[SKRIVA] R Brautigan: The Hawkline Monster

From: Ahrvid <ahrvid@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "fictionmags@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx" <fictionmags@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, "skriva@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <skriva@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 24 Apr 2014 03:49:59 +0200
Review: The Hawkline Monster  - A Gothic Western, by Richard Brautigan
A couple of months ago I attended an evening about the American writer Richard 
Brautigan (1935-1984) on the local library. We were told about his chaotic life 
and heard poems read by Norwegian poet Jan Erik Vold and publisher Jonas 
Ellerström. (Jonas is BTW almost an sf fan, sort of. He's attended sf cons and 
has published skiffy books by writers like Bertil Mårtensson and Sven Christer 
Swahn. He's much into poetry - and bird watching!)
  Brautingan was born and grew up under economically poor circumstances and 
began submitting poetry to different editors in the early to mid 50's, until 
his first poetry collection in 1958. He became a part of the California 
"underground" literary scene, as a "performance poet" and selling his poetry on 
the streets. Aside from "official" collections much of his poetry was printed 
here and there, in makeshift collections and publications, often in small 
print-runs. Vold and Ellerström told about their troubles with finding as much 
of his work as possible, contacting university libraries and other collectors.
  Brautigan also wrote several novels. His Trout Fishing in America (1967) 
became an not insignficant success, selling 4 million copies. (I haven't read 
it, but it has been translated to Swedish. I suspect the book despite the title 
has very little trustworthy information about trout fishing...) While his fame 
and fortunes went up and down in the US - much down in later years, I gather - 
he reached some amount of fame and appreciation in Europe and especially Japan, 
where Brautigan also moved for a time. Japanese author Haruki Murakami (often 
cited as Nobel candidate) has mentioned Brautigan as a source of inspiration. 
Brautigan actually had a lot of books published despite not being the ultimate 
role model for discipline and an orderly life. I won't go through everything 
about him but you can get a summary on 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Brautigan, and I'm sure there are lots of 
interesting stuff you can fish for about Richard Brautigan through the Net, 
trouts or no trouts.
  The book I want to say a few words about is the  novel The Hawkline Monster - 
A Gothic Western (1974), which is quite a lot science fiction and horror, 100% 
absurd but very entertaining. (I actually read the Swedish translation, by Caj 
Lundgren, Hawklinemonstret - en gotisk western, but also obtained an EPUB of 
the English original to make a few quotes.)
  The plot is simple. Greer and Cameron are two guns for hire in 1902 who meet 
a whore called Magic Child. She engages them to travel to her sister's (Miss 
Hawkline) mansion far off in Oregon to kill a monster. Father Hawkline is a Mad 
Scientist who has invented something strange involving The Chemicals, but he 
has now disappeared. He has probably been taken by the monster which lives in 
the ice caves under the basement laboratory. They come to the house and strange 
things begin to happen...
  But not half as strange as the prose and the often totally absurd way in 
which Brautigan tells his story! His characters will often do rather pointless 
things, have irrelevant comments and make observations that seem to have 
nothing to do with the story. One of them for instance constantly counts 
objects in the surroundings. The plot is on the verge of dissolving at times, 
but somehow Brautingan gets back on track and moves on. Here's a part from the 
first chapter, when our heroes are on Hawaii for one of their "jobs":

---
"The voyage from San Francisco to Hawaii had been the most terrifying 
experience Greer and Cameron had ever gone through, even more terrible than the 
time they shot a deputy sheriff in Idaho ten times and he wouldnt die and 
Greer finally had to say to the deputy sheriff, Please die because we dont 
want to shoot you again. And the deputy sheriff had said, OK, Ill die, but 
dont shoot me again.
We wont shoot you again, Cameron had said.
OK, Im dead, and he was."
---

  The novel consists of a large number of short chapters (some only half a 
page). The gunmen together with Magic Child take a train and then a stagecoach 
to reach their destination. But then they also  need horses for the final 
stretch:

---
We need some horses in the morning, Magic Child said. Were going out to 
Miss Hawklines.
I think I can do you up with some horses. Maybe one of them will get that far: 
if youre lucky.
Pills liked to joke about his horses. He was famous in those parts for having 
the worst bunch of horses ever assembled in a corral.
He had a horse that was so swaybacked that it looked like an October quarter 
moon. He called that horse Cairo. This is an Egyptian horse, he used to tell 
people.
He had another horse that didnt have any ears. A drunken cowboy had bitten 
them off for a fifty-cent bet. I bet you fifty cents Im so drunk Id bite a 
horses ears off!
God-damn, I dont think youre that drunk!
And he had another horse that actually drank whiskey. Theyd put a quart of 
whiskey in his bucket and hed drink it all down and then hed fall over on his 
side and everybody would laugh.
But the prize of his collection was a horse that had a wooden foot. The horse 
was born without a right rear foot, so somebody had carved him a wooden one, 
but the person had gotten confused in his carving, he wasnt really right in 
the head, anyway, and the wooden foot looked more like a ducks foot than a 
horses foot. It really looked strange to see that horse walking around with a 
wooden duck foot.
---

I mentioned strange things beginning to happen. One thing is for instance that 
Magic Child turns into a copy of Miss Hawkline. I also mentioned short 
chapters. The below is an entire chapter:

---
Just about the time breakfast was ready, Magic Child came into the kitchen. She 
was wearing exactly the same clothes that Miss Hawkline was wearing. Her hair 
was also combed the same way and she wore patent leather shoes that shined like 
coal. You could not tell the difference between Magic Child and Miss Hawkline.
They were the same person.
How do I look? Magic Child said.
Fine, Greer said.
You sure are a pretty girl, Cameron said.
Im so glad youre back, Miss Hawkline said, suddenly stopping breakfast to 
rush over and throw her arms around Magic Child again.
Greer and Cameron sat there, staring at these two identical visions of 
beautiful womanhood.
Miss Hawkline went back to the few minutes that took care of cooking breakfast 
and putting the food on the table where soon they were all gathered eating the 
first of many meals that they would eat together.
---

I won't say more about the plot. I'm sure a guy like Philip K Dick would have 
liked the book, with the absurd perspectives and a reality that isn't always 
what it seems. (Maybe he read Brautigan? I don't know.)
  The prose is very simple, but it is deceptive. The author constantly takes 
you for a ride to something unexpected. For instance, the characters may 
suddenly exclaim "I want to fuck" and then they do exactly that. (Brautigan was 
after all from the "underground" scene, counter culture, free love and all 
that.)
  I like absurd books (and absurd poetry too; Brautigan wrote that, I heard 
examples during the library evening) but it should be absurd in the right way - 
like in this book. I don't know exactly how to explain how Brautigan pulls it 
off, to be absurd without being boring. Being absurd AND boring is very easy. 
Monty Python managed the right kind of absurdity it by being so wildly absurd 
that your normal concepts were shaken to the ground and you simply had to 
capitulate, but Brautigan is more low key and he doesn't use much explicit 
humour. It's just a talent some writers have, to find the right mood, the right 
words, the right attitude. If stylistics was an easy thing to analyse and use, 
we'd have so many high-class writers that the Swedish Academy would suffer a 
collective heart attack.
  And I don't think Richard Brautigan is for everyone. Some will like his kind 
of work, some will find it incomprehensible. But I liked The Hawkline Monster. 
Try it for yourself.

--Ahrvid

Ps.  But I came to think of one writer resembling Brautigan, who English reader 
haven't heard of: radio entertainer, editor of Swedish MAD Magazine, writer etc 
Lasse O'Månsson. I remember for instance his dialogue "Korven" ("Hot Dog") 
about two guys speaking about eating a hot dog. Who is offering the hot dog and 
who is to eat it subtly switch, and the colour of the mustard changes to blue. 
(I have read several of his books. He definitely reminds me of Brautigan. He 
added the "O' " to his name because he falsely claimed to be born in Dublin...)

Pps. Cross-posted to the SKRIVA list too.

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[SKRIVA] R Brautigan: The Hawkline Monster

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