Talk:In Watermelon Sugar

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Changes 8/2/06

I removed the External Links since they were bad. They were:

```` I've noticed that all the theories on this book get it wrong. You have to look at it from the point of view of a hippie... which is by the way an accurate representation of the community they live in. The hippies are the self exiles who carve themselve to death at the end. They can see that the town is living an illusion. This is the same as hippies seeing through the conservative illusion they know to be a tissue of lies. But like the hippies when the exiles talk to the town people the town people can't understand anything they say and can't find any truth in what they say just as neocons can't find truth in angry hippys. Sigh... this is a sad and disturbing commentary on living in America and someone besides me should have seen this a long time ago. If the author didn't mean this obvious analogy i'm sorry I just had to say something because it was so obvious to me when I read it in 11th grade because I was at Woodside High in Redwood City CA with a Lesbian teacher haha probably one of the rare moments in US public education in 1977. ````

Brautigan, however, was not a hippie, in fact he rather disliked them, and the book was written in 1964, before hippies were numerous or popular. I doubt he meant it as a book about hippies pro or con. I have long believed that it was more a commentary on life in Bolinas as well as in general about Richard's and others' difficulty in balancing a desire for a peaceful, conflict-free life with the need for independent thought, creativity, and intense emotion. This is the same question that turns up in Zilpha Keatley Snyder's Green-sky trilogy -- ostensibly a children's fantasy. And I've seen the same kind of questioning going on at Rainbow family gatherings. --Bluejay Young 02:38, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

If that's him on the cover he's definitly a hippy :) I'm a hippy and there are plenty of hippies I have known who are absolute scum but that doesn't mean that like Broughton I'm not a good hippy. I stand by the obvious analogy but would love to have the author set me straight if he's still alive. And if he does I would just say that it doesn't change the fact that the book "fits" my interpretation perfectly. BTW Jesus was a hippy pre 1964 as were the beatniks and many free spirited Amercans. Hippies are simply people who refuse to give up on their fellow human beings i.e. to love them. Trying not to get tooo Analytical the agitators are obviously upset with the townies and have either been exiled or self exciled to the world outside town where they discover there is a real and ugly world and they have the tigers who come to town from time to time and eat one of the townies and then stay for tea and conversation. All of which doesn't bother the townies in the least. This is the "REALITY" the agitators are trying to force upon the townies. I haven't read it in over 30 years so forgive me for my naming/descriptions. But the story still resonates with me because of it's power. This is not an interpretation, it's just a regurgitation of the story to the best of my recollection but it is generally accurate. As to what it is all about, I think you're right and that that interpretation really doesn't have anything to do with or discredit my interpretation. But I would if asked for what Broughton is trying to do here is to analyze the ramification and desirability of living out a fantasy or illusion. Is it ok when faced with an undesirable reality to sink into a pleasent illusion? And finally to answer your interpretation I would say that any time emotion results in undesirable results the people getting hurt it's wrong. A lot of the bad feelings twards hippies (I grew up in the Bay Area 1960-1981) came from their blatant disregard for the delitarious affects their pursuit of chaos were having upon others.