- Hardcover: 144 pages
- Publisher: Jonathan Cape Ltd; 1st Edition edition (23 July 1970)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0224618504
- ISBN-13: 978-0224618502
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,883,054 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Review
'Delicate, fantastic and very funny...A highly individual style, a fertile, active inventiveness...It's cool, joyous, lucid and pleasant to read' Malcolm Bradbury
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
Book Description
'A charming and original work-The parable itself is extremely relevant' The Times
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
16 of 17 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
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.
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.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
'In Watermelon Sugar' may be Richard Brautigan's best book. It's certainly one of the most completely characteristic: even at the time of its publication critics were struggling for terms of comparison. Its reputation may have suffered because Brautigan's immense early popularity aroused suspicions about his quality; it may be that its short length is confused with slightness. Nonetheless, whatever the reservations one may have about his other work, 'In Watermelon Sugar' needs no apologies.
Written in a deliberately artless, almost affectless style and in very short chapters, the novel - a novella or long short story, really - seems to invite fast, uncommitted reading. The reader who is prepared to slow down and ponder the implications of Brautigan's simple sentences will find the effort repaid.
It's a measure of the book's hidden complexity that it has been received as both a utopia and a dystopia. It's probably fair to say that that paradox reflects the author's deep ambivalence about the style of living emerging in the late '50s and early '60s on the American west coast.
Set at an uncertain distance in the future, 'In Watermelon Sugar' introduces us to iDEATH, a community that fuses aspects of contemporary hippie utopianism with an authentic American surrealism. The unnamed narrator - who actually has no name - relates in a meandering manner some of the history of iDEATH and the odd customs of its inhabitants: the conflict with the 'tigers', a living remnant of the almost vanished older world; his own attempts to write in a world in which books are mainly fuel; his relationship with the women Margaret and Pauline; Margaret's fascination with the Forgotten Works and its treasure trove of enigmatic artefacts; and the tragicomic insurrection of the curmudgeonly inBOIL. Gradually Brautigan constructs out of hints a picture of a world that has grown out of the ruins of our own, and in which a great deal has been sacrificed in the name of calm and content.
Published in 1968, but written in 1964, 'In Watermelon Sugar' was Brautigan's third novel and the last of those written in the '60s that made his reputation. I find it the best of the three: intelligent and sad, and well worth the brief investment of time in reading. This is the book that best explains why Brautigan was once reviewed respectfully alongside such other American fabulists as Kurt Vonnegut and Donald Barthelme. Perhaps one day he - or this book, at least - will see a posthumous revaluation.
Written in a deliberately artless, almost affectless style and in very short chapters, the novel - a novella or long short story, really - seems to invite fast, uncommitted reading. The reader who is prepared to slow down and ponder the implications of Brautigan's simple sentences will find the effort repaid.
It's a measure of the book's hidden complexity that it has been received as both a utopia and a dystopia. It's probably fair to say that that paradox reflects the author's deep ambivalence about the style of living emerging in the late '50s and early '60s on the American west coast.
Set at an uncertain distance in the future, 'In Watermelon Sugar' introduces us to iDEATH, a community that fuses aspects of contemporary hippie utopianism with an authentic American surrealism. The unnamed narrator - who actually has no name - relates in a meandering manner some of the history of iDEATH and the odd customs of its inhabitants: the conflict with the 'tigers', a living remnant of the almost vanished older world; his own attempts to write in a world in which books are mainly fuel; his relationship with the women Margaret and Pauline; Margaret's fascination with the Forgotten Works and its treasure trove of enigmatic artefacts; and the tragicomic insurrection of the curmudgeonly inBOIL. Gradually Brautigan constructs out of hints a picture of a world that has grown out of the ruins of our own, and in which a great deal has been sacrificed in the name of calm and content.
Published in 1968, but written in 1964, 'In Watermelon Sugar' was Brautigan's third novel and the last of those written in the '60s that made his reputation. I find it the best of the three: intelligent and sad, and well worth the brief investment of time in reading. This is the book that best explains why Brautigan was once reviewed respectfully alongside such other American fabulists as Kurt Vonnegut and Donald Barthelme. Perhaps one day he - or this book, at least - will see a posthumous revaluation.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
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.
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.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
A masterpiece only some get
Richard Brautigan is not a commercial writer, not someone for the masses. Be forewarned!
But his writing is innovative, full of a grace and fluidity which few writers... Read more
But his writing is innovative, full of a grace and fluidity which few writers... Read more
Published 4 months ago by reviewsahoy
QUIRKY AND FUN.
I read this book 30 years ago as a teeager.Enjoyed it then and enjoyed it again second time around.
Published on 24 Aug 2009 by annie waterpistol
Rubbish.
Thats the sum of it! How this is described "very funny" i will never know.
Published on 22 May 2009 by S. R. Short
Sad and psychadelic novella
`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... Read more
Published on 29 April 2006 by Depressaholic
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