Dreaming of Babylon

Richard Brautigan Dreaming of Babylon (1977)
In between bouts of kicking myself for having failed to read more Brautigan earlier, I continue to find delight in each new novel, and so much so that it's hard to avoid the fear of eventually coming to the one that reads like Jeffrey Archer channelling Ted Nugent, at which point the bubble will accordingly burst.

Anyway, it hasn't happened with this one, and Dreaming of Babylon constitutes further evidence of Brautigan's genius despite being some way outside what one might reasonably assume was his comfort zone. Specifically it's a detective novel, or at least a detective novel filtered through the Brautigan lens and seems potentially the least autobiographical of any of his that I've read. The great strength of his writing, I would say, is that it feels so much like personal experience. This one is no exception, so hopefully serves as a testament to the author's imagination.

Dreaming of Babylon presumably differs from much detective fiction in focussing less on the detection and more on the unusually shabby existence of its central character stumbling from one ludicrous scenario to the next, usually failing and failing hard, and keeping himself going by daydreaming of Babylon with what little imagination he has at his disposal - which just about runs to something resembling a Flash Gordon cinema serial. He owes money to everyone, can't find work, has no car, no office, no secretary, can't pay the rent, and is just about getting by on telling lies and the sort of feckless optimism which only the terminally stupid can achieve.

My client whoever they were hadn't arrived yet.

I was very curious about who would show up.

I didn't know whether it would be a man or a woman. If it was a woman, I hoped that she would be very rich and beautiful and she would fall madly in love with me and want me to retire from the private-eye business and live a life of luxury, and I'd spend half my time fucking her, the other half dreaming of Babylon.

We have murder and confrontation, even firearms and knives, but the core of the form - what was done, by whom and why - remains vague, not much more than background detail, just as Dreaming of Babylon is the story of a guy who amounts to background detail in his own daily existence. It's profound, sad, and funny without digging you in the ribs and pulling faces. Actually, it's so profound as to make what's it about seem like a stupid question.