Richard Brautigan's Trout Fishing in America

Our first novel of the quarter will be Richard Brautigan's Trout Fishing in America (1967), a counter-cultural masterpiece which sold more than a million copies in the late 60s. Brautigan was a transitionary figure in San Francisco's literary scene, coming a little too late for its Beat Generation heyday, and predating the Summer of Love, he helped bridge the gap between beatniks and hippies, along with authors like Allen Ginsberg, Lew Welch, Gary Snyder and Michael McClure. And yes, this is a novel, not a collection of short stories: though Brautigan's sundry vignettes and short stories might not seem like a traditional novel, he intended them to be read together as one cohesive, albeit fragmented, narrative. He'd make the same claim about his later collection, The Tokyo-Montana Express (one of my favorite Brautigan books), which is similarly comprised of numerous short prose pieces.

There's a considerable amount of background information on the novel on John F. Barber's site, The Brautigan Bibliography and Archive. Click on this link to check out his Trout Fishing in America page. Later this week, I'll also be posting audio from Brautigan's 1970 Harvest album, Listening to Richard Brautigan, which was originally supposed to be released on the Beatles' Zapple label.

Here's the reading assignments for each day we'll be looking at the novel:

Week 1

• Friday, Jan. 9: "The Cover of Trout Fishing in America" to "Trout Fishing in America Terrorists" (1-40)

Week 2

• Monday, Jan. 12: "Trout Fishing in America with the FBI" to "A Return to the Cover of This Book" (41-77)
• Wednesday, Jan. 14: "The Lake Josephus Days" to "The Mayonnaise Chapter" (79-112)

On Friday, Jan. 16th, we'll begin A Confederate General from Big Sur.

As I final footnote, I was in San Francisco over the break for the annual MLA conference, and visited Washington Square Park, where the cover photo for Trout Fishing in America was shot. Here are a few photos of the Benjamin Franklin statue, which appears behind Brautigan on the cover, and is mentioned a few times in the novel (click on each for a larger view):