Talk:In Watermelon Sugar/Archive 1

Changes 8/2/06
I removed the External Links since they were bad. They were:

Web pages are so fleeting... heres one thats up 051710
 * In Watermelon Sugar page at Brautigan site
 * In Watermelon Sugar page at The Brautigan Archives

http://www.brautigan.net/watermelon.html

Also search results...

http://search.yahoo.com/search?n=10&ei=UTF-8&va_vt=any&vo_vt=any&ve_vt=any&vp_vt=any&vd=all&vst=0&vf=all&vm=p&fl=0&fr=yfp-t-701&p=%22In+Watermelon+Sugar%22&vs= ```` Also Im nore convinced than ever he was a hippy or beatnik... its obvious after reading the first link that he was attempting to join a growing group of popular beatnik writers emerging in the SF Bay Area. In retrospect though i would say the two groups are both hippies or beatniks and that it represents an internal split between a buddist style way of dealing with reality by simply escaping by living in your mind (buddists do this but they do it to make themselves more capable of dealing with and living and enjoying reality) and a group of radicals who want to punish society for its evils.

I've noticed that all the theories on this book get it wrong. You have to look at it from the point of view of a hippie... which is by the way an accurate representation of the community they live in. The hippies are the self exiles who carve themselve to death at the end. They can see that the town is living an illusion. This is the same as hippies seeing through the conservative illusion they know to be a tissue of lies. But like the hippies when the exiles talk to the town people the town people can't understand anything they say and can't find any truth in what they say just as neocons can't find truth in angry hippys. Sigh... this is a sad and disturbing commentary on living in America and someone besides me should have seen this a long time ago. If the author didn't mean this obvious analogy i'm sorry I just had to say something because it was so obvious to me when I read it in 11th grade because I was at Woodside High in Redwood City CA with a Lesbian teacher haha probably one of the rare moments in US public education in 1977. ````


 * Brautigan, however, was not a hippie, in fact he rather disliked them, and the book was written in 1964, before hippies were numerous or popular. I doubt he meant it as a book about hippies pro or con. I have long believed that it was more a commentary on life in Bolinas as well as in general about Richard's and others' difficulty in balancing a desire for a peaceful, conflict-free life with the need for independent thought, creativity, and intense emotion. This is the same question that turns up in Zilpha Keatley Snyder's Green-sky trilogy -- ostensibly a children's fantasy. And I've seen the same kind of questioning going on at Rainbow family gatherings. --Bluejay Young 02:38, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

If that's him on the cover he's definitly a hippy :) I'm a hippy and there are plenty of hippies I have known who are absolute scum but that doesn't mean that like Broughton I'm not a good hippy. I stand by the obvious analogy but would love to have the author set me straight if he's still alive. And if he does I would just say that it doesn't change the fact that the book "fits" my interpretation perfectly. BTW Jesus was a hippy pre 1964 as were the beatniks and many free spirited Amercans. Hippies are simply people who refuse to give up on their fellow human beings i.e. to love them. Trying not to get tooo Analytical the agitators are obviously upset with the townies and have either been exiled or self exciled to the world outside town where they discover there is a real and ugly world and they have the tigers who come to town from time to time and eat one of the townies and then stay for tea and conversation. All of which doesn't bother the townies in the least. This is the "REALITY" the agitators are trying to force upon the townies. I haven't read it in over 30 years so forgive me for my naming/descriptions. But the story still resonates with me because of it's power. This is not an interpretation, it's just a regurgitation of the story to the best of my recollection but it is generally accurate. As to what it is all about, I think you're right and that that interpretation really doesn't have anything to do with or discredit my interpretation. But I would if asked for what Broughton is trying to do here is to analyze the ramification and desirability of living out a fantasy or illusion. Is it ok when faced with an undesirable reality to sink into a pleasent illusion? And finally to answer your interpretation I would say that any time emotion results in undesirable results the people getting hurt it's wrong. A lot of the bad feelings twards hippies (I grew up in the Bay Area 1960-1981) came from their blatant disregard for the delitarious affects their pursuit of chaos were having upon others.

--- In regards to Mr. 'I've noticed that all the theories on this book get it wrong.':

"ALL RIGHT," Charley said. "Tell us about iDEATH. We're curious now about what you've been saying for years about us not knowing about iDEATH, about you knowing all the answers.  Let's hear some of those answers." You seem to have completely missed the point, and cut off your own thumb and nose. You don't *have* to look at this book from any particular point of view, except your own.

It's a very surreal and subjective story; a good 80% of it is metaphor, and since a large part of that metaphor seems to remain unexplained by the author, I'd say that it's safe to say that you can pretty much draw your own conclusions.

The people that live at iDEATH are simple, honest, productive, happy, and always asking questions. The people at the Forgotten Works are miserable, lying, lazy, and always giving answers. The tigers ruled before they were killed off, now there are no rulers; they seem to represent government. The trout are watchful and curious but do not speak, and although children are mentioned they are never introduced; the trout seem to represent children (with the ancient trout being representative of how people become as children again when they grow very old). Alternately, the trout could represent ideas themselves.

Maybe I'm biased, being a Buddhist, but to me calling the place of happiness 'iDEATH' and casting the people opposed to it as drunks and bums, obsessed with useless knowledge and self-destruction (in the literal sense) fits my interpretation like a glove.

Also, I bet that almost anyone who reads and enjoys this book, from any perspective, can likely say the same thing. There's just so much imagery and symbolism going on that you can tie it together in any way you want... probably just like Brautigan intended. I highly doubt that there is an 'incorrect' way to look at 'In Watermelon Sugar', unless it fails to bring you joy. Anyhow, that's *my* humble interpretation.

This me again... the one who wrote the post at the top.. i respect your analysis youve obviously read it less than 33 years ago and i agree it lends itself to interpretation and im sure you are right in some of yours but you leave out the most significant part... the end when the malcontents the people at Forgotten Works commit suicide trying to convince the people of ideath that they are living a lie. Are they??? Allmost certainly. After all the beginning of the book tells how they created the whole world they lived in out of Watermelon Sugar and gives the distinct impression that ideath was a place they had created in their minds,,, why?? i allways assumed to escape an unpleasant reality. If im right on this then the forgotten works people are right. I dont get the part about lazy and liars. Are you sure thats not the way the people of ideath see them through their artificial lens?? After all the forgotten works people have chosen to face reality as opposed to the ideaths... doesnt that make them more... well all this starts to hing on whether or not reality is reality... lol and i think thats also a major component of the authors thinking. So it is a book that is going to mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people... maybe thats why i find it so intriguing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Isobars (talk • contribs) 20:12, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Plot summary
The plot summary is riddled with nagging little factual accuracies and should be rewritten. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.192.112.178 (talk) 11:54, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
 * You are welcome to rewrite it yourself -- just create an account and fix any mistakes that are there. No need to slap a template on it. --Bluejay Young (talk) 08:37, 22 December 2010 (UTC)