Richard Brautigan--The Hawkline Monster: A Gothic Western

Those of you who are on their toes and up-to-date blog readers will know that this isn't a Todd Hargest pick. The Hawkline Monster by Richard Brautigan dates all the way back to our JesKA post some weeks ago. Tonight I realized a major flaw with this blog, one that Chris Myers not-so-subtly hints at often. When I post a friends recommend list on a Friday and begin trying to make sense of it and comment the following Monday, it gives me no time to check out anything on the list except for the things that I am already in-the-know about. This is OK in the case of someone like my brother, because he and I have similar, almost brotherly tastes on these things. But for someone whose list I am less familiar with, as was the case with JESka, I have to scramble, hastily research, and write a mediocre "review" that you could have easily come up with yourself via the help of Wikipedia. This type of thing works OK with records, art, and sometimes even TV shows because they don't take considerable time to consume and form an opinion of. But I have no way to read a book overnight, or even over a whole weekend in time to comment bright and early on Monday morning.

My new, slightly different approach is this, and I feel like it is more in tune with why I created this blog in the first place, which was to become aware of things you love and to make other people aware of them too. I will still spend a couple days a week addressing our recommendeerer of the hour. Did you think Todd could recommend Field of Dreams and not have me say something about it? But I am also going to try to focus on really digesting the stuff on some of our previous lists, and update you as that happens. Both Eric and Ricky B have recently read Jonathon Safron Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, a pick from our first post by Timothy J. Huff. Both came back with positive (at points even rave) reviews of the book, even if it did give Brother Eric heavy boots during his cruise. So to my readers I ask, does this sound like a worthwhile change around here? It makes me enjoy this more, and it makes my part in the whole thing more effective for my loyal reader. I might even throw some of my own recommends in from time to time.


The reason for the change is that tonight I finished The Hawkline Monster: A Gothic Western. Jessica obviously feels strongly about this story, as she gave it to me (as part of a book with two other Brautigan stories) for Christmas. I really enjoyed the story, almost to the point of saying that I loved it. It is the last story of this book, and it makes me excited to flip back and read the other two included. The story is that of two hitmen, Cameron and Greer, who, as most hitmen do, kill people for a living (comma city in here!). It starts with them on Hawaii camping out to kill a man, but they can't pull the trigger because the man they are hired to off is teaching his young son to ride a horse. I have to say that for hitmen, these are two extremely likeable characters. After returning from the unsuccessful and not profitable trip to Hawaii the hitmen are summoned by an Indian girl named Magic Child, who turns out to not be an Indian at all. Cameron and Greer are taken by Magic Child to meet a Miss Hawkline who gives them each $5,000 to kill the Hawkline Monster. Lots of weird stuff happens at this point in the story but I don't want to give it away.

I would consider the book funny, but in a very dry way. It is also very to the point. This Brautigan guy knows how to say a whole lot with very little. The book is laid out in 3 large chapters and then broken down into mini-chapters, each being 1-3 pages. Every small event in the book is given its own heading making a lot of these mini-chapters. I also really enjoyed this element, as it was different and it made it a fast read (someone with an hour or two to kill could probably read the entire 210-page story. Especially a fast reader). Anyway, kudos to Jessica for a great pick...I enjoyed it from start to finish. Also, doesn't Brautigan on the cover of the book here remind you of Zach, the bass player from J Roddy Walston and the Business here?