I have been very close to formulating a hyposthesis that any book I thought was especially profound when I was seventeen will inevitably look like pretentious twaddle twenty years later (cf. the works of J. D. Salinger). Thus I was pretty sure I'd be appalled by The Abortion: An Historical Romance 1966. I didn't so much expect to be bothered by the subject matter--the title pretty much says it all--as to be appalled by the late-60s freewheeling hippy style of the writing.
Well, turns out I still like Richard Brautigan pretty well. My favorite part of this book is the narrator's job: he is the librarian at a library that doesn't lend books, but is open 24 hours to receive books. Little old ladies drop in at 3 a.m. with manuscripts like Growing Flowers in Hotel Rooms by Candlelight, small children show up with picture books like My Trike, by Chuck and rhapsodies on strawberry jam, teenage boys nervously drop off tomes on masturbation. It's the place where the everyone can take their stories, and though it's a sad place, because the stories will never be read, there's something lovely about the respectful way the narrator receives all these lonely and painful works.
Brautigan pulls off some lovely bits of writing. His style reminds me of Vonnegut, not a surprise since they were contemporaries, spare and yet surprisingly lyrical now and again. "I have been sitting at this desk for hours," the narrator writes, "staring into the darkened shelves of books. I love their presence, the way they honor the wood they rest upon."
As to the title, the novel is about exactly what it says: the narrator's girlfriend gets pregnant, and the two of them go to Tijuana for an abortion. They are strange people who love each other very much, and the description of the abortion, and of the other people in the clinic, is quietly sad. One chapter ends like this:
Some children were playing in front of the doctor's office.... They stopped playing and watched us as we went in.Posted by Su Penn at June 23, 2003 01:27 PM | TrackBackWe were no doubt a common sight for them. They had probably seen many gringos in this part of town, going into this green adobe-like building, gringos who did not look very happy. We did not disappoint them.