در رؤیای بابل

by Richard Brautigan, پیام یزدانجو (Translator)

داستان، روایت یک کارآگاه خصوصی‌ست که در خواب و خیال شهر قدیمی و افسانه‌ای بابل، تمام زندگی‌اش را باخته است. راوی البته جایی به طور ضمنی به باختن اعتراف نمی‌کند ولی یخچال خالی و مملو از کپک و آپارتمان بی پنجره و گرسنگی و خیلی تصاویر عینی دیگری که سرتاسر داستان را در تلخ و شیرین طنزش غرق کرده، نشان از این بیچارگی و بازنده بودن دارد. این رمان از معدود آثار «براتیگان» است که روایتی سر‌راست دارد.
در رؤيای بابل از موفق‌ترين و ماندگارترين آثار ريچارد براتيگان، نويسنده‌ی نوآور آمريکايي، است. رمانی درنهايت جذابيت، که حاصل تجربيات اعجاب‌انگيز نويسنده در عرصه‌ی خلاقيت ادبی است. اين اثری همتا و حتی فراتر از صيدقزل‌آلادرآمريکا است که سنت‌شکنی ادبی را در آميزه‌ای از ژانرهای سنتی (داستان کارآگاهی و رمان علمی ـ تخيلی) به نمايش می‌گذارد: براتيگان در بهترين براتيگان‌بازی‌اش.

Genres: Fiction, Novels, Humor, Literature, Mystery, American, Audiobook

238 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1977

About the author

Richard Brautigan was an American novelist, poet, and short-story writer. Born in Tacoma, Washington, he moved to San Francisco in the 1950s and began publishing poetry in 1957. He started writing novels in 1961 and is probably best known for his early work Trout Fishing in America. He died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in 1984.

Reviews

[Vit Babenco · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dreaming of Babylon is a whimsically and outrageously acid post noir dusky comedy.

First, the good news: I found out that I was 4F and wasn’t going off to World War II to be a soldier boy. I didn’t feel unpatriotic at all because I had fought my World War II five years before in Spain and had a couple of bullet holes in my ass to prove it.
I’ll never figure out why I got shot in the ass. Anyway, it made a lousy war story. People don’t look up to you as a hero when you tell them you were shot in the ass. They don’t take you seriously but that wasn’t my problem any more at all. The war that was starting for the rest of America was over for me.
Now for the bad news: I didn’t have any bullets for my gun. I had just gotten a case that I needed my gun for but I was fresh out of bullets. The client that I was going to meet later on in the day for the first time wanted me to show up with a gun and I knew that an empty gun was not what they had in mind.

What if a private eye is a clueless and incorrigible loser and at that, he keeps trying to do tough tricks in the style of an invincible hardboiled detective? Then his doings become a film noir turned inside out – a grotesque postmodern nightmare.
“Things are never so bad they can’t be made worse,” – is literally a protagonist’s motto.

“My uncle discovered oil in Rhode Island!” I yelled across at her. “I own half of it. I’m rich. Twenty thousand cash for this pile of shit you call an apartment building! Twenty-five thousand!” I yelled. “I want to marry you and raise a whole family of little apartment buildings! I want our wedding certificate printed on a No Vacancy sign!”

Playing a bad game keep a good face and hope to survive.

[فؤاد · Rating 3 out of 5]

زبان بوکوفسکی بامزه تر بود، اما چفت و بست و پایان بندی این بهتر بود.

حاصل یک شب بی خوابی.

[Yasmine Alishzadeh · Rating 3 out of 5]

کتاب درباره خیالپردازیهای افراطی راوی درباره بابل می باشد. احتمالا نویسنده در آن زمان نمی دانسته که این خیالپردازی بیمارگونه یک نوع اختلال روانی به نام ام دی نامیده می شود.
خیالبافی ناهنجار به گونه ای از رویا پردازی گفته میشود که شخص به صورت افراطی آن را انجام میدهد و عموما تا چند دقیقه ی اول ، خود به طور کامل متوجه انجام این کار نیست. علاوه بر این ، در رویا پردازی ناسازگار ، شخص دقیقه ها و گاهی ساعت ها از کار خود دست کشیده و به رویا پردازی و ساخت سناریو های مختلف در ذهن خود می پردازد. گفته میشود که این گونه رویا پردازان ، معمولا به صورت ناخودآگاه ، برای فرار از واقعیات زندگی و یا پنهان کردن ضعف خود در بخشی از زندگی اقدام به این گونه رویا پردازی می کنند.
کسانی که خیالبافی ناهنجاررا انجام میدهند ، عموما به صورت وسواسی به جزئیات سناریوها و اشخاص ساخته شده در ذهن خود اهمیت داده ، آنها را تا جای ممکن شبیه به واقعیت میسازند و گاهی چندین بار خصوصیات آنها را مرور میکنند. این خصوصیات به قدری دقیق و کامل هستند ، که از آنها میتوان الگوی ساخت رمان یا نوشتن داستان هایی کامل را دریافت کرد. این گونه رویا پردازان ، عموما از دسته افرادی هستند که کارهای خود را به تعویق می اندازند.

[Ali Karimnejad · Rating 4 out of 5]

یک طنز خوشمزه

از اون کتابهایی که واقعا تونست من رو بخندونه. توی خیابون، مغازه و نونوایی هی نیشم تا بناگوش باز می‌شد و همه چپ‌چپ بهم نگاه می‌کردن. بعضی‌ها هم زیپ شلوارشون رو چک می‌کردن! خلاصه خیلی خوش گذشت. 😊ا
من صوتیش رو گوش دادم و بنظرم صوتی این کتاب، ارزش هنری مضاعفی رو بهش اضافه کرده که شاید به صِرف خوندن، اونقدر آدم حظ نبره.
داستان خیلی خاصی وجود نداره. ماجرای یک یارو اُسکلی هستش که در نوجونی توپ خورده تو سرش و از اون به بعد همش میره تو هپروت. در رویای بابِل! همیشه هم توی فانتزی‌هاش یک دختری هست به نام نعنا دیرَت! :))) با اینحال اگر ریز بشی، حرف‌های جدی و تلخی هم توش وجود داره. شاید یکجور واکنش در مقابل جبر محیطی! به هر ترتیب، واقعا اُسکل باحالی خلق کرده این آقای ریچارد براتیگان. واقعا دستمریزاد!ا

پ.ن: بازم می‌گم، اگر احیانا تصمیم گرفتید سمت این کتاب برید، حتما نسخه صوتیش رو (آرمان سلطان‌زاده) امتحان کنید. پشیمون نمی‌شید.

[Ian · Rating 4 out of 5]

I suppose we only give significance to these numbers because we happen to have ten fingers, but for what it’s worth this is my 500th review on GR. I joined almost exactly 7 years ago and I’ve “reviewed” every book I’ve read since then (plus a handful that I read before I joined).

Like most of Brautigan’s books, Dreaming of Babylon is a short and easy read. It’s his entry in the “spoof detective novel” genre. C. Card is a Walter Mitty type character who spends all his days daydreaming about being a super-cool hero in ancient Babylon, except that his imagining of ancient Babylon is really mid-twentieth century USA with the Hanging Gardens and the Ishtar Gate thrown in, along with some Metropolis style early sci-fi. Card’s daydreaming means he barely functions in society, but officially he’s a private detective.

Initially I wasn’t very taken with the novel. The first third or so is a description of C. Card and his life, and I thought it was so-so. The book really picked up when he is actually hired by a client and starts off on an increasingly weird and, for me, very funny adventure that involves, appropriately enough, a murdered hooker, a tough-as-nails police detective, a wealthy and glamorous blonde and her man-mountain of a chauffeur/bodyguard. The crime story doesn’t really make sense but then, it isn’t meant to.

C. Card is a guy who has to cope with a lot. Other characters in the book tell him his life would be better if he didn’t spend all his time dreaming of Babylon. Then again, it’s only by dreaming of Babylon that he can get through the day.

[Fereshteh · Rating 3 out of 5]

اولین تجربم از براتیگان خوانی بود.حس نمی کردم کتاب میخونم حس میکردم دارم یه فیلم می بینم..روایتی بود منظم و ساده و بی پیرایه از زندگی کاراگاهی خصوصی در امریکا که از نظر همه دوستان و خانواده اش بازنده ای تمام عیار تلقی می شود.بی پولی و نیازمندی و بدبختی سی کارد از همان ابتدا از سر و روی داستان می بارد.به قول خودش که از زمانی به بعد زندگیش با سرعتی باورنکردنی در سرازیری سقوط و نابودی افتاد.سی کارد که خود در ارمانشهر همه جهانیان (امریکا) زندگی می کند ارمانشهر دیگری در ذهنش دارد:بابل باستان
سی کارد در این رویا از ارمانشهرش همه ان چیزهایی که میخواست در زندگیش حس کند و نکرد را تجربه میکند: موفقیت، شهرت و عشق
جالب این که همین رویای شیرینش را دلیل همه شکست های تلخ زندگیش می داند. هر حا که باید حواسش جمع زندگی می بوده در دنیای دیگری در بابل در حال سروری بوده ...!

[Leila · Rating 4 out of 5]

آپارتمانم آنقدر کثیف است که تازگی تمام لامپ‌های هفتادوپنج وات را با بیست و پنج وات عوض کرده‌ام تا مجبور نباشم اوضاع را واضح و آشکار ببینم

"در رویای بابل" به یک روز از زندگی سی کارد، راوی و قهرمان داستان ، می‌پردازد. او کارآگاه خصوصی بی‌اعتباری است که در حساس‌ترین شرایط زندگی‌ش غرق در رویای بابل می‌شود و تمامی آرزوهای دست نیافته‌اش را در آنجا محقق می‌یابد ؛ هرچقدر در دنیای واقعی مغبون است در دنیای بابل سرشناس و موفق و تواناست. تا اینکه بالاخره در ظاهر پیشنهاد کاری خوبی به او داده می‌شود .

پ.ن: چقدر راوی این داستان منو یاد آقای استیونز - راوی بازمانده‌ی روز- انداخت. هر دوشون به شیوه‌ی خودشون مخاطب رو حرص می‌دن :)

۱۴۰۰/۱۰/۲۳

[Emily B · Rating 3 out of 5]

This wasn’t bad but probably my least favourite Richard Brautigan book that I’ve read so far.

[Ian "Marvin" Graye · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Less You Look, the More You Find

This is a nicely deconstructed private eye story that takes you around the block in a borrowed vehicle and drops you right back where you started, except that by the end the protagonist has the corpse of an attractive woman (une femme morte, rather than fatale) in his refrigerator (we learn how she got there, but not really who she is or why she was killed).

It's definitely worth the price of admission, but I can't really rate it any more than three stars, for all the bewilderment available in its pages. Fortunately, there are both real live and fantasy women in the tale as well. This is the description of a real live woman:

"She'd taken her fur coat off and underneath she was wearing a dress that showed off a knockout figure. This whole thing was just like a pulp detective story. I couldn't believe it."

That about sums it up. You're not meant to believe it.

Honey Tangle with a Bad News Girl
[A Pastiche Inspired by Faux]

I was sitting in my office, drinking a cup of coffee, and thinking. This is what I was thinking about.

I like the name Smith. I even prefer it to my own name. My surname is Nichols. It's got two syllables. I like a name to have just one, like Smith.

There are other reasons I don't like Nichols. If you added just one letter, you could change Nichols into Nicholas. Nicholas has three syllables, so I don't like it. But the other reason I don't like it is that it sounds like knickerless. I can't stand the thought of anybody thinking of me being knickerless, every time they hear my name. I don't like the thought of anybody sniggering when they hear my name.

Nobody sniggers when they hear the name Smith, even if they think it's a bit mundane, like Jones.

This is about where I was up to when the phone rang and I picked it up and said, “Hello...Nichols.”

The person at the other end of the phone guffawed, even though I hadn't said Nicholas.

“Who's this?” I asked, not particularly politely.

“Marky Smith,” said the voice at the other end of the line.

I laughed. My laugh didn't amount to a guffaw, because I was talking to somebody whose surname was Smith, and I like the name Smith.

The reason I laughed is that I am a big fan of a band called the Fall, and the leader of the band is Mark E. Smith. So even though I thought that this person said he was “Marky” Smith, and it sounded so much like Mark E. Smith, I still thought he was saying Marky Smith, and he was trying to amuse me.

The other thing that amused me was that he already knew I was a private eye, and he asked if I could investigate his wife, who he thought was having an affair with his bass player. At least it wasn't his drummer. Just to get things straight, I asked him to tell me his wife's name. I was surprised when he said it was “Two Bricks Smith”. I didn't ask why he called her “Two Bricks", in case he said she was thick. I knew her music well enough to appreciate that she was more bright than thick.

So I asked Marky if he minded if I called her 2Bricks. He said he didn't mind, because it sounded the same, just like his name sounded like Marky, besides it was her name, not his, and it didn't really matter to him, now that they were going to be divorced, as soon as I could prove she was having an affair.

He quickly agreed to my standard fee of £1,500, even though it was a long time since I had bought one of his albums, even back then, when 2Bricks was still in the band and their sound had become a bit more commercially appealing. I thought that he would have been short of cash, like I was, but he didn't hesitate to agree to my fee.

I gave him my account details, and when I checked it the next morning, the money was already in my account.

We had agreed that I would wait outside the Fall's rehearsal room that night, and follow 2Bricks wherever she went. The bass player went off by himself. I can't remember his name. He wasn't a Smith or even a Nichols.

This left me to follow 2Bricks without distraction. She went around the corner and entered a pub, which was well-known, but I'd never been there before.

She sat in a booth in a corner near the entrance, and I walked up to the bar and ordered a draught beer. While it was being poured, a waitress came into the bar area, and asked the barman to make a dry martini. It was for 2Bricks.

The waitress didn't take it over to the booth. Instead, she placed it on the counter beside me. Last time I'd looked, there was nobody sitting beside me, but when I turned around, there was 2Bricks, sitting on a stool next to me.

She lifted her martini to her lips, and took a sip, then she said, “You work for my husband, don't you?”

I wasn't used to being caught out this quickly. I didn't know how to respond, so I said yes. She laughed, and asked me whether I'd like a better-paying job. Naively, I revealed that this one paid pretty well. She seemed to deflate when I told her how much, as if my fee was a measure of her worth. She hadn't realised that, up to that point, it was a measure of her worth...to me. She soon convinced me otherwise.

“How about I pay you £10,000 to bring me the head of Marky Smith?”

“On a plate?” I asked, without trying to sound uninterested. “It depends on the quality of the plate.”

“You choose the plate. It's built into the fee. It's your responsibility.”

“OK,” I conceded, with no further argument. I’ve just realised I haven't told you how beautiful 2Bricks is. You could say her beauty was very persuasive. Mind you, so is £10,000.

I gave her my account details, and as with Marky, the funds were in my account the following morning. They were even sourced from the same account, which I assumed was Marky's. So Marky was paying for his own murder. Or would have, if I had carried out my brief.

By now, you might have inferred that I didn’t carry out my brief. That is but one inference. The real issue is why I didn't.

The truth is that, as much as I had been a fan of Adult Net, I was always a bigger fan of Marky Smith and the Fall. When the time came, I just couldn't bring myself to kill Marky. Instead, I found myself unable to resist 2Bricks' sexual advances and indulged in a delightful affair with her, while still somehow retaining the £10,000 (not to mention Marky's £1,500), even if I spent some of it on beers for me and martinis for her. So, ultimately, Smith prevailed over Nichols, and vindicated my theory of single-syllable surnames.


SOUNDTRACK:

Adult Net - "Honey Tangle"

https://youtu.be/7zRicwnE_Rw

The Fall - "Bad News Girl"

https://youtu.be/wX50fSZXXW0

[Fateme Beygi · Rating 4 out of 5]

دیدم که دوستان ریویوی عامه پسند بوکفسکی رو لایک می کنن خواستم ادیتش کنم یه ارجاع به در رویای بابل بدم متوجه شدم که گویا من فراموش کردم چیزی در موردش بنویسم.
این کتاب رو فکر کنم سال سوم دانشگاه برای کنفرانسی که در مورد براتیگان داشتم خوندم که انتهاش عامه پسند رو باهاش مقایسه کنم؛ چون خود بوکفسکی اشاره کرده که تحت تاثیر براتیگان بوده و سبک نگارشی اش رو دوست داره. توی کتاب عامه پسند به وضوح می شه تاثیر این کتاب براتیگان رو دید.
براتیگان یکی از نویسنده های محبوب منه. نویسنده ای از نسل بیت که نگارش رو آزادتر از قبل کرد و خاطره های خودش رو درش دخالت داد و مقید به هیچ فرم روایتی خاصی نیست و خودش رو حتی پایبند هم نمی کنه. در ک یکی از بهترین پست مدرنیستای ممکنه.
این کتاب یه رمان کارآگاهی-جناییه که حول یک جسد ی زنانه و مسائل پیرامون اون شکل می گیره که در انتها پی می بریم تمام ماجرا چیز دیگه ای بوده. تا جایی که یادم مونده و بخوام بگم می شه به این اشاره کرد که روایت اول شخص عامه پسند تلخی بیشتری از این کار داره در حالی که مرد راوی این داستان کمی شوخ تر به زندگی اش نگاه می کنه و با این نگاه- گاهی آیرونیک توی موقعیت هایی که براش پیش میاد- تلخی فلسفی زندگی رو که بوکفسکی به رخ مخاطب می کشه لطیف تر می کنه چون شخصیتش جدی و افسردگی شخصیت بوکفسکی رو نداره و به قول خودش یکم ساده لوحه. اگه توی این کار خرده روایت هاهمراه با یه داستان موازی ذهنی شخصیت مرد پیش می رن توی داستان بوکفسکی ما تنها خرده روایت ها رو داریم که جای این روایت ساختگی و ذهنی مرد رو گرفتن مثل اون قضایای موکلی که زنش فضاییه و غیره... نکته ی دیگه هم دو زن اصلی این داستانان بانوی مرگ و این بانویی که این جا مرده که اصلا باعث شروع ماجراهای بعدی هستن و پایه ی اصلی پیش برندگی داستان.

توی کار براتیگان قسمت رویای بابلش طنز تلخ و سیاهش نمود بیشتری پیدا می کنه و به نوعی ایده هایی مثل نازیسم یا ابر انسان- که فضای کار رو به سبک سینمای سال ها پیش از خودش به خصوص دوران اکسپرسیونیسم و علمی-تخیلی سازی می سازه- رو به سخره می گیره.

مورد دیگه ای دقیقا یادم نیست برای گفتن و ممکنه اشتباه کنم. در کل فضای تصویری، بیان روون و ساده، فصلای متعدد و خرده روایتایی که به یه روایت اصلی منتهی می شن هم معمولا جزو شیوه ی نگارشی براتیگانِ عزیزه و همینا برای من دوست داشتنی ترش می کنه.

[Tina Nazari · Rating 3 out of 5]

کتابی است که سخت میشود زمین گذاشت به خاطر:
1) لحن طنزآمیزش
2) ماجرای کارآگاهی اش
3) نثر روان و ترجمه خوبش
4) پویایی روایتش که از ترکیب داستان اصلی و خرده داستانهای "رویای بابل" حاصل شده
...
هرچند ترجمه ای بهتر از "صید قزل آلا" و پاورقی هایی در مورد اسامی خاص داشت، هم چنان توضیح پاورقی ها به قدری نبود که خواننده فارسی زبان متوجه ارتباط ارجاعات با متن شود.
....
آخر کتاب کمی ناامید شدم چون منتظر غافلگیری از نوع دیگری بودم، هرچند این پایان بیشتر به کتاب می آمد.

[Bahar Hf · Rating 4 out of 5]

خیلی داستان با نمکی بود 😂 یکم یاد بوکوفسکی افتادم، یکمم یاد فیلم اسنچ(قاپ زنی) گای ریچی:))))

قبل ازین یه مجموعه داستان کوتاه از براتیگان خونده بودم، که فضای خیلی مه آلود و غمگینی داشت، برای همین موقع شنیدن این کتاب یکم غافلگیر شدم، البته در جهت مثبت😁

_حقا که قهرمان‌های شکست خورده و بازنده خیلی جذابن 😂

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

This might just be the most filmable detective story ever written. I'm too lazy to do the research to see if it has been - but since it doesn't come to mind immediately as a classic, that just means it needs to be done again if it was already done.

Don't be fooled by C. Card, Private Dick. He might look off into the distance, inexplicably, in a near-drool slackjaw moment. It's not because he has a room temperature I.Q. - he's just mind-shifted away from this temporal plane to his more preferred existence, his Dream of Babylon. He might be on a long losing streak, stretching so far back that he can't remember his last decent meal, or to whom he owes money - but his new client is sure to bring him square. If only he can remember to stop day dreaming long enough about Babylon to take the case. Oh, and find a way to get bullets for his gun.

[Mehrzad · Rating 5 out of 5]

چقدر این لعنتی خوب بود !

کتاب عامه پسندِ چارلز بوکفسکی ، شاید نزدیک ترین کار به این اثر باشه ، ولی این لعنتی کجا و اون کجا . فقط یه مثال ساده می زنم که متوجه شید چقدر این کتاب خوبه ، ساعت نزدیک به دو بامداد ، تک و تنها ، تو خونه دارم با صدای بلند قهقهه می زنم !!

کتاب رو یکی از دوستان پیشنهاد داد و خودش هم کتاب رو بهم رسوند . این سومین اثری هست که از براتیگان می خونم و خدا می دونه چقدر دوست دارم باقی آثارش رو هم بخونم .

شدیداً پیشنهاد میشه دوستان .

//

[Behdad Ahmadi · Rating 4 out of 5]

در رویای بابل، اونقدر کیف داره خوندنش که بی حد و مرزه. کتاب یه ذات مقدسیه برای من و معمولن با این دید می‌رم سراغش که: وقتشه یکم بر انسانیت و شعورم بی‌افزایم و اینطور. ولی از هر فرصتی که گیر می‌آوردم استفاده می‌کردم که برم سراغ این کتاب. حتا پیش اومد که مشغول یه کتاب دیگه بودم، خسته شدم و برا این که خستگیم در بره رفتم در رویای بابل خوندم!

توی توضیحاتش نوشته کارآگاهی و علمی‌تخیلیه. اما نه علمی‌تخیلی بود نه کارآگاهی؛ هرچند که نمی‌شه خرده گرفت بهشون. اگه توی این دو ژانر هم قرارش ندن، توی هیچ دسته‌بندی‌ای جا نمی‌گیره.

چند روزِ لذتبخش رو رقم زد برام و با وجود سطحی بودن دغدغه‌های شخصیت اصلیش، خیلی هم من رو به فکر فرو برد و زیرش کلی حرف برای زدن داشت.

داستان در رویای بابل، درباره یه کارآگاه بدبخت و آسمون‌جله که تا به حال توی زندگیش با کلی موقعیت خوب برخورد کرده و همه رو از دست داده... به خاطر رویای بابل.

به خاطر ترجمه بودنش - هرچند که ترجمه خوب بود -، و به خاطر این‌که به فرهنگ آمریکا و کلیشه‌های ژانر کارآگاهی آشنایی ندارم بعضی چیزاش رو نفهمیدم. امیدوارم یه روز دوباره بخونم و بفهمم و بتونم پنج ستاره‌ای که رضای دلم بهشه رو بذارم زیرش. :دی

[Toby · Rating 4 out of 5]

Somebody should have taken him to a stationary store and pointed out the difference between an envelope and a whore.

And so we are introduced to the prostitute that C.Card is hired to relocate in this slightly surreal, slightly bizarro spoof of the classic hardboiled detective genre.

Spoof and parody are dangerous words, in the wrong hands they can become old very quickly but when care is taken, skill used and a genuine appreciation (bare minimum) of the source material is in play they can be very good. Brautigan clearly had talent and he certainly seems to have enjoyed himself with the creation of C.Card, derelict private eye.

“She wore a loose bathrobe that covered up a body that would have won first prize in a beauty contest for cement blocks.....She had a voice that made pearl harbour sound like a lullaby.”

Card as a character is without any great depth but works as an unintelligent version of the traditional hardboiled PI's you might find in the depths of the substandard Chandler clones of the era this novel is set in and as such is great fun. I was reminded of the excitement I had in discovering Lazlo Woodbine, Robert Rankin's recurring metafictional private eye, upon reading The Suburban Book of the Dead: Armageddon III: The Remake for the first time, recommended reading for fans of idiot hardboiled self aware gumshoes in fantastical storylines.

“He looked as if he'd got a lot of pleasure out of going ten rounds with your grandmother and making sure she went the whole distance.”

The hardboiled nature of Cards life and the dialogue he spouts are pure class to the point I wish Brautigan had simply written trashy pulp rather than trying to deconstruct the subgenre with his highly literate humour. I don't have a problem with it, I just love a good solid trashy action noir pulp and this had all the makings of one. The deconstruction has a lot in common with Robert Altman's take on The Long Goodbye; released four years prior to Brautigan's work was published and if I thought Brautigan was the type of guy to watch movies I'd suggest it influenced him.

As with my previous Brautigan experience, The Hawkline Monster the surreal aspects of the text, whilst being interesting, detracted from my personal enjoyment of the novel. The actual dreaming of Babylon chapters are fun and were nowhere near as bizarre as the discovery of the origin of The Hawkline Monster but failed to engage me as much as the rest of the book, still without them my brain may not have had anything to question and Brautigan's insight in to the genre would not have been so apparent.

I'm not sure where to turn next in my exploration of Brautigan's work but I know I'm definitely going to keep reading him.

[Lizz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don’t write reviews.

I could be good at many things too... if I wasn’t always dreaming of Babylon. I live in the dreamworld and I’m often told it’s not good for me. Perhaps it causes me inconveniences, but overall it’s better to live happily. The “real” world is full of monsters of our own creation. If you can dream your own reality, those monsters can’t hurt you anymore.

But we were talking about the book, weren’t we? I was lost in dreams once again. This is a story I enjoyed reading many years ago. This time I listened to it and found new ways of enjoying it. It’s deeply funny and deeply sad at the same time. Kind of like life.

[پیمان عَلُو · Rating 5 out of 5]

واو _واو_واو_واو



(کتاب را بر زمین گذاشته و سجده میکند )

[Maede · Rating 3 out of 5]

امتیاز واقعی 3.5
طنز سیاه، روان و آشنای آمریکایی، کتابی که خوندنش بیشتر حس دیدن یک فیلم رو میده
کارآگاه خصوصی ناموفقی که اتوپیای خودش رو ساخته و مدت هاست که زندگی واقعیش رو به اونجا منتقل کرده و بیشتر وقتش رو به رویا پردازی و ساختن بابل عزیزش می گذرونه و جالبیش اینه که از حروم کردنه زندگیش اصلا هم پشیمون نیست
از طرف دیگر هم به طرز احمقانه ای روی داشتن شغلی اصرار می کنه که توش افتضاحه
سبک متفاوتی بود که راغب شدم باز هم ازش بخونم

[Nasim Dehghan · Rating 4 out of 5]

بعد از سومین اثری که از جناب براتیگان خواندم حالا احساس و فضاهایی که اغلب در آثارش خلق می کند را بهتر درک می کنم. طنزی که به نظرم برای بیان موقعیت ها و احساساتش بکار می برد و اعتراضی که تقریبا در همه آثارش وجود دارد، برای من دلنشین تر و باورپذیرتر شده و همین طور همزمانی ماجراهای کتاب با دنیای خیالی راوی ، تجربه جالبی بود.

[Arthur Graham · Rating 5 out of 5]

Take Bukowski's Belane and Pynchon's Sportello, add them both together, divide their combined effectiveness by about ten, and you get quite possibly the world's worst private eye yet, Brautigan's Card. An impressive feat, to be sure.

[Ali Ahmadi · Rating 3 out of 5]

براتیگان جایی در زندگی‌اش تصمیم می‌گیرد که سالی یک رمان بنویسد که نقیضه‌پرداز یک ژانر ادبی شناخته‌شده باشد. یکی از قربانیان او رمان کارآگاهی هاردبویلد (Hard-boiled) است با ضدقهرمان‌هایی در ظاهر بی‌احساس و خشن اما در واقع فیلسوف و متفکر که اغلب در رابطه‌ی عشق و نفرت با فم فتال یا زن اغواگر داستان قرار می‌گیرند. 


در رویای بابل در دوره‌ی اوج محبوبیت این داستان‌ها یعنی دهه‌ی ۴۰ میلادی رخ می‌دهد اما همه چیزِ آن به نوعی هجو عناصر معمول ژانری‌ است. کارآگاه فراموش‌کار و خیال‌پردازی که جاپای سفتی در این دنیا برای خودش پیدا نمی‌کند، روایتی که به جای خطی پیش رفتن شاخه‌شاخه می‌شود و معمایی که به جای حل شدن تدریجی، مدام به گره‌هایش افزوده می‌شود. براتیگان ژانر را دوباره و چند باره می‌سازد، با این هدف که نشان دهد آثار فرمول‌وار سنتی با همه‌ی خلاقیت و جذابیت‌شان، دیگر برای فهم این دنیا کافی نیستند.


–––––

ترجمه‌ی پیام یزدانجو، چاپ هفتم نشر چشمه ۱۳۹۴، شانزده هزار تومان!

[Algernon · Rating 4 out of 5]

[7/10]

When the going gets tough, the toughs escape to Babylon!
It doesn’t get much tougher than the career of C. Card as a private eye. It is 1942 and he is penniless, his car repossessed, his rent several months overdue, his secretary gone and his case list a big zero. He owns money to every former friend, including a police sergeant and he is ready to throw in the towel and move back in with his overbearing mother.

I’d much rather be in ancient Babylon then in the Twentieth Century trying to put two bits together for a hamburger and I love Nana-dirat more than any woman I’ve ever met in the flesh.

The reason our first person narrator is such a wreck is his habit of taking refuge from reality into an alternate universe, modelled after the wonders of ancient Babylon, a place where he is everything he cannot be on the regular plane of existence: a successful baseball player, a smart and tough as nails detective, a lover of the most beautiful woman in town, a DJ, an actor, et caetera.

My Hamlet will have a happy ending.

Ah, paradise! There can be paradise on earth if you’re a Babylonian baseball star.


Everything is possible in this imaginary world, so our hero prefers to spend his hours day-dreaming like a sleepwalker instead of pulling himself up by his bootstraps. C Card is not so much hard-boiled as pickled in a marinade of depression and penury. Yet, things are looking up for him, if only he can control his escapist impulses.

... what a day it has been so far: a client! Bullets for my gun! Five dollars! And best of all, a dead landlady!
Who could ask for anything more?

>>><<<>>><<<

I’ve had Brautigan on my radar for years. I was pretty sure I already tried one of his novels, but apparently this is my first foray into his fiction, picked mostly because I am a big fan of classic detective stories and ‘Dreaming of Babylon’ has this special ‘hook’ under the title : a private eye novel: 1942

The story surpassed my expectations up until the last couple of chapters, when the plot unravelled abruptly. I guess this is a case where the journey is more important than the destination, because I laughed out loud over every chapter, and I really enjoyed the delivery that is both satirical and extremely accurate of the idiom of crime fiction from the 1940s.

This whole thing was just like a pulp detective story. I couldn’t believe it. [...]
The world sure is a strange place. No wonder I spend so much time dreaming of Babylon. It’s safer.

The plot starts well, with an engaging narrator and a mystery case delivered by a bombshell lady client. The cast of secondary characters is colourful and wild, with visits to a police station, a morgue, several bars, car chases and even a midnight stroll through a cemetery.
The delivery is deadpan and the writing tight with staccato bursts of very short sentences. Most of the humorous parts rely on the contrast between the reader expectations of a good pulp novel and the mishaps caused by the narrator’s intermittent grasp of reality.
Also by the subversion of conventional characters, like that of the femme fatale:

“I don’t know where she put all the beer,” the hood started talking hysterically. “She had ten beers and she didn’t go to the toilet. She just kept drinking beer and not going to the toilet. She was so skinny. There was no place for the beer to go inside her body but she kept packing it away. She had at least ten beers. There was no room for the beer!” he screamed. “No room!”

I was going to rate the book three stars, mostly from the let down of the muddled finish, but then I read more about the author’s life online, which put the personality of C Card into a different, more tragic perspective.
This book is not a gratuitous satire of the noir genre. The subtext is a study of depression, of isolation and of a society that often sends dreamers and oddballs to the gutter.
My own laugh at C Card’s antics is, if I am totally honest, tinged with a squirming awareness that I am not so different from him when it comes to taking refuge in an imaginary world when the going gets tough. I have just got better at disguising this tendency as I got older, and I was luckier than Card in my choices of friends and careers, but Babylon is a place I used to visit a lot in my youth.

“Hello, swinging cats of Babylon!” I would say. “This is your servant of sound C. Card playing music to light your dreams by, and we’ll start out with Miss Nana-dirat, our songbird of forbidden pleasure, singing ‘When Irish Eyes Are Smiling.”

I hope I will find the time to read more from Richard Brautigan and to confirm the good impression left by this visit to Babylon.

[Steven Godin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading Richard Brautigan always puts a smile on my face. This, his first time delving into an actual genre, I was hoping it may turn out like a mash-up of Pynchon's Inherent Vice and The Maltese Falcon. Not really the way it turned out, and I can't say it's one of my faves, but there were individual moments and some great one-liners that had me cracking up!

The only thing this has in common with The Maltese Falcon—alright, besides San Francisco and the PI business, is that of a bird. A turkey though. As C. Card is one giant turkey when it comes to being a private detective. No car—he takes the bus, can't afford bullets for his gun, sings Christmas carols in the shower—this being July, and can't keep his mind on the job because he's a Grade-A gold-medallist daydreamer. He even has to pretend having had a frontal lobotomy to stop his wondering daydreams.

Daydreams of being a General in the military, a star baseball player, running the best Mexican restaurant in town, being a big bandleader and having his own radio station. Oh...and being the best private dick around, of course. All this, but in Babylon, 596 B.C.!

I mean, does Brautigan have an imagination or what!

The basic premise, when not daydreaming of Babylon, is taking a job from a beer-guzzling wealthy dame who hires him to steal a dead prostitute from the morgue. From here it turns into a madcap escapade as two other goons were hired to steal the same body but end up stealing the wrong one, and a gang of four others where hired to steal the right body from Card as he makes his to a 1.00am rendezvous—at a cemetery.

As detective fiction goes then this doesn't really cut the mustard. There is little depth and it ends up going nowhere. But hey, this is Brautigan having fun, and I did enjoy it.

Now....back to my award-winning Hot Dog stand near the Lighthouse of Alexandria....

[Agir(آگِر) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gelek min xweş nehat. Ez ser wi bawerim ku Babylona Brautigan, şarek biçûke û derdê hemû kes hundira wi de cî nabe.

Renge jî ez êdî mîna Alîs nikarim bi xeyalan, derdên xwe biçûk bikim û bo demek jî wi dinê birevim.

[mona aghazade · Rating 3 out of 5]

بی نهایت منو یاد کتاب عامه پسند بوکوفسکی انداخت
بعضی جاهاش جذابیت داشت اما برام تکراری بود

[Zari salimi · Rating 1 out of 5]

چرت، به تمام معنا.
حیف وقت، حیف پول.
از این نویسنده و قلمش و عادتش به چرت گویی، که گویا سبک خاص نوشتنشه، بیییییییییییییزارم.

[Settare · Rating 2 out of 5]

اولین کتاب براتیگان بود که می‌خوندم .
من یه مشکلی با نثر کتاب‌ها دارم ، که هر نثری رو نمی‌تونم تحمل کنم ، یکی از دلایلیه که گاهی حوصله نمی‌کنم کتاب بخونم . ولی این کتاب ، واقعا نثرش خوب و روون بود ، برای همین اصلا زمین نذاشتمش یا خسته نشدم ازش . حتا این که هر فصل (!) ش یکی - دو صفحه بود زیاد اذیت کننده نبود . داستان خیلی خوب پیش رفت ، منظورم اینه که سر و ته داشت! بعضی کتابا آدم شروع که میکنه به خوندن برمیگردونه تو قفسه! ولی این خوب بود از این نظر مثلا آخرش رو خیلی دوست داشتم که هرچی پول به دست اورده از دست می‌ده ، پایان ِ مناسبی بود چون من کلا داشتم فکر میکردم نباید تغییری تو زندگی این ایجاد شه یا پولدار شه ، بعد این که یه اتفاق هایی افتاد ولی تغییری ایجاد نشد ، خوب بود .
قسمت رویای بابل هم کاملا قابل درک بود چون خودمم چنین رویا هایی دارم و کلا خیلی خوبه که آدم بیکار که می‌شه بشینه تو رویاهاش سیر کنه و با رویاهاش زندگی کنه ، یه دل‌خوشی خوبیه کلا .
با این مورد که خیلی به هنرپیشه‌ها و آدم‌های معروف آمریکایی ِ سال‌های خیلی قبل اشاره می‌کرد هم اصلا مشکلی نداشتم ٬ با این که هیچ‌کدومشون رو نمی‌شناختم .
در کل کتاب خوب و صاف و ساده بود و به یه بار خوندن می‌ارزه .

[Still · Rating 3 out of 5]

This novel is nothing more than a series of set-ups for not-quite-funny-enough one-liners.
It did not improve after page 150.
Think of it as an attempted mating of the works of The Firesign Theater and early Woody Allen only not-funny.

Told in vignettes with the kind of non sequiturs paranoid schizophrenics find hilarious.
Ross H. Spencer fooled around for awhile with this genre: heavy handed attempted parodies of 30s-40s Pulp magazine private eye novelettes.

This book was written seven years before Brautigan would take a .44 Magnum and air out his brain pan. It was a month before his decomposed body was found by a concerned friend.

Brautigan was a fierce and frequent drunk and suffered periods of deep, dark despair.
I presume this novel was a wretched attempt at cheering himself up.

Nostrovia!

[Mohammad reza khorasanizadeh · Rating 3 out of 5]

کتابی روان و نسبتا جذاب که جزء دسته کتابای ناتور دشتی قرار میگیره!4امین کتابیه که تو این سبک خوندم. طبیعتا اولیش که سردسته این کتابا هم هست، ناتور دشته. دومی اتحادیه ابلهان و سومی هم عامه پسند که براتیگان هم این کتاب در رویای بابل رو به تاثیر از عامه پسند نوشته و دو کتاب شباهتای زیادی به هم دارند. جالبه که هر 4 تا کتابی که تو این فضا خوندم، آمریکایی هستن و بی تفاوتی خاصی نسبت به مردم و زندگی توشون موج میزنه.! این حالت تخیل رو خیلی دوست دارم. چون هنوزم یموقعایی تو این تیپ فضا ها میرم و راضیم هستم:))