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 enlarge | Author: Richard Brautigan
Publisher: Mariner Books
Category: Book
List Price: $16.00
Buy New: $2.72
You Save: $13.28 (83%)
New (31) Used (32) Collectible (1) from $2.67
Avg. Customer Rating:  11 reviews
Sales Rank: 46861
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 544
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 8.1 x 5.5 x 1.5
ISBN: 0395706742
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
UPC: 046442706742
EAN: 9780395706749
ASIN: 0395706742
Publication Date: February 21, 1995
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| Customer Reviews:
 A very well selected collection of an icon's best work August 8, 2000
12 out of 12 found this review helpful
With the possible exception of The Hawkline Monster, Revenge of the Lawn represents Brautigan's best work. It is a collection of wonderfully loopy stories that although they may not focus on developing a specific narrative thrust, instead hone in on capturing a real sense of time, place and experience. Each piece is certaintly idiosyncratic and individualistic only to the unique voice that was the late Brautigan. As a fellow native of the Pacific Northwest, I find his work as collected here sentimental, haunting and vividly descriptive and alive. It is also a fine example of regionalistic literature as his work, while abhereing to the old addage "only the most personal is the most universal", simply couldn't occur in any other region of the world- and that makes it live in all geographical locations. The other stories collected here, may loose some of Revenge of the Lawn's focus, they never the less reflect a sadly overlooked American writer.
Purely amazing March 9, 1999
3 out of 6 found this review helpful
every word Brautigan pens is pure beauty. I really don't know how anyone can truely live without reading at least one of his stories if not every thing you can get your hands on. Brautigan is pure and utter genius. Too bad he had to kill himself........
 Revenge of the Lawn reveals many faces of Richard Brautigan January 13, 1999
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
A short time ago it seemed to me that Richard Brautigan was almost as forgotten as the Iron Butterfly, Mr. Natural and other later-century cultural phenomena that were once so much a part of young people's lives; I thought I was one of the few people left who read him. Happily, I was wrong. Brautigan still has something to say to readers at the turn of the 20th Century and "Revenge of the Lawn" is a good way to get to know him. The "stories" (some are just vignettes or even, like "The Scarlatti Tilt", just fragments of prose) reveal the different faces of Brautigan: the playful fantasy-smith, the somber memoirist, the ironic observer from the margins of society, the sexual adventurer, the literary craftsman, and even the loving husband and father. When I first read this book years ago, I just enjoyed the humor and irony. Re-reading it now, I can appreciate its human depths and its technique. "I Was Trying To Describe You To Someone" is Brautigan at his imaginative best, comparing a girl(sorry, feminists--I don't doubt she was really a woman) to a heroic New Deal documentary about rural electrification, which he relates in turn to the Greek myth of Prometheus bringing fire to humankind."Suddenly, heroically, with the throwing of a switch, there was light for the farmer.." In some ways reminiscent of "Letters From My Windmill" by Alphonse Daudet, "Revenge of the Lawn" may be one of the best ways for a new reader to get to know Richard Brautigan. Personally, I can say it has had the same spirit-lifting effect for me in bad times as Daudet's work. Recommended!
Brautigan at his best and sadly, his last. April 9, 1997
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
The concept of the narrator's employment in "Abortion" is incredibly genius, original and truly "BRAUTIGAN": A librarian for a library of self-published authors, books are "checked in" sort of like the Library of Congress, cataloged, documented and shelved, usually forever. But the Narrator reads most of the books. The overall description of these characters from "The Abortion" is that they are all losers, trapped in this life; however, they are all longing and yearning for something more. Most of the "cameo appearances" are writers, looking for an audience and wanting to feel important. There is a sense of unfulfillment, an unanswered desire, and sometimes a burning urge for more MEANING in life in all of Brautigan's work. His atmospheres can be funny, awkward and really just plain sad.So the wind won't blow it all away is the perfect ending to his career. The narrator has matured, become disillusioned about life, our political systems, our country, our promise to ourselves as youths, the passing of an era, and his own inability to MAKE A CHANGE. It is most important when reading Brautigan to realize that this man was probably the living breathing MOLD that all other hippies, yippies, counter culture gurus, flower children, etc were made. Brautigan, "the gentle poet of the young," watched his audience of readers grow up, stop caring, become part of the ESTABLISHMENT, get jobs, make careers, raise families, get haircuts, be responsible, drive station wagons, and put this country on the path to where we are now and oh yes, they quit buying his books as well. He noticed the sadness in all of life, not just his. Brautigan had always recognized this in his writing, but he never called by name...being human.
Brautigan is for writers! April 1, 1997
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
When you get taking yourself much too seriously, either asa writer or as just a human being, pick up anything byRichard Brautigan. He'll delicately shake you from your rigid thinking, point out the delicious ironies of how we all behave. I found great hope when I first picked up these stories - hope that I could tell my stories, too. Brautigan looks straight on at some of the most difficult things, doesn't get his panties in a bunch over form and structure, and makes me laugh out loud in public places, shrug, and go on about life that much lighter!
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