A Confederate General from Big Sur, Dreaming of Babylon, and The Hawkline Monster

by Richard Brautigan

This cult classic from the author of Trout Fishing in America “reads like a spaghetti Western crossed with Frankenstein, viewed through an opium haze” (The Sunday Times).
 
The celebrated poet, novelist, and guru of the 1960s San Francisco literary scene, Richard Brautigan brings his highly original Gonzo style to this surreal parody Western. The time is 1902, the setting eastern Oregon. In the ice caves underneath Professor Hawkline’s house, a deadly monster lurks. It’s already turned the professor into an elephant foot umbrella stand, and now his two beautiful daughters have hired a pair of gunslingers to put a stop to the mayhem.
 
But Hawkline Manor is full of curiosities and secrets, like the professor’s underground laboratory where his work on The Chemicals remains unfinished. And as the gunslingers pursue their peculiar quarry, they encounter monstrous mischief, amorous advances, and evil that is all too human.
 
“Bursting with colour, humour and imagery, Brautigan’s virtuoso prose is rooted in his rural past.” —The Guardian

Genres: Fiction, Literature, Poetry, Literary Fiction, Fantasy, 20th Century, Classics

469 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1964

About the author

Richard Brautigan was an American novelist, poet, and short-story writer. Born in Tacoma, Washington, he moved to San Francisco in the 1950s and began publishing poetry in 1957. He started writing novels in 1961 and is probably best known for his early work Trout Fishing in America. He died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in 1984.

Reviews

[Daniel Polansky]

RE: A Confederate General from Big Sur. A totally entertaining comic novel, about a couple of Beat-era wastrels in Northern California. Or novella, really, it can't be fifty thousand words. Anyway, I quite enjoyed it, though I'm not sure there I would pretend there was a tremendous amount there. My first Brautigan, I've got two more to go through before I commit to any broader decisions on the man, I know you're all just mad with anticipation but you'll still have to wait.

RE: Dreaming of Babylon. Brautigan's gonzo comic voice over with the bare bones of a classic Hammet/Chandler PI plot. If I don't write much about it that's because there's not a ton to write, other than that Brautigan is laugh out loud funny, and this was a delight.

RE: The Hawkline Monster. The last of these Brautigan shorts, and I think my least favorite. Not that it's bad, it's not at all. It's weird and savage, a truly original work of genre fiction, sort of a sci-fi True Grit, about two murderers who get hired by two sisters to kill a monster their professor father had created in their laboratory. I liked it, and its influence is clear (Sister's Brothers, lots of other books, I'm looking at you) but for my money Brautigan's genre pastiche is less entertaining then the raw humor of his prose. Not surprisingly I enjoyed Confederate more than this or Babylon. Still, the three of them collected present a strong argument for spending more time with Brautigan, something I plan on doing once I read about two dozen other books in the queue.

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was terrific. It is composed of three novels as the title above plainly states. I started reading the Hawkline Monster first because of the raving of a friend. I must say I was quite happy I did so. The tale was strange, supernatural and funny. It had all the hallmarks of a Brautigan novel. This novel takes a long time to get to the Hawkline Monster, plot-wise, but the journey there is one of the reasons that makes Brautigan so much fun to read.

After finishing Hawkline I proceeded to Dreaming of Babylon the middle book. This story was great but not as great as Hawkline. This story if a PI story. It reminded me of Chandler's Big Sleep except this one was much funnier. Putting crazy people in crazy situations is a good formula for Brautgan to use.

The last story was my least favorite of the three but at times one of my favorites. Some of Brautigan's individual sentences are quite lovely. It again uses the crazy people in crazy situations formula but it's setting is much different.

If I were you I would read this book. Starting front to back as normal people do might not be a bad idea. That way the greatness builds, though I had no problems reading in the reverse order.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

After years of reading just Sombrero Fallout and some shorter stories I found in anthologies (from Rebel Inc, I believe), my in-laws gave me this as a birthday present.

A Confederate General is an interesting debut, it is full out potential and (to paraphrase the blurb) a 'preview of things to come'. As I read Sombrero Fallout before a lot of the writing style that I associate with Brautigan were developed over his writing career, but here there are the little seeds. The second novel, Dreaming of Babylon, coming in twelve years after A Confederate General, yet there is that unmistakeable style that links the two.

The final novel in this collection, The Hawkline Monster, is the best, bizarre ride through the wild west. Again the style is linked to the other novels but is also somehow different (bit like John Peel's description of The Fall: "always different, always the same"), but this time with some very unique twists. The use of language, the twisting of writing conventions to deliver a very different take on cowboys.

With all his books, Brautigan demonstrates that stories are rewarding when they are imaginative, they can do things that virtually no other art form can do (particularly movies and TV). With these three he demonstrates his talent.

[Carlton Phelps · Rating 2 out of 5]

I just couldn't finish this book.
For me, not the best written, nor is the story that interesting.
My recommendation for this book is not to bother.
Mr. Brautigan, you had an interesting time with your friend but, not my idea of a good book.

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book contains three Brautigan novels from the 60's and 70's.
First up is A Confederate General from Big Sur which is about the speaker Jesse and his adventures with Lee Mellon. The two literally end up living in a make shift "home" with some women and some loud bullfrogs and all of this makes for a rather hilarious first novel from Brautigan from 1965. "The pond was quiet like the Mona Lisa".
Second is Dreaming of Babylon: A Private Eye Novel 1942 published in 1977 detailing private eye C. Card's adventure in San Francisco as a down on his luck poor detective who didn't even have bullets for his gun who daydreams about his own private escape world in which he is a great hero. Card knows he wants the last name "Smith" for his hero name, but cannot come up with an appropriate first name until a brainstorm hits him and he goes with "Smith Smith". Too funny. "I didn't like the idea of being stew".
Last is The Hawkline Monster: A Gothic Western published in 1974 which features Greer and Cameron who are work for hire killers quested with the assignment to kill a monster living in the caves below a mansion by a woman who's sister looks and acts exactly like her. "It ain't weirder than Hawaii," Cameron said.

[Darklysewn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is special in my heart. the love of my life read this book to me page by page every night before bed. it was the first full book he read me, and I will never forget it. It is a wonderfully whimsical read. and the characters are full of life.
I love this book for so many reasons

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Big Sur. I could read it over and over again. It's probably my favorite prose piece by Brautigan and I have a real and strong affection for it, come to think of it, I think I have affection for this piece than several of my family members.

[Benjamin Cohen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Confederate general is four star rating. Middle one is not as good. Hawklike is in betweenies. None as good as watermelon.

[Eric · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don’t believe Confederate General is the pro-hippie primer I read it as years and years ago. Now I think it’s more about how we’re products of the past but also that we’re living lives of predetermination. It’s as funny as I recalled, but more bitter than I remember, too. I think I liked it better when I read it as a tale of a pair of 1960s free spirits in a hippie Walden. Whatever he was going for, Brautigan sure could deliver entertaining descriptions and metaphors.

[Andrew Merritt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Confederate General 3.5/5
Dreaming of Babylon 4/5
Hawkline Monster 3/5

[Tom Lichtenberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Re-reading these stories some 40 years after the first time I read them was like a voyage into a time capsule - and a very specific one at that. There's an innocence here that's kind of mind-boggling. People don't "roll a joint", they have "batches of dope", as if it were a brand new discovery. The women all want to "be layed" all the time (as if). There's nothing the least bit "racial" brought up about the Confederacy. A lot of it could never be written today, but most of it could, and would still be fantastic.

Brautigan writes like a casual poet, tossing out fun and silly metaphors at ease and for the heck of it. He's at the cusp of a magical realism that has only recently become Americanized, both ahead of his time as well as an integral part of it.

Got a frog problem? Get some alligators! Now there's a fine idea.

I loved his useless, incompetent, soft-boiled private eye C. Card, one of the best/worst detectives I've ever come across. The biggest mystery is "where did she put all that beer"?

The Hawkline Monster is a crazy horror story with Chemicals and elephant foot umbrella stands and a sad, discontent shadow

All three of these stories are inventive and scattered and you really have to just go with it, take it one line at a time, let it breathe.

[Kevin Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful and just weird enough

Each story is funny, thought provoking and highly entertaining. I probably chuckled out loud more times than any book i can remember. I’m new to Brautigan, but i think this one is more linear than his other books (Trout,Spring Hill, Watermelon) - making it easier to appreciate his playful almost child like directness, the humorous way his mind discovers processes and repeats then wanders again with an oddly familiar purpose — when played against these more grounded yet thoroughly enjoyable backdrops. I love how the idea of ‘distraction’ weaves through each story and becomes a weird welcome companion to each. I’m becoming a big Richard Brautigan fan and very sad that there won’t be much more for me to read.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

These were great. I liked the last one best but they were all good. The Hawkline Monster gave me feelings like the Sisters brothers. I love the matter of fact absurdity of all the pieces. I liked dreaming of babylon so much as well even though some of the dialogue was too much (where does she put all that beer?) & big sur OH big sur. This is my first Brautigan and a book Nikki handed down to me ages ago. i can't believe i've just got to it.

[Rick Slane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Delightful Brautigan short novels. I recommend Richard Brautigan to people who don't like to read or speak English as a second language. He was a poetic prose master.

[Karmologyclinic · Rating 4 out of 5]

。A Confederate General from Big Sur ****
。Dreaming of Babylon ***
。The Hawkline Monster ****

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

A friend who knew I had only two of Brautigan's novels to read leant me this. The two novels were Dreaming of Babylon and The Hawkline Monster.

I began with Dreaming of Babylon. Needless to say I was looking forward to it and I'd love to say it didn't disappoint but it did. Had this been the first Brautigan I had read then I would have raved about it but I know he can do better. It has all his hallmarks, a private eye down on his luck who can't seem to stop daydreaming about Babylon – that would be the one with the Euphrates running through the middle. The characters are quirky and the plot – yes there is one – is intriguing even if we are left at the end with a lot of unanswered questions, the main one being how the rich girl can keep drinking beer without having to use the facilities.

Would I recommend it? Yes, but reservedly. I'm a completist and I will read that last novel but I could die happy if I'd never read this one; it doesn’t add anything significant to my appreciation of Brautigan.

The Hawkline Monster was better. Like all of Brautigan's work he comes at life from an awkward angle. Two gunslingers are hired by an woman dressed in a Native American outfit and calling herself Magic Child to kill a monster which lurks in the ice caves under the house owned by Miss Hawkline. The money is good and so they saddle up and head off there.

When they get there which, in true Brautigan fashion, takes far more tiny chapters than you'd expect, nothing is quite right with the place but the two men, one who has the annoying habit of counting everything, are more than up for the challenge … once they finally get round to that because once again Brautigan spends more tiny chapters than you might expect not getting them round to dealing with the pressing problem of the monster.

This book had more of a feel of Sombrero Fallout and there is a definite magic realist feel to the work. Not as good as The Abortion or Howard and his Bowling Trophies but a nice way to complete reading all of Brautigan. Now to start at the beginning again.

The third book in the collection is A Confederate General from Big Sur which I find I can remember very little about unlike most of his other books. I guess that says everything about this volume. Nothing Brautigan has written is not worth reading but there are gems in his collection but I suspect that these three are more semi-precious than out-and-out rubies and diamonds. Semi-precious is good too.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of three short novels by Richard Brautigan. I recently read the first of these - A Confederate General From Big Sur - in another edition and reviewed that as follows: I had a lot of fun reading this short novel which contains some wild ideas in an almost throwaway manner that other writers would labour over. The plot is difficult to summarize and is loose at best, but this is no distraction or negative as the main attraction is character interaction. The ending is sublime. The opening is possibly the best section of the book (I loved the description of the Pacific Ocean as "that million-year-old skid row for abalone and kelp"), and whilst I felt the mid-section lost a little momentum on the descriptive front I couldn't help but enjoy it. Will certainly seek out more of his work. (I rated it 4/5).

I was then given this three volume edition by fabulist, Rhys Hughes, and took no time in reading the remaining novels.

Dreaming Of Babylon follows the adventures of noir detective C. Card, a down-at-heel, penniless PI, who is employed by a glamorous beer-drinking femme fatale to steal a body from the morgue, however he finds he isn't the only person assigned to the task, with increasingly confusing results. Meanwhile, his life is constantly undermined by his inability to stop dreaming of babylon - an alternate fantasy world of his creation - where his life could be so much better. I thoroughly enjoyed this, probably because I enjoy an off-the-wall noir, and thought it better than Big Sur in coherence. I would give it 4.5/5

Finally, The Hawkline Monster was probably my favourite of the three. Guns-for-hire, Greer and Cameron are hired by Magic Child to defeat the monster which lives in the ice-caves under the basement of Miss Hawkline's isolated house. However, reality is not quite as it seems as the 'monster' can affect the household in mysterious ways. Perhaps more coherent in the telling than the other two novels, this is still as off-the-wall as you can get; yet somehow remaining believable within its own context. I loved it: 5/5

All three books benefit from their extremely short chapters - most no more than a page in length - which keep the action running, but also allow time for asides and diversions which are brief enough to entertain but not long enough to undermine the plot. These books are non-traditional page turners, immensely inventive and wryly funny. All of them are recommended.

[Kye Alfred Hillig · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book, as you can probably see, is three books in one. So I will break them into three parts.

A CONFEDERATE GENERAL FROM BIG SUR was kind of a fun hippy ride into Brautigans imagination. It was like he just cared little how far out he went. Like his mind would say, "What this story needs is people with alligators in the trunk of their car" and then he would add them without further consideration. Probably the funnest of the three stories.

DREAMING OF BABYLON was my least favorite in the collection because it was this kind of gum shoe kind of private eye kind of a thing that I'm not too big on. It had some really great parts but I grew tired of the character constantly interupting the story in order to slip into his dream land. I did however find that some of the dream sequences were very vivid and extremely creative.

THE HAWKLINE MONSTER was my second favorite of the stories. It was this cool hired gun, orgy, ghost hunt kind of deal. People changing into dwarves and chemicals and shadows fighting eachother to the mostly unaware characters. It had kind of a bizarre Paul Bunyun tall tail quality to it.

Brautigan is an awesome author but this is not a collection that I would hang my hat on. His more reality based works seemed to be where he really shines.

[Nam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this. I just found about who Richard Brautigan was a few weeks ago. Didn't know anything about him. However, when I cam across his name I made a point of thinking I need to read some of his works..
So i went to the library and got this anthology of three of his novels. Apparently he is better know for Trout Fishing in America and In Watermelon Sugar (which sounds like a Tom Robbins book title). The library didn't have either of these checked in though.
I really enjoyed the first novel A Confederate General from Big Sur. The other two were good with The Hawkline Monster: A Gothic Western being my second favorite of the three. A Confederate General from Big Sur, helped me to realize that one doesn't need drugs/alcohol to be zany or lead an interesting life. Those characters led quite a weird life and were more than bizzare even before drugs entered the literary equation. I think he must have been read by or influenced/inspired Tom Robbins. Definitely some similarities, though Tom Robbins tends to get go off on these internal/external philosophical monologues a bit to much. Brautigan is pretty much all action and description of surroundings. Really loved it...

[Stephen Hull · Rating 1 out of 5]

Oh dear, what were we all thinking in the 60s and 70s? These have not aged well - although perhaps I should rephrase that because it implies that they were once good. They weren't.

Brautigan reads like someone who fell under the spell of Jack Kerouac when he was an impressionable teenager and never got over it, as if he became convinced that unexpected metaphors are profound and powerful simply because they're unexpected.

His other great influence appears to have been Hemingway. Unlike Hemingway, however, Brautigan's prose is not deceptively simple: it's just plain simple. There are no great depths to be revealed, there's very little entertainment to be had and there are very few passages that demonstrate any great skill at manipulating the English language, let alone telling a compelling story.

At least the three novels were all short.

[Bronwen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three short novels.

California drifter Jesse tells about his friend Lee Melon, descended from a Confederate general and living in a sawed-off shack in Big Sur where the frogs drive him crazy at night.

Washed-up private eye C. Card wears mismatching socks and day-dreams about the hanging gardens and his new Babylonian hero Smith Smith.

Hired guns Cameron and Greer head off into the deserts of Eastern Oregon to see what they can do about the monster spawned from Prof. Hawkline’s “chemicals.”

Spot-on detail, humor, hits of pathos.

[Carah Naseem · Rating 4 out of 5]

It only gets four stars because Dreaming of Babylon and The Hawkline Monster were the cinderblocks tied to the ankles of the angel that is Confederate General from Big Sur. I'm not sure why Brautigan felt compelled -- near the end -- to write genre pieces. They turn out to be written out like ironic TV dramas or something. But in his early stuff (i.e. confederate general, troutfishing, etc.) he's so sweet, just turning on and blinking at everything and loving it and watching it all swim around in his mind. 5 stars for that!

[Matt Piechocinski · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brautigan was one of the authors I discovered by reading Patton Oswalt's autobio, and man, I'm glad I did. He's got this real minimalist humor that was hilarious to read. The rating doesn't really reflect what I thought though, since it's actually 3 books in one ominbus ... I would rank them like this:

A Confederate General From Big Sur - 3 Stars

Dreaming of Babylon - 5 Stars, and probably my favorite of the 3

The Hawkline Monster - 5 Stars, and one of those mindtrips of a story

[Ian · Rating 4 out of 5]

We had a cottage that was a hut like that well a few steps up from it as all of the walls were intact and the same heightish but no water no electric nothing but love and fun and I want it back. There's a lot that can happen when there's nothing to do and those frogs are just every problem you ever tried to solve and those root digging Hopis were inspirational.

[Dave Faloon · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Nobody does it better ..." sang from the slot machine of Lee Mellon's soul. I turned and looked away like an passenger train without tracks.

There was peace in the valley. The Confederate General looked out towards the Pacific Ocean.

[Didier Delahaye · Rating 5 out of 5]

From Trout Fishing... onward, everything Brautigan wrote was always too much fun to put down, let alone describe. It remains a joy to read again after all these years. With the Hawkline Monster he went off with a bang. Picture the Sisters Brothers on acid!

[Brendan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Brautigan's writing, and this collection is no exception. It is bizarrely surreal, yet simple and amusing, and he can turn an original phrase like no other.

[Scotty · Rating 5 out of 5]

these stories just ooze hippie goofballery.

[Sam Carrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hilariously epic

[Andrew Horton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pretty much my favorite thing ever.