Richard Brautigan

Richard Brautigan (January 30th 1935 - September 1984) is a writer and American poet.

Biography

It was born in a working-class family with Tacoma, in the state of Washington. One knows few things of his apparently disturbed childhood. It grew in Eugene, in Oregon, where it lived with his mother, the children of this one and several fathers-in-law. In 1955, it is stopped to have thrown a stone in the pane of a police station, apparently in the hope to be imprisoned and nourished. Instead of what it is sent to Oregon State Hospital and is treated by electric shocks.

In 1956, it comes to San Francisco, California. It is there that it will pass the remainder of its life, except for stays with the Japan and in the Montana. He marries Virginia Dionne Adler in Reno on June 8th, 1957. His/her daughter Ianthe Elizabeth Brautigan is born on March 25th, 1960.

In the years 1960, it takes part in the happy movement . It was even a moment considered as a cantor of this movement but will always remain about it strokes, and will end about it up paying a heavy tribute with this label which will confine it later in the role of " Has-been ". It then will seek its recognition of true writer in France and in Japan, finding in this country his last wife and of new reasons to hope. In 1964, one finds it with the hippies district of Haight-Ashbury. It distributes its poems in the street.

In 1966-1967 it is named poet with residence in California Institute off Technology.

He divorces Virginia on July 28th, 1970.

In 1972 or 73 he moves in Pine Creek, Montana and saw recluse the eight following years.

In 1982 is published its last book, So the Wind Won' T Blow It All Away .

Its body is discovered on October 25th, 1984 with Bolinas, in California, several weeks after its death (suicide by shot). Close to the body of the 49 years old author was a revolver gauges 44 magnum and a bottle of alcohol.

Brautigan wrote: " We have a whole a place in the history. Mine, they is the nuages."

Writing

Its first " livre" published was The Return off the Rivers , a single poem (1957), followed by two collections of poems: The Galileo Hitch-Hiker (1958) and Lay the Marble Tea (1959).

In the years 1960, Brautigan engages in the activities of the counter-culture in San Francisco, frequently taking part in " performances" as a poet. Its first novel, has Confederate General From Big On (1964) does not have any success. But with the publication of Trout Fishing in America ( It sinned with trout in America ) in 1967, it is catapulted towards an international notoriety and is indicated by criticisms like the best representing this emergent counter-culture. It publishes then four collections of poetry and another novel, In Watermelon Sugar .

In the years 1970, it is tested with various literary kinds and publishes several novels and collections of poems. But its success will have been fugacious. " At the end of the years 1960 , writes to his/her friend the writer Thomas McGuane, it was the baby thrown with the water of the bath. It was a nice type, disturbed, odd. " And the editor Lawrence Ferlinghetti: " As an editor, I always waited that Richard grows, as writer. It seems to me that it was primarily naive, and I do not believe that he cultivated this puerility, she came to him naturally. He was much more in phase with trouts that with people in America. " Forsaken by the critics and the readers, Brautigan sees his popularity crumbling; however its work remains appreciated in Europe and in Japan.

Brautigan borrows from all the kinds of the American literature (the western, the whodunnit, the account of memories) for better doing them imploser, to divert them of their course. Its writing, that of a large designer and reinvent American language, proceeds by perpetual images and digressions, similar with the detective of private in Babylon (translated into France by the academic Marc Chénetier, which contributed to make it discover in the Christian Bourgois editor) always inattentive of its investigation by its dream of Babylon.

The Brautigan Library

It should be noted that there exists in Burlington, in the Vermont, Brautigan Library, whose principal characteristic is to accommodate only manuscripts refused by the editors. One uses mayonnaise pots there as a book-ends, in homage to " Trout fishing in Amérique" , which ends in the word " mayonnaise". Moreover, the system of classification used in this library is the " Mayonnaise system" , invented by Brautigan in its book " the avortement" : the books are classified in categories such as " love, " the futur" , " the aventure" , and " all the reste".

Works

Romance

Trout Fishing in America (1967) It sinned with trout in America
off has Confederate General From Big On (1964) the general Southerner of Big On
In Watermelon Sugar (1968) Sucre of water melon
Revenge the Lawn (1970) the revenge on the lawn
The Abortion: Year Historical Lovesong (1971) the abortion
The Hawkline Monster: In Gothic Western (1974) the monster of Hawkline
Willard and His Bowling Trophisms: In Perverse Mystery (1975) Willard and its trophés of bowling
Fallout Sombrero: In Japanese Novell (1976) Repercussions of sombrero
Dreaming off Babylon: In Private Eye Novell 1942 (1977) private in Babylon
The Tokyo-Montana Express train (1980) Tokyo-Montana express train
So the Wind Won' T Blow It All Away (1982) Memories saved of the wind
Year Unfortunate Woman: In Journey (1982) new until in 2000 Book of a return of Troy

Poetry

The return off the rivers (1957) only one poem
The Galileo Hitch-Hiker (1958)
Lay the Marble Tea (1959)
The Octopus Frontier (1960)
All Watched Over by Machines off Loving Grace (1963)
Please Seedling This Book (1968) (8 seed sachets, printed of a poem each one)
The Pill versus the Springhill Undermines Disaster (1968)
Rommel Drives one Deep into Egypt (1970)
Loading Mercury with has Pitchfork (1971)
June 30th, June 30th (1978)
The Edna Webster Collection off Undiscovered Writings (1999), other parts not published before ( Why the unknown poets remain unknown , 2003).

External bonds

In English

The Brautigan Bibliography and File, very complete site
a fan club discussion forums
Poem of Richard Brautigan in San Francisco

In French

a card on Biblioweb as well as a presentation of Tokyo-Montana express train.
Bibliography of Richard Brautigan and chronicle by Phil Fax on the site of the '' Nouvelle '' ''' Re-examined ''' '' Moderne ''.
an article and discussion with its translator and friendly Marc Chénetier in the '' Matricule '' '' of the '' '' Anges ''.

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