Trout Fishing in America
a novel by Richard Brautigan
HE
ER
OR
UT
NG IN
The cover for Trout Fishing in America is a photograph takenlate in the afternoon, a photograph of the Benjamin Franklinstatue in San Francisco's Washington Square.
Born 1706—Died 1790,
Benjamin Franklin stands on a pedestal that looks like a house containing stone furniture.
He holds some papers in one hand and his hat in the other.
Then the statue speaks, saying in marble:
ED BY H.
D.
LL TO
UR
YS
ND
LS
HO
LL
ON
KE
UR
ES
ND
SS ON.
Around the base of the statue are four words facing thedirections of this world, to the east
ME, to the
ME, to the north
ME, to the south
ME.
Just behind the statue are three poplar trees, almost leafless except for the top branches.
The statue stands in frontof the middle tree.
All around the grass is wet from the rains of early February. In the background is a tall cypress tree, almost dark likea room.
Adlai Stevenson spoke under the tree in 1956, before a crowd of 40, 000 people. There is a tall church across the street from the statuewith crosses, steeples, bells and a vast door that looks like a huge mousehole, perhaps from a Tom and Jerry cartoon, and written above the door is "Per L'Universo." Around five o'clock in the afternoon of my cover
Trout Fishing in America, people gather in the park across the street from the church and they are hungry.
It's sandwich time for the poor.
But they cannot cross the street until the signal is given.
Then they all run across the street to the church and gettheir sandwiches that are wrapped in newspaper.
They goback to the park and unwrap the newspaper and see what theirsandwiches are all about.
A friend of mine unwrapped his sandwich one afternoonand looked inside to find just a leaf of spinach.
That was all.
Was it Kafka who learned about America by reading the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin…………..
Kafka who said, "I like the Americans because they are healthyand optimistic."
Richard Brautigan
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