I went up to Portland for a long weekend to see my friend Trout Fishing in America get married. Portland is a great town and my friend is a great guy. Unfortunately I got the stomach flu or food poisoning or something and so I missed out on all but 45 minutes of his wedding. I also missed out on seeing old friends and all the drinking and the strip clubs and the late night Voodoo donuts and the arcade that everyone loves., all of that. So I just sat on the porch of the house we rented. It was a beautiful house and the weather was beautiful too, perfect sitting on a porch weather. The house had a lot of books and I read 5 of them. 5! Still, I was sad to miss out on all the good times with my friends. Trout Fishing in America laughed and said you don’t much like to do those things anyways, you'd rather go it alone and read books so why are you complaining. I said that it feels better when you decline doing something instead of being forced not to do something. Trout Fishing in America said well isn’t that just the story of your life. Trout Fishing in America really gets me.
Trout Fishing in America was written in 1967 and it is a unique kinda book. I read a review that described it as “a laughing walk through forests and as crooked as streams” and I agree. It is random and loose and a collection of anecdotes and it doesn’t have a narrative per se but it does have a lot of goofy-smart moments and pleasurably odd bits of insight and fun, off-kilter imagery. Trout Fishing in America is a character in Trout Fishing in America. Richard Brautigan and Trout Fishing in America get along pretty well, I would say they were friends; it is the kind of friendship where Brautigan looks up to Trout Fishing in America, a symbolic kind of friend, one whose footsteps Brautigan tries to follow in. It is a sweet relationship and it is clear that Trout Fishing in America was a great influence on how Brautigan looks at the world. Trout Fishing in America is all over Trout Fishing in America, just everywhere.
While I was writing this so-called review I was also writing a very technical response to some findings made by the local department of public health, just going back and forth between the review and the work report. I suppose that is my job, or at least a sizeable portion of it. I like writing, I love it actually, but does technical writing even count as writing? I like some flair in my prose or at least some elegance or some punch and when I put it in my technical writing it looks sorta funny. So I usually take it out again. I’d ask Trout Fishing in America what to do but I know what he’d say: what to do about what? It’s your life. Maybe go fishing. Or on a road trip. You like road trips, right? Trout Fishing in America is all about road trips and the things you see and find and learn about on road trips. Trout Fishing in America is about experiencing all of that and maybe forgetting about some of it too and how that doesn’t matter, life is funny that way, it’s less about what you remember and more about how those things affect you and shape how you look at the world and how you live in it. Your experiences make you you, they may not be deep experiences and you may not remember them all but you have them and that’s who you are and that’s how you are made. I would agree but I’m not sure I completely understand so I can’t explain why I agree. So I’ll just agree and leave it that.
The book is seminal and I’m not sure why. It is definitely a pleasing experience and Brautigan has real flair with prose. Probably due to his many years as a poet before writing this book. I will remember this one but I’m not sure what I’m specifically taking away from it. I don’t think Trout Fishing in America will enjoy that comment so I am not going to mention it to him. Actually I don’t think Trout Fishing in America will care. It is what it is, he would probably say. But it is a lovely book. Kind of a hippie book, not a Protest The Man Let’s Start A Love Revolution kind of hippie, more of a Drop Out Of Society And Go On An Endless Road Trip Aren’t Folks Funny kind of hippie. I think that kind of hippie is a lovely kind of hippie. “Hippie” - what a funny kind of word. Trout Fishing in America is wry and deadpan and satirical and definitely strange but overall it is mainly a lovely kind of book.
Trout Fishing in America made Richard Brautigan really popular, a cult figure and person who was admired by the counter-culture of the time. He became very popular very fast. He was an icon. When he was younger he was diagnosed with schizophrenia and depression, and even had to deal with electroshock therapy. In his career he made sure to switch it up a lot and wrote in different genres, in prose and in poetry. Despite his success and his fame, eventually his depression conquered him and he shot himself. It is a sad ending and I don’t want to think about it too much because it’s, well, depressing. I prefer to remember a phrase he once wrote: "All of us have a place in history. Mine is clouds." I think that is an enchanting phrase and Brautigan seems like an enchanting kind of guy.
I remember I once went camping with Matt and Trout Fishing in America. It was a good trip and I got really close to those guys. We did a lot a lot of talking around the fire. Matt and Trout Fishing in America went fishing and caught some fish for us to eat. I’m not much of a fisherman so I mainly read in the boat. One time they went fishing right off of a shore and instead I waded in, got in there up to my neck. There were fish all around me and I remember feeling happy that they were safe around me and hoping that they wouldn’t bite me, that maybe they could sense I meant them no harm. The three of us did some hiking too. There was a huge tree that had fallen across a little creek, we crossed over it and just walked through the woods, no trail or anything. We came across a sort of mini waterfall and splashed around in it. I have a picture of Matt leaning into the waterfall, bracing himself with his arms against the rocks almost like he’s about to fuck the waterfall, and he has this funny expression on his face. I remember him saying something like this will be a good picture and I remember me and Trout Fishing in America laughing and saying something like well we all have different ideas about what makes a good picture. Overall I don’t remember a lot of the details but I remember the trip. We talked about it up in Portland. We couldn’t really recall many specifics but we felt it was definitely a good trip. Who cares about the specifics, it’s about what’s left in the mind, how we got to know each other, what we’re left with when the experience is over. I think that’s Trout Fishing in America’s perspective. I guess it’s mine too.
“He created his own Kool Aid reality and was able to illuminate himself by it.”