It's by this guy Richard Brautigan, who wrote his first novel (the one I just finished) when he was 28. He published the book, "The Confederate General Of Big Sur" in 1965, after years of wandering around San Francisco handing out poetry to anyone with hands. A god in the couter-culture movement, Brautigan wrote a string of beat classics before shooting himself in 1984.
A poetic life for sure.
Here is an excerpt...
"I had met her an hour earlier when Lee Mellon had passed out on top of her. In subtracting him from her, a thing not taught in grade school arithmatic, we had struck up a casual conversation and it had flowered into us sitting opposite each other and having a drink together.
I held a sip of cold martini in my mouth until the temperature of the drink was as the same temperature as my body. The good old 98.6 fahrenheit - our only link with reality. That is if you want to consider a mouth full of martini as having anything to do with reality.
Elaine was the girls name and the more I watched her the prettier she flowered out, which is a nice thing if one can pull it off. It's hard. She could. That certain acceleration that comes from within has always pleased me.
"What do you do?' she asked.
I had to think that one over. I could have said, "I live with Lee Mellon and I am cursed like a dog.' No, no, not that. I could have said, "Do you like apples?" and she would have answered yes, and then I could have said, "Lets go to bed." No, no, that would be later. Finally I decided on what I was going to say to her. I said quietly, but lined with gentle certainty, "I live in Big Sur."
No comments:
Post a Comment