صید قزل‌آلا در آمریکا

by Richard Brautigan, هوشیار انصاری‌فر (Translator)

«من هفت سال شعر نوشتم که یاد بگیرم چطور جمله بنویسم، چون واقعاً می‌خواستم رمان بنویسم و تصور می‌کردم تا وقتی نتوانسته‌ام جمله‌ای بنویسم، رمان هم نمی‌توانم بنویسم.»

Genres: Fiction, Poetry, Classics, Short Stories, American, Literature, Novels

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1967

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]

Trout Fishing in America is a salad of a book – a choosy gourmand’s verbal cocktail with fanciful dressing.

I bent a pin and tied it onto a piece of white string.
And slept.
The next morning I got up early and ate my breakfast. I took a slice of white bread to use for bait. I planned on making doughballs from the soft center of the bread and putting them on my vaudevillean hook.
I left the place and walked down to the different street corner. How beautiful the field looked and the creek that came pouring down in a waterfall off the hill.
But as I got closer to the creek I could see that something was wrong. The creek did not act right. There was a strangeness to it. There was a thing about its motion that was wrong. Finally I got close enough to see what the trouble was.
The waterfall was just a flight of white wooden stairs leading up to a house in the trees.
I stood there for a long time, looking up and looking down, following the stairs with my eyes, having trouble believing.
Then I knocked on my creek and heard the sound of wood.
I ended up by being my own trout and eating the slice of bread myself.

Trout Fishing in America isn’t about trout – it is about those who do trout fishing in America and those who do not.

The two graveyards were next to each other on small hills and between them flowed Graveyard Creek, a slow-moving, funeral-procession-on-a-hot-day creek with a lot of fine trout in it.
And the dead didn’t mind me fishing there at all.

And trout just wants to abide in its native element peacefully.

[Fergus, Weaver of Autistic Webs · Rating 4 out of 5]

I always played it safe in the seventies. I HAD to, given that my confidence had been flatlined and my confusion run to crazy ruin by the blaring headlines of my personal life and our shared deep political slough.

My reputation among friends was at its all-time nadir due to my recent confinement, while nationally Trudeau fiddled while our financial future burned, and Nixon's lies went over the heads of the Moral Majority. Yikes!

My brother, though, played it cool. He'd smoke while reading in bed, and thereby fuelled my fear - living in the next room to mine - but man oh man, was he chilling to some cool authors.

John Barth. Kurt Vonnegut. Thomas Pynchon.

Oh yeah, and Rich Brautigan.

I honestly didn't see WHY Brautigan was the greatest thing since the British Invasion (Beatles and Stones I could see, but why did my brother groove to J.J. Cale?). The birth of Chill had started.

The Generation Gap extended to me and my bro - separated by three years!

Oh, well. I've never been cool.

Stuck to my guns, a Sisyphus forever rolling his infernal rock uphill. What you see is what you get.

Was I missing something about the Trout Fishing? A Book whose blurb informed us Rich Brautigan read Dostoevsky for pleasure? You've gotta be joking. Trout Fishing was flimsily facile - but yes, it was fun!

I liked its zaniness, so when Brautigan killed himself I winced.

WHY, for the love of Mike, I silently screamed?

Maybe cool can only take you so far.

So, my head still beset with unanswerable questions I invite you, gentle reader, to try this book.

For it IS refreshingly Different.

[mark monday · Rating 3 out of 5]

I went up to Portland for the weekend to see my friend Trout Fishing in America get married. Portland is a great town and my friend is a great guy. Unfortunately I got the stomach flu or food poisoning or something and so I missed out on all but 45 minutes of his wedding, and on seeing old friends and all the drinking and the strip clubs and the late night Voodoo donuts and the arcade that everyone loves. All of that. So I just sat on the porch of the house we rented. It was a beautiful house and the weather was beautiful too, perfect sitting on a porch weather. The house had a lot of books and I read 5 of them. 5! Still, I was sad to miss out on all the good times with my friends. Trout Fishing in America laughed and said you don’t much like to do those things anyways, you'd rather go it alone and read books so why are you complaining. I said that it feels better when you decline doing something instead of being forced not to do something. Trout Fishing in America said well isn’t that just the story of your life. Trout Fishing in America really gets me.

Trout Fishing in America was written in 1967 and it is a unique kinda book. Hadrian describes it as “a laughing walk through forests and as crooked as streams” and I agree with him. It is random and loose and a collection of anecdotes and it doesn’t have a narrative per se but it does have a lot of goofy-smart moments and pleasurably odd bits of insight and fun, off-kilter imagery. Trout Fishing in America is a character in Trout Fishing in America. Richard Brautigan and Trout Fishing in America get along pretty well, I would say they were friends; it is the kind of friendship where Brautigan looks up to Trout Fishing in America, a symbolic kind of friend, one whose footsteps Brautigan tries to follow in. It is a sweet relationship and it is clear that Trout Fishing in America was a great influence on how Brautigan looks at the world. Trout Fishing in America is all over Trout Fishing in America, just everywhere.

I’m writing this review and at the same time I’m writing a very technical response to some findings made by the local department of public health. I suppose that is my job, or at least a sizeable portion of it. I like writing, I love it actually, but does technical writing even count as writing? I like some flair in my prose or at least some elegance or some punch and when I put it in my technical writing it looks sorta funny. So I usually take it out again. I’d ask Trout Fishing in America what to do but I know what he’d say: what to do about what? It’s your life. Maybe go fishing. Or on a road trip. You like road trips, right? Trout Fishing in America is all about road trips and the things you see and find and learn about on road trips. Trout Fishing in America is about experiencing all of that and maybe forgetting about some of it too and how that doesn’t matter, life is funny that way, it’s less about what you remember and more about how those things affect you and shape how you look at the world and how you live in it. Your experiences make you you, they may not be deep experiences and you may not remember them all but you have them and that’s who you are and that’s how you are made. I would agree but I’m not sure I completely understand so I can’t explain why I agree. So I’ll just agree and leave it that.

The book is seminal and I’m not sure why. It is definitely a pleasing experience and Brautigan has real flair with prose. Probably due to his many years as a poet before writing this book. I will remember this one but I’m not sure what I’m specifically taking away from it. I don’t think Trout Fishing in America will enjoy that comment so I am not going to mention it to him. Actually I don’t think Trout Fishing in America will care. It is what it is, he would probably say. But it is a lovely book. Kind of a hippy book, not a Protest The Man Let’s Start A Love Revolution kind of hippy, more of a Drop Out Of Society And Go On An Endless Road Trip Aren’t Folks Funny kind of hippy. I think that kind of hippy is a lovely kind of hippy. Trout Fishing in America is wry and deadpan and satirical and definitely strange but overall it is mainly a lovely kind of book.

Trout Fishing in America made Richard Brautigan really popular, a cult figure and person who was admired by the counter-culture of the time. He became very popular very fast. He was an icon. When he was younger he was diagnosed with schizophrenia and depression, and even had to deal with electroshock therapy. In his career he made sure to switch it up a lot and wrote in different genres, in prose and in poetry. Despite his success and his fame, eventually his depression conquered him and he shot himself. It is a sad ending and I don’t want to think about it too much because it’s, well, depressing. I prefer to remember a phrase he once wrote: "All of us have a place in history. Mine is clouds." I think that is an enchanting phrase and Brautigan seems like an enchanting kind of guy.

I remember I once went camping with Matt and Trout Fishing in America. It was a good trip and I got really close to those guys. We did a lot a lot of talking around the fire. Matt and Trout Fishing in America went fishing and caught some fish for us to eat. I’m not much of a fisherman so I mainly read in the boat. One time they went fishing right off of a shore and instead I waded in, got in there up to my neck. There were fish all around me and I remember feeling happy that they were safe around me and hoping that they wouldn’t bite me, that maybe they could sense I meant them no harm. The three of us did some hiking too. There was a huge tree that had fallen across a little creek, we crossed over it and just walked through the woods, no trail or anything. We came across a sort of mini waterfall and splashed around in it. I have a picture of Matt leaning into the waterfall, bracing himself with his arms against the rocks almost like he’s about to fuck the waterfall, and he has this funny expression on his face. I remember him saying something like this will be a good picture and I remember me and Trout Fishing in America laughing and saying something like well we all have different ideas about what makes a good picture. Overall I don’t remember a lot of the details but I remember the trip. We talked about it up in Portland. We couldn’t really recall many specifics but we felt it was definitely a good trip. Who cares about the specifics, it’s about what’s left in the mind, how we got to know each other, what we’re left with when the experience is over. I think that’s Trout Fishing in America’s perspective. I guess it’s mine too.

“He created his own Kool Aid reality and was able to illuminate himself by it.”

[Orsodimondo · Rating 4 out of 5]

RICKY IN THE SKY WITH DIAMONDS


Pesca alla trota in America.

Pesca alla Trota in America è una novella scritta da Richard Brautigan pubblicata nel 1967.
Si tratta di un libro astratto senza una trama precisa, formato da una serie di aneddoti (ognuno dei quali costituisce un capitolo) con gli stessi personaggi che ricompaiono più volte all'interno delle diverse storie.

Il libro è ambientato in tre luoghi principali: la zona nord ovest degli Stati Uniti (dove l'autore spese buona parte della sua infanzia), a San Francisco e nell'Idaho, luogo nel quale Brautigan si era recato a fare un viaggio con la moglie e la figlia.


La foto di copertina della prima edizione: Brautigan insieme all’amica Michaela Le Grand, da Brautigan chiamata la sua musa. Dietro di loro la statua a Benjamin Franklin a Washington Square, San Francisco.

L'espressione "Pesca alla trota in America" è usata con molteplici significati: in base al contesto può rappresentare la pesca vera e propria, un hotel, un personaggio, un vecchio barbone, uno stato d'animo e così via. La pesca alla trota diventa, attraverso i vari capitoli del libro, un modo per osservare in maniera critica e dissacrante la società americana contemporanea.
Il libro è sicuramente l'opera più famosa di Richard Brautigan, ha venduto oltre due milioni di copie negli USA dopo la pubblicazione nel 1967, diventando un punto di riferimento della controcultura americana.
Venne tradotto in italiano solo nel 1989.


Un libro così poteva essere scritto solo da uno scrittore così.

Tutto quello che precede l’ho letto su e ricopiato da wikipedia.it.
Avevo bisogno di qualcuno, o qualcosa, che mi spiegasse.
Perché non faccio acidi da diversi anni.
E agli acidi non ho mai mischiato alcol, speed, polvere bianca di vario tipo, ecstasy...
Prerequisito che mi sembra essenziale per comprendere questo libro.
E per goderselo.
O se non altro, godersi il cocktail di sostanze.

E mi dispiace per quell’amica che si infastidisce quando si dice America al posto di Stati Uniti d’America: per lei l’America è l’intero continente, nord centro e sud. Per gli statunitensi, invece, è risaputo, US=America. E America=US.
D’altra parte, secondo me, molti di loro pensano che US=mondo. Non c’è nient’altro, oltre loro.
Comunque, qui per America si intende Stati Uniti d'America.
E, comunque, queste pagine sono uno spasso: non si capisce niente, ma si gode tutto.
I'll have what he had [cit].


Richard Brautigan in perfetto stile Washinton Square negli anni Sessanta.

Da non prendere sotto gamba:
- Jack Schmitt, astronauta dell’Apollo 17, diede il nome Shorty (che compare nel romanzo) a un cratere della Luna;

- a Carpinteria, in California, nel marzo del 1994, Peter Eastman jr, diciassettenne, cambiò il suo nome in “Pesca alla trota in America” (Trout Fishing In America) – adesso vive in Giappone dove insegna inglese;
- più o meno nello stesso anno, una giovane coppia diede al suo bimbo il nome Trout Fishing In America.

La prima copertina del libro si merita addirittura il primo capitolo dove Brautigan disquisisce sul monumento a Benjamin Franklin a Washington Square, San Francisco: ora, come ben sa chi conosce la piazza, il monumento è decentrato, piuttosto piccolo, niente di che, nascosto dagli alberi – è proprio l’ultima cosa da notare su quella celebre bella piazza.
Una volta, mentre m’ero fermato a pulire il pesce prima di tornare a casa, che ormai era quasi notte, ho immaginato di fare il giro del cimitero dei poveri e di raccogliere l’erba, i vasetti di vetro, i barattoli di latta, le tavolette, i fiori appassiti, gli insetti, le erbacce e le zolle e di portarmi tutto a casa dove avrei messo un amo nella morsa e ci avrei legato tutte quelle cose per farne una mosca e poi sarei uscito e l’avrei lanciata su nel cielo per poi osservarla galleggiare sopra le nuvole e infine sprofondare nella stella vespertina.

San Francisco, Washington Square: la statua di Benjamin Franklin è nel boschetto di pioppi.

[Robin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was born well after the big splash of this little book that is synonymous with 1960s-1970s American counterculture. I read this well after dear Richard Brautigan took his own life. So you might say I missed the boat, the relevance of this strange little thing that I'll call a novel, but very loosely, given that it doesn't have a plot or narrative tension, or even characterization to speak of.

Maybe I did miss quite a bit, being from a different generation (and Canadian to boot), not being familiar enough with the political significance of Benjamin Franklin or John Dillinger or mayonnaise. But I have to say that I was still completely delighted, lit up from the inside, in a way that only art can do.

Reading Richard Brautigan makes the world sparkle for me, in a world that feels repetitive and limited, to say the least. He makes me (despite the fact that he is fishing for trout in a country that promises trout, to anyone who tries, and then doesn't find it, because he discovers that the creek isn't there and the waterfall is just a flight of wooden stairs) find humour and whimsy around me. It's all to do with his marvellous word choice, surprising little flowers popping up where you'd never expect them. A mother's voice is filled with sand and string, a man's eyes are the shoelaces of a harpsichord. A little boy is a "Kool-Aid wino", who at a tender age is like a cult leader performing a ritual, mixing the powder and water with reverence. A dog is so old he "hardly counted any more".

As I mentioned, it's barely a novel. It's more poetry to me. It shouldn't surprise that Brautigan is also known for his poetry and has been called "the last of the Beats". The playful tenderness of his writing touched me, the originality inspired me, the dry, sarcastic wit impressed me. Trout Fishing in America is so a product of its time, but it what a mark it has left on the world, a lovely, heartfelt, nonconforming, tight-bellbottomed-jeans-wearing mark.

Speaking of his poetry, I found this elsewhere - you're welcome:

Gee, You're So Beautiful That It's Starting To Rain

Oh, Marcia,
I want your long blonde beauty
to be taught in high school,
so kids will learn that God
lives like music in the skin
and sounds like a sunshine harpsicord.
I want high school report cards
to look like this:

Playing with Gentle Glass Things
A

Computer Magic
A

Writing Letters to Those You Love
A

Finding out about Fish
A

Marcia's Long Blonde Beauty
A+!

[Lyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

OK, well, first of all, it’s not about trout fishing in America.

Well, mostly not, sort of, well, see here’s the thing –

Richard Brautigan’s very unique 1964 publication blurs the line between prose and poetry, and in the same way that blue sounds a lot like jazz.

Yes, the similes.

Let’s visit some of Mr. Brautigan’s more bizarre and outlandish similes, and it is here that his readers first notice leaving a well-worn path.

“like a famous brain surgeon removing a disordered portion of the imagination”

“the flesh about my body felt soft and relaxed like an experiment in functional background music”

“the fish taking all the bows like a young Jewish comedian talking about Adlai Stevenson”

And there are many, many like these that give the book it’s charming but absurd quality. The book is arranged into dozens of loosely connected vignettes and sketches, many with no apparent theme or notion of why they’re being told.

Also, the term “trout fishing in America” can be a person, as in “I went to visit my friend Trout Fishing in America” and it can be a place, a state of mind, and also, sometimes and obliquely, the literal act of trout fishing.

Funny? Yes, it can be funny, but for me the laughs came fewer and fewer as I turned the pages and became somewhat tiresome. This was not the Samuel Beckett or Bertold Brecht absurdism, or the drug induced gonzo weirdness of Hunter S. Thompson, but some form of sixties inventive and experimental lyric improvisation, like scat singing.

I recently visited Asheville, NC and had a great time, really enjoyed the natural setting, the accessible and ubiquitous beer and the art galleries. I observed in one gallery that although I liked just about everything I saw, I could not discern the distinction between paintings that would be worth $50,000 and another worth $500. Likewise, if I were to sample exquisite wine, I am sure that my palette is not discriminating enough to tell the difference between a very expensive Dom de la Romanee Conti Montrachet Grand Cru cote beaune le Puligny from Burgundy France and one of the fine table wines from Asheville.

I am, usually, able to keep my knuckles from dragging the floor when I walk.

But my point is that it is very likely that Brautigan’s work is masterful and inspiring and his great literary vision is just lost on me.

“He had a photograph taken of Existentialism and himself sitting at a sidewalk café.”

[s.penkevich [hiatus-will return-miss you all] · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is an experience like few else. I could spend pages discussing this book but the following passage contains all the joy of the novel and is a well enough jumping-off point for the imagination and intellect to decipher the nature and importance of this novel that has been linked to the late-Beat generation¹

A little ways up from the shack was an outhouse with its door flung violently open. The inside of the outhouse was exposed like a human face and the outhouse seemed to say, 'The old guy who built me crapped in here 9,745 times and he's dead now and I don't want anyone else to touch me. He was a good guy. He bult me with loving care. Leave me alone. I'm a monument now to a good ass gone under. There's no mystery here. That's why the door's open. If you have to crap, go in the bushes like a deer."
"Fuck you," I said to the outhouse. "All I want is a ride down the river."

I read this gem of a novel in its entirety on the 4th of July, 2013. Something about reading this on America's day of fireworks and independence while bathing in the glorious embrace of a local breweries 6-pack delight has some abstract importance to me that would be bastardized by my attempts to excavate it into concrete language for examination. All I know is that my sun-soaked soon-to-be-hung-over soul soared on a cloud of beauty that drank in each wonderful word from the pages. Particularly the chapter The Hunchback Trout where the narrow creek in which he is fishing is described 'like 12,845 telephone booths in a row with high Victorian ceilings and all the doors taken off and all the backs of the booths knocked out,' transported me back to my teens when my dad would toss me into the car with his fishing gear and plant me into the Two Hearted River in Michigan's Upper Peninsula near where he was born and raised² Standing in the river with hand-me-down waiters that made me look like an overgrown and under-oranged oompa loompa, waiting for the appropriate time to go down stream and downwind so I could fail miserably at flyfishing while lighting up the secret rolled up treasures I'd brought for the weekend. I'm not much of a 'gamesman', but there was always something so empowering and surreal about being miles from civilization and feeling a part of the river and the trees that arched over my head (their spindly limbs being the landing place for many of my casts and causing me to spend half my time trying to get unstuck or untangled instead of actually fly-fishing). I would spend most of the day dreading actually catching a fish as it would mean having to touch it and unhook it and feel the shame and guilt and try not to show that I felt all weepy for hurting the fish in front of my father—a father who missed his calling by being placed into the early 2000's as a flesh-and-blood human instead of appearing as the t.v. father of a 50's sitcom that he really should have been (my friends used to refer to the Penkevich household as Mayberry)—as he beamed with pride and snapped a picture of me holding my catch. Somewhere exists one of these pictures snapped right at the moment that the current caught my legs out from under me and there I am disappearing into the stream with the fish held high above me. These moments are exactly what Trout Fishing in America means to me, and though this is not a novel I'd ever pass to my father, I like to associate the two in my mind and consider that as a sign of respect for a father that I truly appreciate and look up to even if we exist in such different worlds that bring about rifts between us. It is how to experience the idealized Americana moments with your father, even ones that never happened, as the novel reads much like a well-meaning father telling stories around a campfire at night with enough booze in his system to let loose all the sexual escapades and bawdy humor that is necessary for the story.

Another episode of my not-worth-writing-about life that somehow fits with the novel and his accounts of tiny rebellions on society is when I had to write my submissions essay for Michigan State University. I had said to a friend 'they don't care what you write, it is how you write' and to prove my youthfully arrogant point I wrote my essay about fly-fishing with my father (the topic was how you view academics and how you have been a helpful part of your society). I got into MSU regardless. I feel Brautigan would have smiled at this tiny rebellion.

Yet, somehow all this IS and isn't what this novel is. This novel is also a period of Americana that has been scrubbed away through time. It embraces that beatnik sensibility, the feeling that it is totally normal to stroll through town buried under the influence and ramble at everyone in a state of goodwill and not have the police immediately tossing you into the back of their car and bystanders pulling out their iphones to post the video of some raggedy beardo being manhandled by the boys in blue. This is a novel of good-natured fun that is sure to put a smile on the face of any who read it. I came across this novel after hearing it referenced in the song Tee-Pees 1-12 by Father John Misty, a song that also manages to capture the feeling of this novel. The take-away message here is that Trout Fishing in America is many things, and many things embrace the vibe of the novel while also not being an accurate way to describe it. If anything can be said about this book it is that Trout Fishing in America is all that is fun and good about living, like spending a day in the hot sun reading or drunk in a trout stream, or whatever it is that suits your fancy.
4/5

¹ Did you really think I'd leave a review short and sweet? It's just not in my nature, and I apologize, but I also love to vomit my mind out into half-assed words. I feel labeling Brautigan as a 'late Beat' is an easy label, but one that doesn't serve him proper justice. Not like I have any better label for him, but it is akin to those who also consider Bukowski a Beat poet. The comparison makes sense, yet also misses the mark all at once.

² Hemingway fanatics will recognize this river as the location and title of one of his most famous short stories while beer fanatics will be salivating for the taste of that delicious IPA by Bell's Brewery that I am currently (and probably obviously) imbibing.

[Dream.M · Rating 3 out of 5]

من هیچوقت تاحالا تجربه ماهیگیری نداشتم. حقیقتش اصلا از ماهیگیری خوشمم نمیاد، نمیفهمم چطور میشه ساعتها یکجا ایستاد و منتظر شد که یکی از اون جونورای خنگ لیز بیاد قلابو گاز بگیره. هربار هم که میرم دریاچه و آدم‌ها رو میبینم که قلاب انداختن، دلم میخواد برم ازشون سوال کنم : خب که چی؟ چرا نمیری یدونه ماهی بخری؟ آخه اینکاری که میکنی نه ورزشه و نه مدیتیشن. اینارو نمیفهمم ولی باز میتونم یکم حس ماهیگیرای کنار رودخونه رو درک کنم. بچه ام که بودم گاهی تلوزیون ماهیگیرایی رو نشون میداد که ازین ماهی درشت ها صید میکردن، با زحمت زیاد، بعد میاوردن بالا جلوی دوربین یه ماچ از کله‌ش میکردن و ول میدلدن دوباره توی آب. خیلی ژست متظاهرانه ای بود. مثل اینایی که میخوان محکوم به قصاص رو ببخشن ولی تا ثانیه آخر و وقتی که طناب دار رو میندازن گردنش چیزی نمیگن. کثافته. من نمیخوام بخورمت ولی تا سرحد مرگ میرسونمت. اصلا اون صیادای نمایشی به این فکر می کردن که ممکن�� اون ماهی بدبخت از تخم کردن بیوفته؟ یکبارم رفته بودیم کنار دریا و داشتن با تراکتور تور ماهیگیری رو جمع میکردن. صیادا ماهی درشتا رو میگرفتن مینداختن توی سبد و بعد به یک استخر کوچیک همون نزدیکی منتقل میکردن و ماهی کوچیکا رو دوباره مینداختن توی دریا. صحنه خیلی دراماتیکی بود و ممکن بود اشک آدم رو دربیاره ولی به شرط اینکه نفهمی پشت این حرکت سودجویی بزرگتری مخفی شده. ماهم رفتیم چنتا ازون درشت سفیدا رو سوا کردیم و خریدیم، توی کیسه که انداختیم شون هنوز زنده بودن. دختر عموم گریه کرد و گفت من دیگه ماهی نمی‌خورم و نخورد. اما چند وقت بعد یادش رفت مثل همه چیزایی که آدما یادشون میره. ماهی هایی که ما خریدیم آزاد و سفید بودن و کپور. قزل آلا توی رودخونه اس یا پرورشی عه. ولی من بین همه اینا عاشق اردک ماهی ام. اردک ماهی که توی بندر انزلی می‌خریم. یجور روش پخت هم داره که الان یادتون میدم و مختص اردک ماهی ام نیست فقط و هرجور ماهی رو میشه باهاش پخت اما من فقط اردک ماهی رو اینجوری خوردم. ماهی رو که تمیز کردی و با نمک مزه دار کردی میذاری یکم کنار بمونه. چنتا گوجه رو رنده میکنی، یدونه پیاز و چند حبه سیر هم ریز ریز ریز میکنی و تفت میدی. بعد زرد چوبه میزنی و اینا رو قاطی میکنی تا قشنگ روغن بندازن و یکم سفت شن. مثل مایه املت میشه. یعنی مایه املته در اصل تا وقتی که چنتا قاشق سرکه یا آب سیرترشی توش می‌ریزی. بعدش ماهی مزه دار شده رو که توی روغن داغ فراوون و خیلی سریع سرخ کردی میندازی توی اون سس که شبیه مواد املته ولی املت نیست و میذاری دو دقیقه باهم خلوت کنن. دو دقیقه که تموم شد اردک ماهی رو با کته و سیرترشی میخوری.
این آخرین کتاب توی سال ۲۰۲۱ عه که تموم میکنم. احتمالا!

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

Trout Fishing in Australia

A Richard Brautigan craze started in Australia when I was in secondary school. The focus was "Trout Fishing in America", even if I had already read and preferred "Confederate General from Big Sur".

I loved the zany, almost hallucinogenic brevity of his novels. They were as short and stimulating as a good high, and they were funny. They didn't necessarily have a plot, but they were full of acute, though relaxed, proto-stoner observations. Brautigan walked through life, detecting and reflecting on the comic side of absurdity, rather than the despair that was emphasised by the common or garden variety of Existentialism that prevailed in the media. Brautigan seemed to suggest that we should be glad just to exist, to be alive, stoned, immaculate. He looked into the abyss and laughed aloud. And it was infectious. Like nostalgia.

After re-reading this novella, I was tempted to reduce my rating to four stars, but what the heck. That wouldn't be in the spirit of Brautigan, who was always generous with his sense of optimism and enjoyment.

Below is a pastiche that will hopefully give you an idea of whether he is your kind of thing.

P.S. It might help to know that he always wanted to end a novel with the word "mayonaise".

What's So Funny about Trout Fishing in America?
[Assembled from Fragments of Richard Brautigan's Text]

"Trout Fishing in America". What does it mean? Think hard about it for a minute. Why "Trout Fishing in America"?

I thought about it for a while, hiding it from the rest of my mind. But I didn't ruin the day by secretly thinking too hard. It exists, like any other book, for no reason other than to amaze me.

You might say, it won't do to write about "Trout Fishing in America", but then you might not say that at all. There is a romance about "Trout Fishing in America". Nobody else would have thought of it. Beautiful blondes followed me wherever I went. They were those great cuddly women of the past, wearing those pants they used to wear and those hightop, laced boots. They believed in their own immortality. Could be the fact that we were still alive had something to do with it. Hard to tell. We sat there and drank and talked about books. I can have a couple once in a while. I'm not supposed to, but it won't kill me.

Trout fishing is one of the best things in the world for remembering what you read in books. It can also make you wonder whatever happened to the Zoot suit. I guess it was just a passing fad. Like World War II and the Andrews Sisters. During the war I saw a Deanna Durbin movie seven times in Great Falls, Montana. There was a darkness to that theatre different from any theatre I've been in since.

Now I live in this place in San Francisco, this strange cabin above Mill Valley. We are a funny bunch, Pard and his girlfriend and Existentialism and me, all living here together. Pard met Existentialism in a sidewalk cafe in Paris, when he became an Existentialist and grew a beard. Now in his late thirties, Pard works at an avant-garde print shop that prints poetry and experimental prose.

On the wall of the outhouse is a roll of toilet paper, so old it looks like a relative, perhaps a cousin, of the Magna Carta. I guess that's why Pard calls the outhouse the Magna Crappa.

Are we agreed, ladies and gentlemen?

"Agreed."

What about the mayonaise?

"What do you mean, what about the mayonaise?"

[Paul Bryant · Rating 3 out of 5]

Published in 1967 but written in 1961 (and with a Best Before Date of June 1972), here we have a loopy, silly, zonked and floaty novel (if that’s what it is) that most surprisingly is actually in a bumbly zagzig manner all about trout fishing. Well, you know, kind of. The bizarro world version of trout fishing. This is so much like a rural version of Donald Barthelme (who was beginning to crank out his brilliant stories at exactly the same time) that I checked my Barthelme biography to remind myself what connections there were between these two American comedians. Only there was not one reference to Richard Brautigan. So then I saw that fans of RB bracket him with Kerouac and Burroughs, two other writers with whacked-out styles. So I checked my hefty biographies of those two gentlemen and what do you know. Not one mention of Richard Brautigan, not even a footnote. So now I’ve got the idea that this guy has been airbrushed from history.

The humour is gentle. For instance, he finds a place called The Cleveland Wrecking Yard where there’s a used trout stream for sale.

"We’re selling it by the foot length. You can buy as little as you want or you can buy all we’ve got left. A man came in here this morning and bought 563 feet… We’re selling the waterfalls separately of course, and the trees and birds, flowers, grass and ferns we’re also selling extra. The insects we’re giving away free with a minimum purchase of ten feet of stream."

And the humour is surreal too. Trout Fishing in America the novel (if that’s what it is) is a character in Trout Fishing in America. The way that works is… uh…. Well, you had to be there. It was kind of funny at the time.

One thing I thought was funny but I don’t think Richard Brautigan intended it to be is how the narrator is traipsing all over various states to find a nice trout stream accompanied by his wife and daughter but the wife is never named and is always referred to as “my woman”. And the kid is called “the baby”.

And finally, what many people remember about this tiny 120 page novel is the obsession RB has with outrageous similes. Almost everything comes with a simile. Here are a couple of typical ones:

I saw a woodstock. He had a long bill like putting a fire hydrant into a pencil sharpener, then pasting it onto a bird

When the sun went behind a cloud, the smell of the sheep decreased, like standing on some old guy’s hearing aid, and when the sun came back again, the smell of sheep was loud, like a clap of thunder inside a cup of coffee.

This novel would really get on your nerves if it was 300 pages long but it wasn’t and so it didn’t. A perfect gift to distract the old stoned hippy in your life from his Grateful Dead box sets for a couple of hours.

[Elyse Walters · Rating 5 out of 5]

Audiobook….read by Chris Andrew Ciulla
….3 hours and 29 minutes

…A fishing pole in one hand, weed and in another….
…social issues…(addiction, mental health, family, society in the ‘60’s..
…a kool-Aid wino….
… Walnut catsup (homemade)….
… A book about trout fishing and a book not about trout fishing….
… A ballet trout fishing performance….
…sixth grade trout fishing boys… (terrorists), write “Trout Fishing In America” on first grade boys and girls….
…etc. etc. etc…
… and that last chapter ending with the word mayonnaise really does send us off laughing as you say goodbye to this read.

Hilarious ….but also thought/serious/relevant issues pertaining to our lives..
But….
Mostly — crazyFUNNY!!!

I’m sure if you asked 50 people what does
“Trout Fishing In America”, mean, you’d get 50 different interesting answers.

A very cool Sunday afternoon audio listen!!

[Agir(آگِر) · Rating 3 out of 5]

صید قزل‌آلا برایم سخت بود... خیلی سخت...راستش نمیدانم دقیقا چندتا خیلی!!! برای منی که هیچ آشنایی با آمریکا ندارم...نه! سینما رو بی‌خیال! تو که فکر نمی‌کنی همه‌چیزِ آمریکا می‌ریزه رو پرده!؟...اون عشقبازی‌های لخت رو بی‌خیال! جذابه، می‌دونم! اما اصلا دلیلی بر آزادی نیست! فکر نمی‌کنی سیاستمدارها باید راحت بخوابند!؟ و مردمی که سیستم عادت‌شون داده تا از همون اندک آزادی‌هایی لذت ببرند که هیچ‌جای دنیا نیست! حداقل تیکه‌ی لخت پای زن براتیگان روی جلد رو با خودکار بیک مشکی نمی‌کنن...نه واقعا!!!
ببین! می‌تونی سربه سر مُرده‌ها بذاری، اما نباید سیاستمدارها رو بی‌خواب کنی! خطرناک است حسن! شاید فردا کله‌ی سحر، آمریکا مثه قزل‌آلا از دستانشان سُر بخورد! و آنوقت آنارشیسم...همان هیولای دهشتناک در ذهن آمریکایی...بیدار شود و تمام جهان را ببلعد!!! وای امان!
ببین! من نه ضدِ آمریکا هستم نه ضدِ هیچ کجا!! اما اگه تو هم فک می‌کنی که آزادترین کشور دنیا شدیدا کمبود وجودی دارد پس
tAKE mE fIVE
بیا واقعیت رو فراموش کنیم و به خیال رو بیاریم! به قول بورخس عزیز: از آن کثافت یک دانه‌اش کافی است! بیا بریم پیش کاکو ریچارد! تو هم فک نمی‌کنی این یارو یک ریشه شیرازی هم داشته باشد!؟ ندیدی چگونه از شر واقعیت، به رویا پناه می‌بُرد؟ اما هرچقد هم شراب شیراز بریزیم تو حلقمان و بد مستی کنیم، آخرش سردردهای واقعیت دوباره شروع می‌شود! پس همان بهتر که واقعیت رو هم مزه‌اش کنیم! همین است که مرز رویا و حقیقت در داستان‌های براتیگان گم می‌شود! شاید این دفه وسط واقعیتی قاتی پاتی، بالاخره مغزهای یخ‌زده از عادت‌مان بیدار شود و بالاخره بتونیم یه قزل‌آلا صید کنیم

[Lizz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don’t write reviews.

I drink soda, read old books and wait for the world to end. Some people mistake me for a timepiece. That’s alright since I once thought an old lady was an atlas. We all need some kind of glasses.

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 4 out of 5]

“I always wanted to write a book that ended with the word Mayonnaise.”

“Truth is stranger than fishin’.”

Richard Brautigan published Trout Fishing in America in 1967. In a way it reminds me of a goofier, lighter, more absurd version of Kerouac’s On the Road, with lots of traveling around in nature. I also see connections to Kerouac in that both struggled with depression; Kerouac documented his decline through alcoholism in Big Sur, and Brautigan killed himself after writing So the Wind Won’t Blow it all Away. Brautigan was sometimes referred to as the hippie Hemingway because he wrote well, wrote here as Hemingway did often of trout fishing, and, well, you know how Hemingway ended up. Hemingway was more sophisticated (and the better writer, with serious aspirations, obviously) an aficionado of exotic drinks; Brautigan was more of a wine and pot guy, though he did write a lot. Interesting that all three of these writers seemed to embrace life with such gusto and humor and then, had those hard endings.

But this book is not Brautigan’s end! It’s like Hem’s In Our Time or On the Road; it’s a kind of ecstatic beginning; Brautigan typed much of the first draft of Trout (which sounds like it might be a serious treatise on fishing by Izaak Walton but is so not) on a long weekend camping with his wife and baby daughter, who are (seemingly) referenced throughout the book, and most of it happens outside, in the pacific northwest. He does fish for trout throughout the book, but the “plot” is mainly a meandering trip through Brautigan’s mind. And it is fun and funny and is not quite like anything before it. Vonnegut is a better and more serious (and better) writer. Tom Robbins (Even Cowgirls Get the Blues) is also goofy and wryly observant. But Brautigan’s writing and comic insights are really fine, seemly infused by some of the purest drugs to be found growing in his own backyard.

“I remember mistaking an old woman for a trout stream in Vermont, and I had to beg her pardon.
‘Excuse me,’ I said. ‘I thought you were a trout stream.’
‘I'm not,’ she said.”

“Used trout stream for sale. Must be seen to be appreciated.”
“How are you selling it?”
“By the foot. A guy came by this afternoon and bought 556 feet of it. The waterfall is extra, of course. Insects are free with any purchase.”

Brautigan is not exactly anti-literary but he likes to make fun of the world of literary fiction, of literature:

“After he graduated from college, he went to Paris and became an Existentialist. He had a photograph taken of Existentialism and himself sitting at a sidewalk cafe. He was wearing a beard and he looked as if he had a huge soul, with barely enough room in his body to contain it.” He begins with a quotation from Benjamin Franklin, he makes references throughout to Great Literature, to Art, he makes footnotes, though the information doesn’t necessarily lead anywhere. There is the literary repetition of images like trout fishing and a Ben Franklin statue and mayonnaise jars.

Sometimes he writes a little like Hemingway:

“The girl was very pretty and her body was like a clear mountain river of skin and muscle flowing over rocks of bone and hidden nerves.”

Well, okay, that would be similar to Hemingway’s use of the conjunction; after that, he’s mainly in an altered state, but a happy one, as also here:

“One spring afternoon as a child in the strange town of Portland, I walked down to a different street corner, and saw a row of old houses, huddled together like seals on a rock.”

In this altered state he thinks Trout Fishing of America is a trout stream, or a man named Trout Fishing in America Shorty, or a hotel, or whatever comes up in his imagination.

This is a funny book that made me happy for a few hours to be alive. I liked visiting it like an old friend, one who apparently drinks gallons of Gallo Port by the jug and remains pretty clever. I had been looking for an antidote of sorts to the sad madness of Kerouac’s Big Sur and the sad madness (but now anger) of Roth’s Everyman (though I think those are great books, don’t get me wrong; they just weighed on me a bit) and I found it in Brautigan. Hey, man, are you done rollin’ that? Pass it here!

PS: In March 1994, a teenager named Peter Eastman Jr. from Carpinteria, California legally changed his name to "Trout Fishing in America". He now teaches English in Japan. At around the same time, National Public Radio reported on a young couple who had named their baby "Trout Fishing in America".

[Theo Logos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Searching for Trout Fishing In America Review

The first time I heard about Trout Fishing In America Review was in 1987. I was drinking Christian Brothers port with this bearded old white dude who claimed to be a Cherokee Indian. He wore a big old Stetson hat and had a tracheotomy and he spoke with one of those mechanical voice thingamajigs. Anyway, he finished off the bottle while I was still on my first glass of port, all while talking non stop with that creepy mechanical voice.He claimed he did a sweat lodge with Trout Fishing In America Review at Big Sur back in the ‘70s. Then he asked me if I had another bottle of port.

Then there was the time I was hitchhiking, and a Truman Capote looking Pentecostal truck driver picked me up and tried to get me to accept Jesus as my personal savior. He claimed that he once picked up Trout Fishing In America Review and led him to Jesus “right there in that seat where you’re sitting now, son!” But I didn’t believe him. Everyone knows that Trout Fishing In America Review is a skeptic.

Couple of years later I was getting a tattoo in Pittsburgh from a tough biker dude with 666 on his hand and a Georgia O’Keeffe vagina flower on his bicep. He said he saw Trout Fishing In America Review “down the Strip District eating a fish sandwich with slaw and fries on it an’at.” He yelled, “Hey! Trout Fishing In America Review!” but before he could get his attention, a bar fight started and he got arrested.

So, you see, I guess lots of people have their stories about Trout Fishing In America Review. Some of them are pretty fishy. I can’t say that I ever actually saw Trout Fishing In America Review personally. Not for certain, anyway. But still, I do have my own Trout Fishing In America Review stories.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Penned at the tail-end of the Beat movement, Brautigan's Trout Fishing in America is his surreal novel on the battle for humanity's soul waged between the high-stakes, ever expanding industrialism of the expiring 20th century and the salad days of nature worshiping 19th century.

The opening chapter of the book is fantastic and worth the investment in the novel just for those few pages alone. Even when the surrealism is thick Brautigan never lets go of his reader's hand. He wants us to see the promise of potentiality in both his work and the world at large. He also writes some beautiful sentences, such as:

The sheep lulled themselves into senseless sleep, one following another like the banners of a lost army.

After finishing this book I looked to find out more of this author and learned that he killed himself in 1984 at the young age of 49. He suffered from clinical depression and paranoid schizophrenia. He once wrote, "All of us have a place in history. Mine is clouds."

[Gypsy · Rating 3 out of 5]

نمدونم صید قزل‌آلا در آمریکا واقعاً داستان حساب می‌شه یا نه. برا من یه خاطره‌نویسیِ ادبی بود با نثر تصویرساز و آرایه‌دارِ دلچسب. یه جاهایی هم خیلی باحال بود، هم باحال هم خنده‌دار. و قرابت دیدی که داستان مدرن می‌طلبه رو این کتاب داشت. اما یکپارچگی و انسجامش رو نه.

منم موافقم که پُر از چیزهایی بود که ماها باهاش ارتباط برقرار نمی‌کردیم و خیلی آمریکایی بود. حتماً آمریکایی‌ها خیلی بیشتر حال کردن باش. راستش کمتر از اون چیزی که فکر می‌کردم ازش خوشم اومد. ولی براتیگانه دیگه. آقا هرچی بنویسن ما دوستش داریم. :x

[Nina · Rating 4 out of 5]

زیادی دور، زیادی قطعه قطعه، زیادی بی معنی. چقدر مناسب.

دستانم را بالا می گیرم و قطرات نور را نظاره می کنم که بر سر و رویم می ریزند. رویا پردازی کن، رویاپردازی کن، رویاپردازی کن، تا آواز اسرافیل

به یه آدم نیاز دارم، مثلا بیام برت دارم بریم باغ کتاب. بشینیم با گربه ها حرف بزنیم، دور اون ستونه بدوئیم بعد رو چمنا بالا بیاریم

ارزششو داره؟ خجالت میکشم که حتا بهش فکر می کنم. معلومه که داره. باید داشته باشه. چنگالتو بده من، مگه ماهو نیووردن پایین؟

از پایین نگاش میکنم، طلاییه. خیلی طلاییه. می درخشه. هرچیزیه که میخوام باشم. ولی داره پاره پاره میشه، شرحه شرحه میشه. منم از خاکریز میرم بالا. از شن‌زار صخره نوردی می کنم. دستمو میگیره، دنیاشو نشونم میده. اون طرف کوه یه چمن زاره. یه شهره. خاکستره؟ نور زیادی زیاده. میخنده. باد می‌وزه. باد همیشه اینجاست. منتظره هر اتفاقیو دراماتیک تر کنه.

باد می وزد و او به همراهش. دستان زرین را بالا گرفته و دستانت را میگیرد. پشت چشمانش همه چیز زیباست. پشت سخنانش اما میفهمی، می فهمی پشت جامه ی زرینش چه مخفی کرده. دنیای درون دستانش از هرچه دیده ای بزرگ تر است. دنیای درون دستانش پرواز می کند و روی هود آشپزخانه می نشیند و تو را در خود می کشد

کنار رفت و کم کم نگاهش را برگرفت. لیوان شیشه ای کنار پایش کم کم شکسته بندی شد. صدایش می زدند؟ صدایش می زدند؟

صید قزل آلا چیز عجیبیه. میره و میاد. بعد میخنده و نمیدونی باهاش بخندی یا منتظره بخندی و بخنده و حتا جمله هاشم معنی درست حسابی ندارن. یه زن سیاهپوست میخونه و میگه قراره دلش تنگت شه، تو حرفشو باور نمی کنی. بوی آردا میده، صداش شبیه کالیپسوئه، باورش نمی کنی. میکوبه رو میز و میز میشکنه جلوی پات. پر میزنه و از پنجره میپره بیرون، به همین ابزوردی. صید قزل آلا رو میگم، آدم خوبیه

و پیدایش خواهش کرد، حفره ی زیر زمین را خواهی یافت، آنجا که سایه ات روی سرداب خاک خورده را می بوسد

زیادی کجدار. زیادی کهنه. زیادی تقلبی. زیادی مصنوعی. زیادی چسبونکی. زیادی آنارشیستی. مدیونی اگه منظورمو نفهمی

آنا آریان: نمیدونم، موسیو فشنگی، شما چی فکر می کنید؟
موسیو فشنگی: بانو آریان، مدیونید اگه بدونم منظور این دختره چی میتونه باشه
آنا آریان: هنوز داره می چرخه مگه نه؟
موسیو فشنگی: چه روز مهتابی زیباییه، یا روز بهاری.درست خاطرم نیست
آنا آریان: آره به گمونم. بارون میباره و همه چی زیباست. باید روز قشنگی باشه
موسیو فشنگی: زمین داره میچرخه؟ چرا نچرخه؟ دلیلی برای نچرخیدن داره؟
آنا آریان: آه، موسیو. شما چه طنازید، و از این جفنگیات
موسیو فشنگی : نویسنده ها باید آدمای احمقی باشن، خواننده هاشونم همینطور
آنا آریان: چرا که نه. یک لحظه لطفا، بذارین کیف پولمو به این جیب بر مهربون بدم
موسیو فشنگی: راحت باشین. حقیقتا که روز خوبیه
آنا آریان: چه طالبی های رسیده ای
موسیو فشنگی: امروز عجیب خوشحالید، بانو آریان
آنا آریان: شاید برای اینه که تا یک خط دیگه قراره پاک بشم
موسیو فشنگی: متوجه حرفتون نمیشم بانو آریان
موسیو فشنگی: بانو آریان؟
موسیو فشنگی: بانو آریان...؟

آنا آریان کیه؟
برپا می ایستد. پشت کوهستان، زاغی می خواند.
کیرته بابا، یه لیوان دوغ آبعلی بگیر دستت و زیر آفتاب دراز بکش. سایه ی برگارو نگاه کن. تاحالا تار عنکبوت دیدی؟ خیلی قشنگه. یه سری شیش ضلعی منتظم، با یه خط به هم متصل شدن. خیلی ریز ریز. خیلی ریز ریز. ببین عنکبوتشو پیدا می کنی؟ میگفت همه ی عنکبوتا رفیقمن. یه سلام برسون

سلام، چه تارای خوشگلی، چه ظریف، چه نقره ای. میدونی؛ من یه نفر دیگه هم میشناختم اینطوری بود. بذار برات بگمش. حوصله داری؟ اگه حشره پشره اومد با خیال راحت شکارش کن. مزاحم نمیشم
خلاصه، نور ماه که میفتاد رو موهاش نقره ای میشد. یا طلایی؟ حق بده تشخیص ندم. خیلی گذشته، سوی چشمام خیلی کم شده، حافظم هیچوقت خوب نبوده. هه. اولین بار که ازش حرف زدم همه میخندیدن. اون برات زیادیه، اون پیش هیشکی نمونده، ولی خب. سابقه ی خونوادمون خرابه. میدونی، برادرم عاشق ماه شد. داستان اونو برات گفتم؟ ولش کن، نمیخوام مزاحم شم. خلاصه که الان رفته. نرفته ها، هر روز کنارم میشینه. هر روز باهام حرف میزنه. ولی من که میدونم اون نیست. من که میدونم ستاره ها دروغ میگن.
ستاره ها دروغ میگن؟
ستاره ها، دروغ میگین؟
ناراحتن. دروغ میگن. من کی اینطوری شدم؟ از کی دیگه نمی فهمیدم چی مینویسم؟ از کی نمی فهمیدم چی میخونم؟ از کی هربار که موسیقی گوشمو پر میکنه دنیا سیاه میشه و تا وقتی کنکم نزنن چیزی نمی بینم؟

از کی ستاره ها دروغ میگن؟
صید ماهیه، همش صید ماهیه، حروم زاده ای اگه نفهمی چی میگم : مایونز.

[Negar Afsharmanesh · Rating 2 out of 5]

کتاب باب سلیقه من نبود، اما یه جورایی متفاوت بود از چیزایی که خوندم اخیرا،نویسنده درباره ماهیی گیری و صید قزال آلا نوشته بود ، کتاب طنز نوشته شده، با جزئیات ظریف از صید گفته و خیلی بامزه توصیف کرده اما نکته ای که کتاب داره اینه که همراه صید ماهی از فرهنگ و اخلاقیات مردم آمریکا هم میگه.از محیط زیست و سیاست و … از آمریکا میکه، در کل کتاب بامزه ای بود.

[Fede · Rating 5 out of 5]

Trout Fishing?
In America?

Yes. Trout Fishing.
In America.

Trout Fishing in America is the name we give to our quest for happiness.
Trout Fishing in America is how we keep on looking for the time, the place, the lover, the friend, the chance we identify with happiness - OUR happiness - without even knowing.
Journeying through life's elusive ghosts, edenic visions and sinister gloom, we're all in search of the perfect creek where the crystal clear water sounds like music and the rainbow trout spawn eggs like promises of joy.
We're all Trout Fishing in America, each of us carrying around his fishing tackle, throwing his rod in some rushing stream or quiet pond along the way - hoping it's the good one, hoping a few nice trout will make our day... if only for today.
Because more often than not Trout Fishing in America is the empty creel, the snapped rod, the slippery rock that makes one fall into the river; it's the bad weather that spoils a lovely afternoon by the lake; it's the moment

"(...) I ended up being my own trout and eating the slice of bread myself."

Trout Fishing in America is indeed one of the most delicate allegories in modern literature, a pastiche made of 1967 hipster vibes and the author's peculiar interiorisation of feelings and experiences, so beware: if a linear plot is what you're after, this book is definitely not your thing.
Because, you see, this is not a novel. TFiA is a collection of short narrative vignettes, actually prose-poems revolving around memories, impressions and digressions - a memoir of the soul. But if you're willing to look beyond the confined spaces of genres and definitions, oh, you're going to be rewarded. These pages are painfully beautiful, melancholically playful and incredibly deep in their deceiving naivety; in fact there's something odd about these almost surreal interiors and landscapes, or rather glimpses of a reality beneath the surface of our familiar geography:

"We were leaving in the afternoon for Lake Josephus, located at the edge of the Idaho Wilderness, and he was leaving for America, often only a place in the mind."

Between Pop-culture and zen tableau: Brautigan's America is the one he was familiar with. The land of Campbell's soup and Kool-Aid, of winos and housewives, bums and writers, pimps and whores, cheap hotels and middle-class campings; the place where all was happening, right there and then, where the Love generation was dreaming to change the world while the Napalm lords were thriving in its incineration.
TFiA is therefore a nostalgic dreamscape of lost innocence and an artistically clever analysis of the late 60s status quo, although Brautigan's imagery is too poetic to fit any truly political content - and that's what makes this short book such a delightful reading experience.
It takes a pure soul to write so beautifully of trivial things, and this is definitely the case.

This was my first Brautigan: no doubt an amazingly good start. I actually own a 1989 collection of three works by him (Trout Fishing in America / The Pill vs. the Springhill Mine Disaster / In Watermelon Sugar) but I thought each work deserved to be reviewed as a stand alone, as I expect the other books to be little gems just like this one.

On with his poetry now!

[Amirhosein · Rating 3 out of 5]

سلام
به ریویوی من از صید قزل آلا در آمریکا خوش اومدین.

من آمریکا رو خیلی دوس دارم بخصوص دور و برای دهه ۷۰ و ۶۰ اش رو. آدمایی با موهای بلند و سبیل با لباس‌های هیپی‌طور یا شلوار جین، شورلت و کادیلاک‌های پت و پهن تو جاده‌های کویری و آفتابی، سینمای نئونوآر و جنایی یا جاده‌‌ای و کالت‌اش. موسیقی بلوز و راک داخل کنسرت‌ها و بارهاش توی شب‌های گرم تابستونیش و..

براتیگان هم از همین نسل، نسل دهه ۵۰ و ۶۰ سربرآورد نسلی که بعد از جنگ‌جهانی و در تب و تاب جنبش‌های دانشجویی و جنگ ویتنام، هوادار دوآتشه هنجارشکنی‌های جامعه مثل مصرف موادمخدر، اختلالات رفتاری و اخلاقی، درگیری مسلحانه، اعتراضات خیابانی علیه کاپیتالیسم و سرمایه‌داری و غیره شده بود و ارزش‌های سنتی و قدیمی جامعه رو به هیچ می‌شمرد.
نسلی که پر شده بود از المان ها و عناصر تبلیغاتی، برند‌های کوکاکولا و مک‌دونالد، نقاشی‌های پاپ‌آرت اندی وارهول و لیختنستاین، مجله‌های پورنو و نایت‌کلاب‌ها، بودیسم و کمونیسم و...
از بین همین المان‌ها و فضاها، نویسندگانی رشد کردن که مثل هر قشری از اون جامعه، آزادی‌خواه، عاصی و شورشی و ضدجریان بودند.

ویژگی نثر آزاد و تجربی یا آوانگارد این نسل در آثاری که این نویسندگان، نسل به اصطلاح "بیت" (beat generation) یا نسل "خسته و کوفته" خلق کردند کاملا مشخصه. نداشتن داستان واحد یا خط داستانی سرراست، نقصان های عمدی در جملات و کلمات، نثر خشن و عریان و بداهه، تخیلات عجیب‌غریب و خلاقیت‌های زبانی، اشاره‌های تاریخی، سیاسی و اجتماعی همراه طنز انتقادی و هنجارشکنی‌های ادبی.
با اینکه اکثرا نسل بیت رو با آلن گینزبرگ و باروز و کرواک می‌شناسیم براتیگان هم مثل بوکوفسکی از تاثیرپذیرفتگانشون بود. قلمش ویژگی های نثر نسل بیت رو داره ولی به زعم من از لحاظ ادبی باظرافت‌تره چون نثرش نه خشن بلکه بعضا حتی به شعر هم نزدیک می‌شه. پس از این لحاظ با بقیه نسل بیتی‌ها فرق داره.

با این حال آنچنان که باید و شاید قلم براتیگان من رو مجذوب نمی‌کنه. شاید بخاطر کنایه‌ها و اصطلاحات فرهنگ آمریکایی و بازی‌های زبانی باشه که در ترجمه مشخص نیستن یا باهاشون آشنا نیستیم. شاید بخاطر خلاقیت‌ها و تخیلات عجیب‌غریب باشه و شاید بخاطر تکه‌تکه بودن روایت و نبودن داستان واحد و جریان سیال صید قزل آلایی‌شه. از تخیلات جذابش بگم که براتیگان از گور‌نوشته کسی که با خوردن تیر به ماتحتش مُرده براتون نوشته تا چند نمونه از رسپی‌های سس و پودینگ‌های معروف خوشمزش مثل کچاپ گردو! و یا حتی پیرزنی رو که با نهر آب اشتباه گرفته و قلاب ماهی‌گیری رو به سمت اون پرتاب کرده و یا مستراحی که طی مسیرش باهاش حرف زده!
اما در کل داستان ها یا بهتره بگم تخیلات پراکنده‌ی کتاب حول محور ماهی‌گیری قزل آلا می‌چرخه و براتیگان هرچه که بداهه داخل ذهنش خطور کرده دریغ نکرده و همه رو آورده!

سخن آخر اینکه به قول کافکا در صید قزل‌آلا: آمریکایی هارا دوست دارم چون خوش‌بین و خوش‌بنیه اند‌. من هم با کافکا همعقیده‌ام و این خصوصیتشون رو دوست دارم.

پ.ن: هنوز که هنوزه وقت نکرده‌ام درست و حسابی سروقت نسل بیت برم. فکر می‌کنم آثار چاپ شده‌شون کم هم سانسور نداشته باشند. کما اینکه آثار چاپ‌شده بوکوفسکی پر‌سانسور هستند ولی در آینده با "ناهار لُخت" باروز و "در راه" کرواک ادبیات نسل بیت رو بیشتر محک خواهم زد.

۱۴۰۳/۰۴/۲۷

[sAmAnE · Rating 3 out of 5]

صید قزل آلا در آمریکا بیشتر در مورد ماهی‌گیری و توصیف مکان‌ها و فضاهایی است که راوی اولین‌بار با صید ماهی روبرو می‌شود و خاطراتی را در این‌باره مطرح میکند. به نظرم باید به این فضاها آشنا بود و علاقه‌ای هم پیرامون صید ماهی داشت، تا این کتاب برای خواننده جذاب باشد.
.

بچه که بودم، یک بعداز ظهر بهاری در شهر غریب پورتلند، گذارم به گوشه ناآشنایی از خیابان افتاد، و ردیفی از خانه‌های قدیمی را دیدم، که مثل سگ ماهی‌هایی روی یک تخته‌سنگ کپه شده بودند. پشت‌شان دشت پهناوری بود که کرانه‌اش به تپه‌ای می‌رسید دشت پوشیده بود از علف‌ها و بوته‌های سبز. بالای تپه بیشه‌زاری بود پر از درخت‌های بلند تیره. از دور، آبشاری را دیدم که از تپه جاری می‌شد. بلند و سفید بود و تقریباً می‌توانستم شتک‌های سردش را حس کنم.
فکر کردم آنجا حتماً نهری هست، و يحتمل قزل‌آلا هم داشته باشد.
بالاخره فرصتی پیدا شده بود برای صید قزل‌آلا، برای گرفتن اولین قزل‌آلام، برای تماشای پیتسبرگ...

[Hossein Forootan · Rating 2 out of 5]

پی‌نوشت مترجم از کل کتاب جالب‌تر و جذاب‌تر بود
کتاب به فارسی غیرقابل خواندن
و برای خواننده ایرانی، غیرقابل فهم است
متن سرشار است از اسامی افراد، مکان‌ها، فیلم‌ها، کتاب‌ها و مجلات و ...
شبکه‌ای که فقط برای یک آمریکایی، آن هم یک آمریکایی از نسل براتیگان، معنا می‌سازد
شهرت و فروش جهانی کتاب، بیشتر باید یک تب روشنفکری باشد
اما درباره ترجمه
مترجم در عین آن‌که دیگری را برای ترجمه کمونیست به "اشتراک‌گرا" مسخره می‌کند
خودش عنوان مجله
life
را به زندگی ترجمه کرده است
و پمپ بنزین
time
را به "زمان"
در حالی که
palyboy
را ترجمه نکرده و نوشته: پلی‌بوی
یا برای ترجمه شهری که با درها ساخته می‌شود، یعنی
doorstown
نوشته: "درشهر"، آخر چه کاری است؟ شهر درها چه ایرادی دارد؟
چرا شهر آجیلی، شهر شکلاتی را قبلا ترجمه نکرده بودند: آجیل‌شهر و ...
راستی، هر چند در پی‌نوشت به ترجمه اسامی مکان‌ها اشاره کرده
ولی من سر در نیاوردم که چرا باید
oakland
را به بلوط آباد ترجمه کرد
در حالی که
portland
را به "بندرآباد"(!) ترجمه نکرده و نوشته پورتلند
هم‌چنین اکثر پانویس‌های مترجم بی‌فایده‌اند
یعنی آن ارتباط معنایی را که باید در متن روشن کنند، نمی‌کنند!!!
اگر کسی این کتاب را نخوانده، نخواند
مگر این که دلیل خاصی برای خواندن‌اش داشته باشد

[پیمان عَلُو · Rating 4 out of 5]

مزخرف کامل: اما متفاوت ترین مزخرفاتی بود که خوندم....
خیلی سخت بود کتاب طوری که یکی دو صفحه فقط توضیح مینوشتم که فرانکلین کیه ،پلی بوی چیه،،،،،،،،،
چند‌ مدتی هست که عاشق براتیگان شدم ،اولین تحریم در رویای بابل بود ،البته اگه صید قزل آلا در امریکا رو هم میخوندم بازم با این متن دیوانه کننده از براتیگان دست نمیکشم....

براتیگان، حق کلمه دیوانه رو داده،
باید از دوستان امریکاییم بپرسم که با این کتاب ارتباط برقرار کردن یا نه،؟ البته براتیگان خوان ها،

تفاوت کتاب زرد اینجا معلوم میشه،هرچقدر هم با یه کتاب ارتباط برقرار نکنی ولی بازم میدونی ،تو نتونستی ولی کتاب شاهکار بوده و هست
،اما وقتی موضوع کتاب زرد باشه مطمئن هستی ،مزخرف کامل بوده و ارزش نداره چند صفحه بیشتر بخونی

[Mohammad Sadegh Rafizadeh · Rating 1 out of 5]

بسیار ناامید کننده، یک سری یادداشت های پراکنده که هیچ شباهتی به داستان نداشت، نوشته هابه شدت شخصی بود و برای من هیچ مفهومی نداشت، پر از اسم ها و شوخی هایی که برای یک آمریکایی قطعا جذابه ولی برای من فقط یکسری حرف های درهم برهم بود،
این که تو کتاب فروشی روی میز با یکی سکس کنی و بعد صاحب کتاب فروشی یکسری مزخرفات تحویلت بده و موضوع تموم بشه یکی از شوخی های مسخره ای بود که فقط بدرده خود آمریکایی ها می خوره نه بدرده من.
در مجموع مدتی بود چنین شاهکار مزخرفی نخونده بودم.
و مثل همیشه این سوال پیش میاد که آیا لزوما هر شاهکاری و باید ترجمه کرد؟

[Alan · Rating 3 out of 5]

On the surface, this book reminds me of Mad Libs, where there is a loose theme for each of the “chapters”, and the “key” moments in each (beats, characters, places, emotions) are left blank. Often, they are filled with the phrase Trout Fishing in America. What an unbelievably random buzz of a book.

I finished this and wanted some more closure about… anything, really. I looked up the Wikipedia article for the book, and that was almost as short as the book. I did get this paragraph:

The phrase "Trout Fishing in America" is used in various ways: it is the title of the book, a character, a hotel, the act of fishing itself, a modifier (one character is named "Trout Fishing in America Shorty") and other things. Brautigan uses the theme of trout fishing as a point of departure for thinly veiled and often comical critiques of mainstream American society and culture. Several symbolic objects, such as a mayonnaise jar, a Ben Franklin statue in San Francisco's Washington Square and trout, reappear throughout the book.

Then, since this was my second Brautigan, I went ahead and read a bit of his own article on Wiki. I knew he had taken his own life, but there were other depressing bits. Abject poverty and weird relations. Diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and depression, and was also given electroshock treatments 12 times. And then some of the “writer ideal” locales, like Tokyo and Montana.

What a ride.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short and completely off the wall; published in 1967 and immediately a success with the counterculture. The favourite book of a number of ageing hippies I have known!
It has been compared to Kerouac and Burroughs, but I think that is mistaken; it is a different type of approach to the world. The chapters are short and informal. Trout Fishing in America appears as a person/persons throughout and has spawned at least one modern band and several sets of parents naming their unfortunate offspring Trout Fishing in America. Regarded as a 60s classic, it was actually written in 1961 and I think it has more of a 50s feel to it. Brautigan wrote much of it on a camping holiday with his wife and daughter. That for me is the key, some of the flights of imagination (going to the garden centre to pick up trout streams by the foot with waterfalls, flowers, insects as extras) and the odd names feel like something that a parent might make up for a child; almost a bed time story. Some of the more adult parts seem like later add ons and parts are certainly Brautigan's reflections on life in his America.
On the whole it is entertaining and odd, but I think it is as much a story for a child as anything else.

[KamRun · Rating 2 out of 5]

صید قزل آلا در آمریکا نکات مشترک زیادی با دو رمان کلیدی نویسنده،"پس باد همه چیز را با خود نخواهد برد" و "قند در هندوانه"داره: جامعه گریزی،پناه بردن به طبیعت و مرگ محوری. روح مرگ بر تمام داستان سایه انداخته: گورستان،رودخانه های آلوده،ماهیانی مرده همگی نشون از مرگ دارن. راوی داستان صید قزل آلا تا پایان داستان گمنام باقی می‌مونه و مثل باقی کاراکترهای خلق شده توسط براتیگان سرانجام درست و حسابی‌ای نداره. همه‌ی این‌ها به کنار، داستان یه نقطه ضعف خیلی خیلی بزرگ داره: پر از اسامی و استعاراتی هست که تنها یک آمریکایی می تونه با اون‌ها ارتباط برقرار کنه و بفهمه‌شون. با این حال خوندن این داستان به کسایی که به آثار براتیگان علاقه مند هستن توصیه می شه. اول از این جهت خوندنش کمک شایانی به شناخت روحیات نویسنده و شخصیت اول باقی آثار براتیگان می‌کنه دوم از این جهت که "صید قزل آلا در آمریکا" در کنار "قند در هندوانه" و "پس باد همه چیز را با خود نخواهد برد" تشکیل یک سه گانه می ده، سه گانه ای که به نحوی، بازگوی مسیر زندگی براتیگان از شروع فعالیت های ادبی تا مرگ خودخواسته اش‌ه

[Taufiq Yves · Rating 4 out of 5]

If it weren't for the predecessors who compiled various personal feelings about objects into history using language, genres, rhetoric, and more, our lives today might still be trapped in a cycle of wild imagination. For most people, they are indeed stuck in such a cycle, where the paralysis of imagination makes it difficult to capture the crystalline mysteries hidden in the cracks of everyday life.

This dulls everyday life, making it monotonous. People often feel anxious not just due to uncontrollable nature but also due to internal conflicts. Is there a difference between 1960s America and where we are today? What are the differences or similarities? Perhaps only the distant shores across the sea of time can provide the imagined answers. Richard Brautigan is a compilation of these answers, giving his works a unique freedom - a freedom to be interpreted.

Such freedom holds many possibilities but often remains just a possibility. It hides within the hippie culture and the post - Beat Generation's retreats, hidden so long that it seems only functional there, glowing with energy. These labels are a generalization, and when many people use them to describe others, they actually cause the individual meanings to fade, dimming their brilliance. Meaninglessness retreats from the direction of meaning, but not the expected "meaninglessness." Its purpose is distorted, potentially rendering Brautigan's writing aesthetically crude.

There are 2 kinds of meaninglessness: 1 is the meaninglessness in which readers suspend the work through outdated language, and the other is the meaninglessness directed by the work. The former should be cautioned against.

Works directed towards meaninglessness depart from humanistic traditions but are not mere formal performances. To discover meaning, you must learn not to find meaning, especially with a writer like Brautigan. His works are hard to decipher, and many people get stuck, asking, "What is this all about?" Yet, beyond these small hills of meaninglessness lie indescribable landscapes. This may be due to his background as a poet or his personal experiences. Trying to explain meaning often becomes a text's barrier; no single answer can interpret an author without answers or measure an impulse with a conscious mind. Some write for a purpose, some write to write, and some write for the indescribable. Brautigan places Trout Fishing in America there - Trout Fishing in America can be a person, a place, the act of fishing, or unrelated matters. There is no easily captured logic; logic becomes the trout, swimming freely like a flash of inspiration. Serendipity is merely a comfort fabricated by those who don't understand its mechanism, an unremarkable miracle of the 1960s American poetic everyday life.

Perhaps Brautigan didn't want this, but as a poet, he faced the challenge of everything he painstakingly wrote resembling poetry - a somewhat amusing predicament. Yet, this poetic identity is key to the success of this book. His writing is concise and explosive with imagination, evident through his extensive use of metaphors and similes. Reading his metaphors is a delight, a surprise - like opening a door painted to match the wall, only to find a black hole behind it, or a random door between the book and our minds. He masters the art of evoking imagination by compressing language, igniting the fuse of rhetoric at the right moments, causing imaginative explosions that expand exponentially into unknown emotional spaces.

Additionally, Brautigan’s tone is notable. Within his literary circles, writers often adopt a nonchalant tone, like a storyteller without academic seriousness or overemphasis on word choice. Their writing is colloquial, giving readers a relaxed and casual feeling, like a real person casually chatting while holding a bottle of wine. This balance of casualness and narrative tension isn't easy to achieve, but seasoned writers understand this. This tone conceals a certain truth, which holds its own charm. For writers, the charm of personal writing is crucial - sometimes ensuring readers pick up the book, regardless of where the words lead them.

Reading Brautigan today differs from the 1960s America when he was a hippie idol. He seemed less enthusiastic about hippie culture, loving alcohol, camping, and trout fishing. He reminds me of Forrest Gump, running with personal emotions until his hair and beard grow wild, followed by a crowd of fervent followers running across the continent. One day, he stops, his solitary figure leaving an eternal impression. Brautigan ended his life with a handgun, opening a new world - a world with streams named after him and life’s crevices. Even today, we might catch more than just crystalline trout there.

4.1 / 5 stars

[Erik Graff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although my life was not very pleasant from the time of moving to Park Ridge in fifth grade until the beginning of high school, things began to pick up by the sophomore year. I joined the Social Science Society at school,a club dominated by older students who were predominately bookish and left-leaning. I made my first real friends, Rich Hyde and Hank Kupjack, both of whom also belonged to Tri-S.

Things got even better by the junior and senior years. It was the end of the sixties and what had happened on the coasts years before was beginning to penetrate the Chicago suburbs. We were a minority to be sure, but Maine South with over four thousand students, a minority can be pretty large.

The suburban counterculture was seen as comprising three overlapping groups. All thought of themselves as different and most felt some kinship, if not identification, with the others. The largest group, numerically speaking, were those who took illegal drugs and weren't ashamed of the practice. Indeed, some were quite knowledgeable, quite serious. Virtually no one took dangerous or addictive drugs. Pot and the hallucinagons were the substances of choice. Although there were a few drinkers, we probably drank a lot less than average students or the generations before or after ours. Drink was not serious. A second group may have been peculiar to our town. It was the earliest that had a self-professed identity. They called themselves, among other things, "the Meek" and had a particular interest in the arts. Naturally, the arts they publicly identified with were not those normally judged to be fine arts, but rather performance works which they did themselves, shows that they put on themselves, books by authors out of the mainstream, experimental stuff, cutting-edge stuff. I made a lot of friends in that group, a couple of them being the first self-professed homosexuals I'd ever met. The third group were the politicals. Although most of us, for this was my primary self-definition, were at least "informed by Marxism", and almost all were students very interested in and sympathetic to what the general society would have called "leftist", a couple of "us" were actually libertarians of one sort or another. The decisive thing, other than personality, was being radical, questioning the status quo.

Now-a-days, and even then if one relied on 'Life Magazine' for information, people think the sixties counterculture was physically identifiable by hairstyle and clothing. This was certainly not the case with us. I probably got my first bellbottoms after Dad did in the seventies. Likewise, few guys had long hair until it became fashionable. If anything, we just worried less about how we looked and resented the tyranny of fashion (or, to we in the third group, "commodity fetishism").

So, who did we read back then? The books that circulated widely among my friends, the books I read because my friends recommended them, were by such as Herman Hesse, Kurt Vonnegut, Leonard Cohen, Peter Ginsberg, Hunter Thompson, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Timothy Leary, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Albert Camus, Paramahansa Yogananda, Mohandas Gandhi, Friedrich Nietzsche, John Lily and, of course, Richard Brautigan.

Tom Kosinski was the one who recommended Brautigan as I recall, but if it hadn't been him it would have been another, so popular was the author in our circles. And why? Well, generally he's very, very funny. He even looked funny, especially considering that he was a grown man. He smoked pot. He celebrated the odd ball, the eccentric, the ones rejected by or rejecting of normative culture. I loved him and read one of his books after another.

At his best, still now, the Kosinski reminds me of him.