Mayonnaise will be read by two different groups: One those who've
heard about or read Richard Brautigan before and others who'll be introduced to
him first time in impressionistic and quirky episodic chapters, idiosyncratic
to his own novels. The novel is unique in form and special in making unusual
connection between events, places and people, particularly associated with
American history or even a cultural wave, to Richard Brautigan in one or other
way. "Expressing a human need, I always wanted to write a book that ended
with the word Mayonnaise."—these are the words of Richard
Brautigan's striking novel Trout Fishing
in America and the novel bears the same desired word as its title: Mayonnaise.
Richard Brautigan was born in
Tacoma in 1935, and the way1
it is ushered in by the narrator, his alter-ego, Gabriel Rivages, who himself
is struggling to write2, makes
precedent for the style the story takes in the halo of Brautigan's biography, figuratively
the plot of the novel. After the narrator grasps the recipe of the perfect
mayonnaise, he starts to put together jigsaw pieces of Brautigan's life and of
those around him; also are interspersed objective chapters that are targeted to
some historical facts and figures, and cultural wave of 1950s and 60s, when
beatniks and hippies challenged the norms. All these add dimensions to the
novel—as
if Brautigan wrote it in his own style—at the same time stopping it from
becoming an altogether biographical novel. The novel shifts between Rivages
voice as a third and first person narrator, all looking into the life and times
of Brautigan and himself, who share the almost same problematic childhood
experience and elements that form and shape their characters as a writer.
1.
In any case, for me, Tacoma is above all the
birthplace of Brautigan, a lifeboat in The
Gold Rush, and my son's laughter as The Little Tramp eats his shoe.
2.
When everyone is afraid of ending up unemployed,
I don't care, because if I no longer have, I'll write… When the days are too
long, the wounds are fresh, when there's no hope, I write. The rest of the
time, I ask myself what the hell I could write.
Destined to become a writer,
Brautigan showed signs of his love for writing through poems in his early days,
only that he lived as a destitute, unsatisfied with home, where and how he was;
this forced him to flee and try his luck in San Francisco, where he would find
his first wife Virginia and his life as a postmodern and beatnik writer, with
satires up his sleeve, and progress would be heavily influenced or even
supported by the cultural movements3
and writers of his generation. The
narrator sums up that the unique character and qualities of Brautigan's body of
work cannot be put in a few words. Mayonnaise
is like a friend talking to you, written in a casual way, and those of us who
haven't read Trout Fishing in America,
will definitely be enticed by the candour here and can relate to the frankness and
atmosphere referred.
3. Brautigan
joins the Diggers first and foremost for their publishing house… Brautigan can
print his writings for free. He walks throughout Frisco giving away or selling
his poems on street corners. He joins in the never-ending party like all the
others. Between Vietnam War, race riots, and women's rights, he finds his place
among the West-coast crazies… When he writes about a fishing trip or bus a bus
ride, Brautigan, in his style, taps the same veins as Bakunin or Blanqui.
Neither god nor master!
There runs a parallel story of
Gabriel Rivages, the same narrator from the Hungary-Hollywood Express (First
part of the Trilogy), saved from his depression and suicidal thoughts5 by Camus' philosophy of
life, who lives on his oddities and therefore there are seemingly digressive
pieces of information (On Chaplin, Nabokov…) and chapters (Gadget, Qwerty,…): brooding
over his own background, fondness for Brautigan's work and his influence,
hitting upon myths, hunting optimism and celebrating the fate of things to make
a sense of connection4. But,
it is understandable that Rivages is a character, who's struggling with his own
demon and partly reflects the turmoil Brautigan himself handled in his life. Besides,
style cannot be claimed as a flaw in the story, judging its impression may be a
different thing. The snippets taken from the life and tragic death of Brautigan
transport us to the time when he was in the height of his success and final days
marked with downfall and rough moods. Also apparent is the father-child
relation and grave impact a question of origin can inflict upon an individual.
4.
In 1957, the Russians launch their first
Sputnik. That same year, "The Return of the Rivers" becomes the first
Brautigan poem to ever see print.
5.
I'm driving myself crazy… It's all there in the
single question: is life worth or not worth the punishment of its
experiences?... How many of us have the courage to master the final step?
To sum up, Mayonnaise is an accolade to the sensational poet and novelist
Richard Brautigan and reveres his style and influence on the generations of
writers. In this blend of facts and fable, fate and coincidents, reaching close
to his space and time, we end up developing love for Brautigan, and despite the
swirls of uncanny accounts, this experimental novel produces delight and smile
on our faces above all else; after all, life of a writer always seems stranger
than a fiction!
Author: Éric Plamondon
Translator: Dimitri Nasrallah
Publisher: Vehicule Press/Esplanade Fiction
Page Count: 188pp
Price: $16.95
Author Photo Credit: Le Quartanier/ Kelly Jacob
Review Copy Courtesy: Vehicule Press/Esplanade Fiction
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