Take a photo of a barcode or cover
zade 's review for:
In Watermelon Sugar
by Richard Brautigan
My previous review has vanished into the ether, so I guess I'll try to recreate it. If it shows up twice, please forgive me.
I read this brief novel several years ago because of the students in my sophomore English class picked it for their "choose-your-own" reading for the semester and I always tried to have a working knowledge of anything my students were writing about. I didn't love it.
The next semester, though, I decided to experiment and added it to the syllabus. (This was a composition class that used litterature engagee as a jumping-off point. I didn't use that term, of course. This was Kansas in the naughties.) IWS proved to be one of the most fun novels I ever taught. Most of my students were only taking the class to fulfill a requirement, so their engagement was cursory, if it existed at all. But IWS provoked lively discussion every single day.
Listening to a bunch of business majors argue about what it meant that the talking tigers killed the boy parents, but then helped him with his homework was delightful. And the novel is far enough out there that they could reasonably support a variety of readings, but couldn't disprove other students' interpretations. What a great stealth lesson in negative capability.
I don't think Brautigan is a "Great American Author" (TM). I think he was a very bright guy who did a lot of acid. He did, however, have some insightful critiques of American society in the 1960s, many of which still ring true today.
For the writing, IWS merits only three stars, but for the way it turns the world on its head and shakes the change out of its pockets, it gets another star.
I read this brief novel several years ago because of the students in my sophomore English class picked it for their "choose-your-own" reading for the semester and I always tried to have a working knowledge of anything my students were writing about. I didn't love it.
The next semester, though, I decided to experiment and added it to the syllabus. (This was a composition class that used litterature engagee as a jumping-off point. I didn't use that term, of course. This was Kansas in the naughties.) IWS proved to be one of the most fun novels I ever taught. Most of my students were only taking the class to fulfill a requirement, so their engagement was cursory, if it existed at all. But IWS provoked lively discussion every single day.
Listening to a bunch of business majors argue about what it meant that the talking tigers killed the boy parents, but then helped him with his homework was delightful. And the novel is far enough out there that they could reasonably support a variety of readings, but couldn't disprove other students' interpretations. What a great stealth lesson in negative capability.
I don't think Brautigan is a "Great American Author" (TM). I think he was a very bright guy who did a lot of acid. He did, however, have some insightful critiques of American society in the 1960s, many of which still ring true today.
For the writing, IWS merits only three stars, but for the way it turns the world on its head and shakes the change out of its pockets, it gets another star.