Trout Fishing in America by Richard Brautigan
"Trout Fishing in America" is a novel by Richard Brautigan, published in 1967, that intertwines themes of memory, reality, and the American experience through a series of episodic narratives. The book presents a unique perspective on fishing, often using it as a metaphor for deeper philosophical inquiries and social commentary. The narrator's journey takes him between urban settings, like San Francisco, and natural landscapes, where he confronts the challenges and disappointments of life, including homelessness, unemployment, and relationships.
The narrative is marked by a blend of surrealism and humor, as it features eccentric characters, such as the "Kool-Aid Wino" and "Trout Fishing in America Shorty," who embody the struggles of American society. Brautigan's writing style is characterized by its playful language and vivid imagery, reflecting his fascination with nature and the absurdities of modern life. This novel not only explores the act of fishing but also delves into the complexities of human existence, societal norms, and the search for meaning. Its cultural relevance persists, as readers encounter a rich tapestry of experiences that resonate with themes of longing, identity, and the pursuit of happiness in a rapidly changing world.
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Trout Fishing in America by Richard Brautigan
First published: 1967
Type of work: Novel
Type of plot: Picaresque
Time of plot: Fall, 1960, through fall, 1961, with flashbacks to the 1940’s
Locale: San Francisco; northern California; Idaho; Tacoma, Washington; Portland, Oregon; Great Falls, Idaho
Principal characters
The Narrator , a married father who takes the persona of Trout Fishing in America, a symbolic embodiment of the American DreamTrout Fishing in America Shorty , a legless, screaming middle-age drunk who lives in San Francisco’s North Beach areaThe Kool-Aid Wino , the narrator’s childhood friend
The Story:
Trout Fishing in America begins with a description of the book’s cover photograph, a picture of Brautigan and his wife, Virginia “Ginny” Adler, in front of the statue of Benjamin Franklin in San Francisco’s Washington Square. The poor gather there around five in the afternoon to eat sandwiches given to them by the church across the street. One of the narrator’s friends once unwrapped his sandwich to find only a leaf of spinach inside.
The first time the narrator had heard about trout fishing in America was from a drunken stepfather, and, as a child in Portland, Oregon, he once walked to a street corner and saw a waterfall pouring down from a hill. The next morning, ready to go trout fishing for the first time, he returned to find that the waterfall was only a pair of wooden stairs leading up to a house. Seventeen years later, an actual fisherman, he tried to hitch a ride to go fishing, but no car would pick him up—another disappointment.
Another childhood memory involves the Kool-Aid Wino, a friend who, because of an injury, had to stay home all day. Together, the narrator and the Wino bought grape Kool-Aid and ceremoniously made an entire gallon of it from a nickel package. Ready for a day’s drinking, they created their own Kool-Aid reality. Recipes for apple compote, pie crust, “spoonful” pudding, and walnut catsup lead to memories of Mooresville, Indiana, the home of the John Dillinger Museum, where a Mooresville resident once discovered a basement full of rats and, Dillinger-like, bought a revolver to get rid of them. The narrator’s memories continue to move back and forth from early recollections to recent ones, and from urban memories to outdoor ones.
In San Francisco (a “Walden Pond for Winos”), the narrator and his friends, unemployed artists, talk of opening a flea circus or committing themselves to a mental asylum, where it would be warm and they would have clean clothes, hot meals, and pretty nurses. At Tom Martin Creek, Graveyard Creek, and other fishing places, the narrator equally fails to find satisfaction, fighting brush, poison oak, and narrow canyons to fish. Back in San Francisco, the narrator fantasizes about making love in a bookstore to a woman whose husband owns 3,859 Rolls-Royces. Fishing in Hayman Creek, Owl Snuff Creek, and elsewhere catching great trout equally proves to be a fantasy.
In San Francisco again, the narrator sees Trout Fishing in America Shorty, a legless, screaming middle-aged wino who trundles about in a wheelchair in the North Beach area. When not passed out in the window of a Filipino Laundromat, Shorty wheels through the streets shouting obscenities in fake Italian (“Tra-la-la-la-la-la-Spa-ghet-tiii!”). One day, Shorty passes out in Washington Square in front of the statue of Ben Franklin, and the narrator and a friend think they should crate him up and ship him to American author Nelson Algren, for Shorty is like an Algren character in the books The Neon Wilderness (1947) and A Walk on the Wild Side (1956). They never get around to shipping Shorty and they soon lose track of him, but Shorty should someday be buried, the narrator concludes, beside the Franklin statue, as he and Franklin are both symbols of America. The narrator fantasizes another symbol of America, the Mayor of the Twentieth Century. Wearing mountains on his elbows and blue jays on his shirt collar, the Mayor is a modern Jack the Ripper, performing deeds of murder at night with a razor, a knife, and a ukelele, the last of these an instrument not even Scotland Yard would suspect.
The narrator continues to fish for trout in places such as Paradise Creek, Salt Creek, Spirit Prison, Duck Lake, and Little Redfish Lake, but he catches very little. He is reminded of a time in Gelatao in southern Mexico when, cleaning an attic for an elderly lady, he came across the trout-fishing diary kept by the lady’s brother. It contained a ledger calculating the number of trout he had lost over a seven-year period, more than two thousand.
In another fantasy, at the Cleveland Wrecking Company the narrator inquires about a used trout stream, plus all accessories, for sale at a bargain price. Everything is for sale: land, disassembled waterfalls, trout streams, trees and bushes, animals, birds and insects. He envisions Leonardo da Vinci, on the payroll of the South Bend Tackle Company, inventing a new spinning lure for trout fishing called “The Last Supper.” Living, like the Kool-Aid Wino, on invented reality, the narrator takes up residence in a rented cabin above Mill Valley, California, and for no particular reason other than that he had always wanted to, ends his trout-fishing narrative with the word “mayonnaise.”
Bibliography
Abbott, Keith. Downstream from “Trout Fishing in America.” Santa Barbara, Calif.: Capra Press, 1989. Recounts the author’s memories of Brautigan from their first meeting in San Francisco in 1966 through the Montana years and back to 1982 in San Francisco. The chapter titled “Shadows and Marble” is a critical essay devoted to Brautigan’s language and strategy of fiction.
Barber, John F., ed. Richard Brautigan: Essays on the Writings and Life. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2007. Collection of essays, some written by friends and colleagues of Brautigan, features reminiscences of the man as well as analyses of his writing. Includes previously unpublished photographs and artwork.
Chénetier, Marc. Richard Brautigan. London: Methuen, 1983. Introduces all of Brautigan’s works, interpreting them from the perspective of Surrealist and deconstructionist fictional theories. Sees Trout Fishing in America as a series of images that create a network of narrative meaning.
Foster, Edward Halsey. Richard Brautigan. Boston: Twayne, 1983. Provides a good introduction to Brautigan’s life and work, showing how Brautigan drew on his own experiences to create his fiction.
Legler, Gretchen. “Brautigan’s Waters.” CEA Critic: An Official Journal of the College English Association 54, no. 1 (Fall, 1991): 67-69. Presents an analysis of Brautigan’s treatment of nature and water in Trout Fishing in America.
Mills, Joseph. Reading Richard Brautigan’s “Trout Fishing in America.” Boise, Idaho: Boise State University Press, 1998. Offers concise critical analysis of the novel.
Stull, William L. “Richard Brautigan’s Trout Fishing in America: Notes of a Native Son.” American Literature 56 (March, 1984): 69-80. Approaches the general themes in Trout Fishing in America by examining some of the book’s many allusions to other literature and Americana. A good introduction to the novel and to Brautigan.