August 11, 2020 | By Tamblyn Mitchell 

This summer, we’re getting in touch with Johnnies to talk about the books they​​’ve been reading in their free time. This week, Tamblyn Mitchell (A23) writes on Richard Brautigan’s expressive, surrealistic Trout Fishing in America.

Richard Brautigan’s Trout Fishing in America haunts me daily as one of the most confounding and beautiful pieces of writing I have ever read. The series of vignettes, poems, short stories, letters, and recipes refuses to be categorized as a novel, yet somehow manages to tell the vivid story of Brautigan’s childhood in the Pacific Northwest, his adult life in San Francisco, and a camping trip with his infant daughter in Idaho. The title phrase itself is used in many ways: “Trout Fishing in America” is a title, a hotel, a character within the book itself, and a mythology.

Written in 1961 and originally published in 1967, Trout Fishing in America poignantly captures an America many of us have never known. In his own time, Brautigan was caught somewhere between the Beat poets and the hippies, but according to his daughter he never wanted to be associated with either generation. His singular identity lends itself to a unique writing style. Trout Fishing in America is bizarrely self-aware at times, and Brautigan’s frequent use of extended metaphor often left me feeling as though I was sitting passively inside his head, watching him pass judgement over the world before him. In a chapter entitled “A Walden Pond for Winos,” Brautigan describes the autumn wind as being “like the roller coaster of a flesh-eating plant,” and later portrays his friends as being “about to open up a flea circus or commit themselves to an insane asylum.”

The distinctive beauty of Brautigan’s writing is clearly revealed when he pairs this peculiar and occasionally grotesque style of characterization with a sobering examination of reality. In a chapter titled “Kool-Aid Wino,” Brautigan depicts the gut-wrenching poverty of his childhood friend, “a member of a very large and poor German family.” He describes an eight-year-old child using Kool-Aid as a crutch, as though he were a 60-year-old alcoholic:

“You’re supposed to make only two quarts of Kool-Aid from a package, but he always made a gallon, so his Kool-Aid was a mere shadow of its desired potency. And you’re supposed to add a cup of sugar to every package of Kool-Aid, but he never put any sugar in his Kool-Aid because there wasn’t any sugar to put in it. He created his own Kool-Aid reality and was able to illuminate himself by it.”

Throughout the book, similar instances of absurd sadness appear again and again. Brautigan’s specific kind of surrealistic and fractured language is wielded as a lens through which to look at the book, allowing for incredibly vivid and intense examinations of life.

Despite its somewhat somber outlook, Trout Fishing in America is an ideal read for a Johnnie’s day off. Trout Fishing in America isn’t interested in searching for a long, consistent thread of meaning. Each episodic piece stands on its own; this is a book you can put down and pick back up weeks later without feeling like you’ve lost anything. As students at St. Johns, we learn to take books very seriously, as we should—our Program readings deserve respect and our full attention. They require us to consume and analyze the most influential writings of the world at a rapid pace, which can take a mental and physical toll.

Trout Fishing in America isn’t one of those books. Brautigan offers an expressive and striking escape within each of his stories, reminding each of us that not every book needs to alter your entire point of view. That being said: if you give it a chance, Trout Fishing in America may do just that.