what he thinks of their society. Their act is shocking, and leads to great sadness among the villagers.
Brautigan's novella is very beautiful and very surreal. iDEATH is wonderful in its simplicity, and the encroaching of any sort of unpleasantness on their community seems like a gross intrusion on a land that deserves better. This, I think, was Brautigan's feeling about humanity, and he conveys his message very well. `IWS' only took me a couple of hours to read, but it has stuck in my head, which I think is the true test of a novella. Despite being very much of its time, `IW' is still a wonderful read.


Special, very special, book, 18 Jun 2004
Richard Brautigan's way with words is so simple and yet so touching- he knows exactly where to hit every time. 'In watermelon Sugar' converges planes of surrealism and childlike beauty, with the simple and the true, and does it extremely successfully. I first found his books in a Kafka bookshop in Prague and remember being so pleased with them after reading them that I felt smug and content for days! A trite thing to say no doubt but Brautigan has that effect on you.

One of the most beautiful books written, 23 Apr 2002
Richard brautigan has an amazing way with words. He has an ability to say exactly what you are feeling, yet are incapable of expressing, in the simplest way. He made me remember the beauty in a string of letters. "Hands are very nice things, especially after they have travelled back from making love". I have read most of his books and this is my favourite by far. It was one of the first I read and it got me hooked.
This book is very surreal but at the same time it is possible to relate to it. To understand what he was trying to tell us about his fictional community, iDEATH. That it represents the death of the individual in society.
It is a very simple, beautiful book that I can read over and over and see in a different way every time.

Overrated then, still overrated, 11 Mar 2008
I read this rather smug, self-congratulatory book decades ago and thought it didn't deserve the hype it received. Why it should be trundled out again is beyond me.

quirky, literary travel writing at its best, 04 Mar 2007
Far from proving some critics right that his work was "for the [19]'70s", Richard Brautigan seems to be faring pretty well into the new millennium. Seems like the books are selling pretty well on Amazon, there's a new (2007) collection of essays on him, a new German publisher has taken up the books, etc. "Trout Fishing" is an American classic, "in the American grain." Idiosyncratic, teasing, surreal, yes, but some great real fishing narratives there too, up with that episode in "The Sun Also Rises" and the classic work of Roderick Haig-Brown (whose ecological writing I recommend if you don't know it). "Trout Fishing" is also a narrative of the American West, specifically Idaho--Sawtooth, River of No Return Wilderness areas, etc. Interesting to note that Brautigan was travelling through Idaho in the summer in which Hemingway killed himself there--mentioned in passing in the text; I don't remember if there is a mention of Brautigan in Ketchum. In part too a family narrative--the narrator, his wife (Virginia; "Ginny"; although mostly called "the woman who travels with me") and his one-year or so old daughter (Ianthe). All of the travels are fictionalised, one believes, but not perhaps altogether so. Anyway, this is the novel which seems to have the most going for it, is taught most (I believe) of his work world-wide. There's a lot in it--time I think for a proper definitive edition, with maps, etc. But a lot of fun too!

Grows over the years, 12 Dec 2006
After discovering my father's Richard Brautigan collection when I was 12 and reading 'A Confederate General from Big Sur' and 'The Hawkline Monster', reading "Trout Fishing in America' seemed a bit of a disappointment to me. From rich, descriptive, beautiful chapters to a seemingly unrelated, mix of random stories.
But that was when I was 12 !
In the last 16 years I have come back to it again and again and have loved it.
All the little stories, descriptions, and characters mesh together perfectly to form a most enjoyable book that doesn't lose anything over time, no matter how many times you come back to it.

Buy this book, then find a trout stream., 01 Sep 2003
Loved or hated, 'Trout Fishing in America' should not be ignored - a modern classic that spawned an original slant on the post-beat novel.
The metaphor - 'Trout Fishing in America' - is explained candidly in the first three chapters, or 'seductions', then woven into the fabric of experience like a sun ray threading through a grey cloud sky. Brautigan took the 'Road Novel' format and applied it to record journeys along the highways and byways of mind.
Written during a time when many young writers, artists and politicians were committed to searching for an alternative America, the book seeks to explore landscape as a memory of former conditions. Brautigan's prose invokes a quirky and unexpected beauty in all its events in a way that no-one else has quite managed since.
I first read the book (with awe) in 1969 as an undergraduate, subsequently holding dear everything else that the man ever produced. Not his best work but essentially THE FIRST - That's why you really should purchase and read this book.

A chain of rural beat vignettes about trout and life., 23 Dec 1998
Richard Brautigan traipses across the United States looking for good trout fishing and possibly satisfaction. It's a meandering chain of vignettes with occasional plot and some lovely rural prose. A real contrast with the angrier urban beat stars: the actual time and setting of the adventures seem to trickle into the story, instead of bashing through the narrative. I think Brautigan projected a subtle sense of disappointment with the time, but contentment with the life.

Raw and unrefined Brautigan, 12 Dec 2006
I agree with an earlier review that says Brautigans style is not yet fully developed and I think that this is a plus. He is far more expressive for it.
This book is a collection of a young Brautigan's earlier works, featuring poetry and short stories varying from the happy, to the sad, to the funny, to the purely bizarre.
A nice wee read for the Brautigan fan and the Brautigan beginner alike.

A book for anybody who likes to be amused...., 28 Feb 2001
This book will make you laugh, cry and laugh even more. It is truly a marvelous insight into the bizarre but beautiful mind of Richard Brautigan.

His work clearly shows the influence of other popular writers of the time but his unique and inspirational style (though not yet fully developed) is ever-present, ready to take over at any given oppurtunity. Not yet affected by fame and fortune, Brautigan seems much happier, more innocent but also more fragile than later in his career and this difference is what makes this book so interesting to read.

I recommend this book to absolutely everybody; whether you are aquainted with Brautigan's work or not- it has an undeniable universal appeal which has lasted for nearly 50 years and, hopefully, will last much much longer.

Snap shots of his earlier days., 20 Dec 2006
A collection of stories that are snap shots of life in America as seen by Richard Brautigan.
Ranging from childhood in Tacoma, through to California in the 60's.
His ability to squeeze a rich and vivid story into as little as a single page is incredible, and possibly made more meaningful as he is writing about his own life and experiences.
A must have Brautigan.

Short and sweet, 20 Dec 2006
Despite the rather depressing theme of this book, it still manages to make me smile.
From the comical courtroom scene to the touching thank you note at the end.
At only 110 pages it is very short, but Brautigan's writing talent and imagination more than make up for the length.
Read it and love it.

Wonderful, 24 May 2006
Beautiful, poetic, funny - all the usual Brautigan traits are there. There is also a painful sadness that left me feeling priviledged to have had the chance to look inside the mind of a really great writer. Its shortness disappoints, but only because I wanted to read on.

Late Classic by the under-rated writer, 30 Apr 2002
Yet another superb piece of writing by Brautigan, this time a loose narrative preoccupied with time and place and the chaos that is inherent in a life that meanders through the two. Perhaps the strongest theme of the book is the theme that isn't really there - the unfortunate woman who hangs herself and who the narrator spends 200 + pages trying not to mention because it's too painful. Fantastic because when he talks about the weather, about a lost cat, about some old people in a graveyard, anything to avoid the topic of death, he makes a much more interesting point than a more conventional approach would generate.

Sheer genius. Again.