Model
Digital Document
Publisher
Florida Atlantic University
Description
Three of Richard Brautigan's novels extensively employ the
American pastoral motif in a predominantly romance form.
All contrast the urban American present with a simpler,
idealized pastoral setting. Working within each book is the
"return to nature" mystique or impulse, treated comically or
ironically. In A Confederate General from Big Sur, the
"return to nature" impulse is comically linked to an extended
metaphor of the Civil War. The combination denigrates the
pastoral time away, creating a comic burlesque. In watermelon
Sugar "returns to nature" in a fantasy, postindustrial
Eden. Far from depicting the successful attainment
of the yearned-for simplicity in a second Eden,
Brautigan critically and ironically renders the perfect
pastoral paradise. In Trout Fishing in America, the
narrator searches for the pastoral ideal in urban America.
A viable pastoral retreat is attained through the power of
the imagination that reconciles contemporary industrialized
America to its pastoral past.
American pastoral motif in a predominantly romance form.
All contrast the urban American present with a simpler,
idealized pastoral setting. Working within each book is the
"return to nature" mystique or impulse, treated comically or
ironically. In A Confederate General from Big Sur, the
"return to nature" impulse is comically linked to an extended
metaphor of the Civil War. The combination denigrates the
pastoral time away, creating a comic burlesque. In watermelon
Sugar "returns to nature" in a fantasy, postindustrial
Eden. Far from depicting the successful attainment
of the yearned-for simplicity in a second Eden,
Brautigan critically and ironically renders the perfect
pastoral paradise. In Trout Fishing in America, the
narrator searches for the pastoral ideal in urban America.
A viable pastoral retreat is attained through the power of
the imagination that reconciles contemporary industrialized
America to its pastoral past.
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