Superb, emotional deconstruction of how instants can affect our lives. Honest, confessional writing and a clear evocation of a lost America

Childhood thoughts of early death continue to unravel in my mind, perhaps unpeel is a better and more accurate way of looking at it, like peeling an onion into a smaller and smaller circle with tears growing in my eyes until the onion is no more, all peeled away and I stop crying.

I'm really on a roll right now reading remarkably beautiful novels. Up to now I'd only read a couple of Brautigan's books, one of his novels and his story collection Revenge of the Lawn, but this one really made me wish I'd started reading him years ago!

I'll break it down into its constituent elements of brilliance for you:

The concise (innocent?) diction of the American idiom is in this novel perfected. Mark Twain's lesson is updated admirably and it out-vonneguts Vonnegut for pithy aplomb and the honest beauty of what can be made of simplicity and directness in language.

The temporal evocation of end-of-WWII America, 1970s America (when it's written and from which the events of childhood are depicted) and a Pacific Northwest childhood of the late 1940s are simply sublime.

The not-politically-minded truths of poverty in America are similarly sublime--the best, in fact, I've ever read, I think. The facts themselves, the realities, are utterly moving without any need for editorialization.

The pseudo-Ancient-Greek theme of fate and happenstance well out Camus' Camus and Sophocles in a single gut-punching blow. (It also out-vonneguts Deadeye Dick by a long shot. Pun intended.)

If I were you, I'd stop whatever I'm doing right now (obviously browsing through book reviews on Goodreads) and read this novel.

Brautigan's final novel is him at his most straight forward and most melancholy, but from a sample of a handful of his novellas devoured with great enthusiasm this feels like his most complete portrait of Americana; his surreality and absurdity toned down by the sadness of an old man looking back at what he concludes was the death of American imagination. It's an absolute pleasure to read, Brautigan in full control of his skills as a storyteller and lover of language, the narrative voice perfect for the tale being told, with plenty of interesting observations of time, place and events that border on the magical realist in the way that fading memories of a way of life almost vanished can often have.

A beautifully told tale of a man reflecting on his childhood in 1948 and a crucial decision he made between buying a burger or a box of bullets. The vignettes are linked by the refrain: "So the wind won't blow it all away. Dust. American Dust."

Recommended for: High school English classes? Insight on American history, a wonderful writer, and reflection on an accidental shooting and coping with regret.

geçenlerde okuduğum “küçük şeylerin tanrısı”nda da dediği gibi, bazı şeyler bir anda olur ama aynı zamanda onları hazırlayan binlerce yıllık bir süreç de vardır. yine burada da onlarca hazırlayıcı olaydan sonra, yaşanan şeyin somut, elle tutulur ve irdelenebilir tek sebebinin bir hamburger (ve hamburgeri tercih etmek eylemi) olarak görülmesi ne kadar ağır ve içinden çıkılmaz bir hal. basit bir tercihin, o vakte kadar zaten yaşanmakta olan çaresizliğe cila atarak yıllar boyunca vicdani bir yük olarak taşımak, neredeyse deliliğin kıyılarında dolaşmak insanın her zaman kaldıramayacağı bir ağırlık. altı-üstü bir hamburger diyorsun ve o hamburger yenilip yutulamayan acı bir lokma oluveriyor.
melankoli ve hüzün ve anlamsızlık ve çaresizlik ve absürtlük kitabın geneline hakim ama o hamburger en dikensi olgu.