Subject: Review: "The Hawkline Monster" by Richard Brautigan

From: [email-masked] (p-m agapow)
Date: 16 Oct 1997 17:39:06 -0400

"The Hawkline Monster" by Richard Brautigan
		A Postview, copyright 1997 by p-m agapow

In the early 1900s, two professional killers travel to an isolated house.
The (ubiquitous) mad professor has created his masterpiece, but then
disappeared, leaving his two (also ubiquitous) beautiful daughters alone,
a monster roving around the basement and strange things afoot ...

   "This sure is a weird place," Greer said.
   "It ain't any weirder than Hawaii," Cameron said.
   As it turned out, Cameron was wrong.

"The Hawkline Monster" is a strange book and probably uncategorisable.  It
was originally published in 1975, Brautigan being the author of the famous
"Trout Fishing in American".  It dips and weaves between genres, part
gothic thriller, part morality tale, part 50s B-grade SF, part western.
If you were looking for authors whose style was similar, there might be
someone midway between Kurt Vonnegut and Michael Moorcock.  As the two
assassins (who "look about the same, except they had different features
and different builds") drift closer to the heart of the mystery, they have
circular conversations, encounter odd bystanders, hear ludicrous history
recounted in a deadpan serious manner.  Think "Lost Highway" meets
"Frankenstein."

As a serious piece of speculative fiction then, "The Hawkline Monster" is
not a contender.  Hell, it's not even in the race.  But it might be more
accurately seen as a comedy, not a broad farce (a la Pratchett), a shaggy
dog story (a la Asimov) or a sly dig (a la Zelazny).  It's a dry but
quirky tale, that stays just this side of dottiness.  As such it's very
funny and once again Vonnegut is the nearest reference point:

   "It (the monster) sounds like the combination of water being
   poured into a glass," Miss Hawkline said, "A dog barking and
   the muttering of a drunk parrot.  And very, very loud."
   "I think we're going to need the shotgun for this one," Cameron
   said.

Perhaps not very deep, but entertaining as all get out.  And at its
length, it doesn't overstay its welcome.  [***/interesting] and HP
Lovecraft as filmed by Hal Hartley on the Sid and Nancy scale.

%A Richard Brautigan
%T The Hawksline Monster
%I Arena
%C New York
%D 1987
%G ISBN 0 09 939120 1
%P 142pp
%O paperback, Aus$11.95

paul-michael agapow ([email-masked]), La Trobe Uni, Infocalypse
"There is no adventure, there is no romance, there is only trouble and desire."
[archived at http://www.cs.latrobe.edu.au/~agapow/Postviews/]