An Unfortunate Woman: A Journey by Richard Brautigan
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Book Reviews of An Unfortunate Woman: A Journey
Book Review: long time no see
Summary: 4 Stars
When was the last time that I read Brautigan's books or read about him. It was probably when Jan Kerouac's "Trainsong" was translated into Japanese almost ten years ago. Jack Kerouac's daughter described Brautigan's lecture in Amsterdam a year before he died. Jan Kerouac passed away too in mid-nineties.Now this Brautigan's posthumous book reminds me of an atmosphere of early eighties; not too much industrialization and 'do it ourselves.' But this book is not so simple. The narrator went to cemeteries everywhere. And every time he tried to talk about an "unfortunate woman" who hung herself, he got off the subject. Hatred for LA-style cities, the sound of a woman making love in Berkeley, a photograph of him and a chicken in Hawaii, etc. These episodes are funny but, on the other hand, somewhat depressing.
Nostalgic, witty and a little sad. It's unmistakably a Brautigan.
Book Review: Eerie in the context of Brautigan's life
Summary: 4 Stars
This was the last book Richard Brautigan wrote before he committed suicide. Reading with that in mind, this book takes on an eeriness and relevance otherwise missing. It is written in the form of a travel journal, a real journal, with long periods of missing entries. But the crux of this book lies in the narrator's attempt to understand death. The house he currently rents was previously owned by a woman who killed herself there. The narrator also has a good friend who is losing her battle with cancer. It's as if Brautigan was wrestling with the idea of death. Whether his suicide means he figured it out, or failed to, is unknown. This book is a better look into his final years than a good story, but it's full of typical Brautigan humor and wonderful writing.Book Review: Nice read for Brautigan fans
Summary: 4 Stars
I enjoyed this short book from Brautigan. I believe it was his last work before his unfortunate demise. He has a unique style, wit and humor that sets him apart.Book Review: An unfortunate end...
Summary: 3 Stars
This book was handed to me in a local bookstore by a friend who thought I might enjoy it. I took it home and read it on a fine sunny September afternoon, lying in the hammock part of the time, and sitting on the steps of my back porch for the rest. I had my introduction to Brautigan earlier this year with The Abortion and In Watermelon Sugar. Both were entertaining and also inspired in their honesty. I have placed Brautigan in my canon of Saints of the Ordinary, as he is pretty much putting pen to paper to tell the strange and beautiful story of his life and loves. One reviewer of An Unfortunate Woman praises Brautigan's "deft evocation of the thoroughly marginal places" of our lives. Thus, we are permitted access to ordinary scenes in the grocery store, as he stands in front of shelves of soup and fantasizes about a warm cup of soup on a cold and rainy day. Or we sit over numerous cups of coffee with Brautigan and the women he loves. He has a very matter of fact style that leaves me feeling that nothing is so mundane or meaningless that it can not be ennobled and rightfully celebrated with the rituals and observations of writing.
As I sat, drinking tea, after finishing Brautigan's book, a friend walked by the cafe and asked what I had been reading. I showed him the book. He said that he always enjoyed reading Brautigan, but that he could never look at his writing the same, with its carefree, beat attitude, after he heard that Brautigan had killed himself. This discredited the writing in his eyes.
That knowledge, that Brautigan had killed himself soon after this book was written as a sort of travel journal in 1982, definitely casts the book in a different light. Throughout, the narrator struggles to describe the death of a woman who hung herself, but finds himself persistently distracted by the events of his life, so that he never really can come to terms with this strange death. He stays in the suicide's house for a number of days, but still avoids the subject of her death. In the face of the book's title, An Unfortunate Woman, Brautigan's stuggle to address this central subject seems to indicate a larger entanglement with the subject of death, and contrary to his earlier works, this seems to have a patent loneliness to it, as he finally retreats into a cabin in the woods outside of Bozeman for a week of solitude, with provisions and only his own thoughts to keep him company.
It certainly helped to have a grounding in Brautigan's other work before reading this. But his lovable spirit is still alive in this posthumously published work.
Book Review: calender no escaping[ IN THE LEDGER OF DEFICITE]
Summary: 3 Stars
faLLEN notebook almost an ode to guilt biLdt up, LIKE REGRET,WRITING AS CATHARSIS HIS ONLY COMPANION a legend IN HIS OWN MIND ,wissfull recollections ,revisited, immortalised in a simple time DONE IN,CALENDER TIME STARK AS DEATH the stalker, steps loosely tossed in account of semi, real mussings imaginary steps to avoid pain these, journeys caves ins, what was ifs turn plaguely dour executionner knocking at the door, manifestationsCLEAR, FROM THE OPENING KNOCK,HAUNTED foretold place obvious, reminder of the obvious nature he anwers a telephone call to acknowledge death comming,ITS OBVIOUS, THIS BOOK,[ POSSIBLY should of never been published,]go for it gusto told narrative, plain is simple, unedited, go where the mind may go venture, stumble about on the outskirts of ordinacy cordinates calender implied, these private I FIRST PERSON awful conseguences done in UN DONE, RUN STAB AT JOURNAL HONE SPUN done in tales of women scorned and trampled on, by beheaded clearly bored perfectallussions to meanings anomonous, head off in every direction journal as journey time on hands done in, hase,lsCLEARLY SEMI SECRET CONFESSIONALS TO SELfisms ,TerminalIMPOSED EXILE, WRETCHED , MATTER OF FACT EXECUTIONS, quasi,auto pilot, ampified AWFULLNESS, SEE YOU LATTER, ANOMONOUS ENCOUNTERS,in the mirror,morning afters,ball point in hand pedesrian ledger of accounts add up to bankruptcy, at odds with thir WAS once promise of.JUSTinDEATH NO JUSTICE, HIS SCATTERED NOT intent to be published WRITINGS would,see THIS light OF DAY,POSSIBLE HE WISHED EM TO STAY private, reading AN UNFORTUNATE WOMAN,THEIRS THE SMELL of seedy,not meant to be READ, especially commented on,by me,