Sunday 23 September 2012

Richard Brautigan


I thought I was off the wall with my  love of Richard Brautigan novels. As a nineteen year old art student I read them in the seventies but no one ever seemed to have heard of him. Simple, beautiful, deeply meaningful novels and poems, a Beat but never quite on the record. More zen than The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, he apparently did have a huge following in the US.  and a smaller niche one over here - someone nicked my collection of his books before the decade ended.Now Jarvis Cocker has caught up with his fan base and his daughter Ianthe in 'Messy Isn't It?' The Life and Times of Richard Brautigan on Radio 4. Unfortunately iPlayer is baaad at keeping content for more than a week so  I listened at 11.30 before the programme disappears into the ether. As a bonus I found a great archive and discovered plenty of 'out of prints' on Amazon. I have been recommending for the past forty years so hope that there will now be a revival.

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