We leave W.C. Fields to welcome yet another dead person to adorn this blog’s movable motto. Do a good job Brautigan. You never know how long you will be here. Of course, Brautigan is not really here because he committed suicide in 1984.
The quote refers to the closing line of his short story “A Walden Pond for Winos” in the book “Trout Fishing in America.” He writes about drinking port wine with these two artists in the park. The artists are talking about starting a flea circus and they reasoned they could get smarter fleas if they came from a Siamese cat.
It isn’t just the bizarre story lines that I like about Brautigan’s writing but rather his use of language. He was somewhat of a literary minimalist. That works sometimes and sometimes it doesn’t. But he worked it well.
I wonder what his work would have been like if he was still alive. It is one of those matters like fate, you just don’t know but that’s not going to deter you from speculating about it. What he would have made of the Internet and of the war on terror? Would his writing have improved with age like a fine wine? That’s not to say it needed any improvement although some critics during the 1980s thought so.
My speculation is that if Brautigan was alive and writing today he might never break out of his cult following. But that doesn’t necessarily mean you are not a successful writer. I have a friend who is a novelist who has never broke out past a cult following and I think he is doing quite well. As for whether Brautigan would improve, that is hard to speculate. Some writers get even better with time. Some do not.
But of course, none of that really matters. I like his writing and I think it stands well the test of time. I think if you say that about a particular writer, then that writer is already a success.