Both authors hold the past in reverence, both for its wisdom and its untamed wilderness, however Brautigan accepts the idea that the pastoral myth was easily achieved in the American past, while Thoreau does not. Brautigan uses the mytholgy of the founding fathers to set a standard for his search. Thoreau, however, disregards this era and turns instead to ancient philosophy. Thoreau writes in a time "when much of the early promise and idealism [in America] seemed long gone" (Malley 167). Therefore Thoreau remains "completely oblivious to the dominant myths that had been bequeathed by the Seventeenth Century" (Mumford 109) and instead refers to ancient philosophers and cultures to describe his own experiences at Walden Pond.
Transcendentalism stemmed from neo-Platonic philosophy, the writings of German idealist philosophers, and Oriental mysticism. Thoreau agreed with the Platonists who held that spirit transcends matter and that out of physical laws governing inanimate and organic nature one can generate laws concerning spiritual values. He agreed with the idealists that faith and intuition can teach us more than cold intellect. He used various Hindu writings to try to reconcile spirit and matter, to try to make monistic the flawed dualism which plagued Transcendentalists. (Gale 98)Thoreau observes that "there are nowadays professors of philosophy, but not philosophers" (Thoreau 14). Therefore, with no inspiration, there is little hope for the pastoral lifestyle. This demonstrates the difference between the past, in which the people were "poorer in outward riches," (Thoreau 14) but "rich in inward" (Thoreau14) and Thoreau's present, when the reverse is true. The primitive people he describes contrast greatly with the growing industrialism he senses in the America of the 1850's. "History is a source of context and corroboration, a standard of measurement as useful, in its own way, as a notched stick or a plumbline. What is most effectively measured by history is the degree to which man has fallen, the distance he must traverse to reach transcendental sainthood" (Hildebidle 147). Thoreau must then disregard many of the methods used by his predecessors in searching for tranquillity in nature. "In the end, Thoreau restores the pastoral hope to its traditional location. He removes it from history, where it is manifestly unrecognizable and relocates it in literature, which is to say, in his own consciousness, in his craft, in Walden" (Ruland 112). By disregarding American historical myths, he is allowed to create a modern pastoral life for himself.Out of the heart of practical, hard-working progressive New England comes these Oriental utterances. The life exhibited in them teaches us more impressively than any number of sermons could, that this Western activity of which we are so proud, these material improvements, this commercial enterprise, this rapid accumulation of wealth, even our external, associated philanthropic action, are very easily overrated. The true glory of the human soul is not to be reached by the most rapid travelling in cars or steamboat, by the instant transmission of intelligence however far, by the most speedy accumulation of a fortune, and however efficient measures we may adopt for the reform of the intemperate, the emancipation of the enslaved, &c., it will avail little unless we are ourselves essentially noble enough to inspire those whom we would so benefit with nobleness. (Child 8)
From the beginning of Trout Fishing in America, Brautigan uses history as his idea of the idealized utopia in Nature. Benjamin Franklin personifies the legend Brautigan seeks to reestablish in the 1960's. "In focusing on Franklin's optimism, Brautigan makes his opening cover chapter an ironic keynote for the whole book" (Malley 153). "Schmitz's Brautigan is moved by an 'ironic pessimism' to deflate the 'posturing rhetoric' of myth. 'What exists in history, things as they are' possess for him the greatest power" (qtd. in Bales 42). Underneath Franklin's statue in Washington Square Park, the reader is first introduced to the enigmatic Trout Fishing in America. "The connotation here is of a Ben Franklin America, a time in which nature and Yankee common sense were the order of the day" (Hayden 23). The narrator goes on to discuss Lewis and Clark, who, in their own rambles, find the ideal Arcadian Utopia. "Trout Fishing in America's reply suggests that the dream of trout fishing as embodying the good life is anachronistic, an impossible dream," (Malley 154) which contrasts with the legend of Lewis and Clark. "The America the narrator has been able to discover is too far removed from the place Lewis and Clark come upon with wonder in 1805. There is no good world to be won in following Trout Fishing in America" (Malley 176).
The past appeals to Brautigan due to its agrarian possibilities. While Thoreau sees the west as an expansive wilderness, Brautigan has only the stories of such a place to satiate his hunger for an agrarian lifestyle. "Again and again, Brautigan's characters cast into the waters only to come up with the detritus of America's past" (Stull 68). The past to Brautigan has been perverted by his present society.
A lot of cars, airplanes and vacuum cleaners and refrigerators and things that come from the 1920's look as if they had come from the 1890's. It's the beauty of our speed that has done it to them, causing them to age prematurely into the clothes and thoughts of a people from another century. (Brautigan 81)Because he cannot dispel the myths of optimism and hope established throughout history, Brautigan is unsuccessful his quest.
Both authors are critical of the time in which they live, with Brautigan the more cynical of the two. This has to do with the closing of the Western frontier and the growing commercialization following the Industrial Revolution. "A virgin wilderness may not have existed around Concord, but it did hypothetically exist for Thoreau in America's western regions. For Brautigan's narrator, no such conceptual nature exists" (Hayden 23). While Brautigan is disturbed, and ultimately thwarted by what he sees around him in American Society, Thoreau is"anxious to improve the nick of time, and notch it on [his] stick too; to stand on the meeting of two eternities, the past and the future, which is precisely the present moment; to toe that line" (Thoreau 17). This difference in outlook, optimistic versus pessimistic, which is influenced by Society is a direct cause of the outcome of the quest to find a Pastoral lifestyle. Thoreau, who sees the expanding commercialism of society, is disillusioned by its corruption of the pastoral myth, but in his continuing optimism is accepting of the growth.
In a period where men were on the move, he remained still; when men were on the make, he remained poor; when civil disobedience broke out in the lawlessness of the cattle thief and the mining town rowdy, by sheer neglect, Thoreau practiced civil disobedience as a principle, in protest against the Mexican War, the Fugitive Slave Law, and slavery itself. Thoreau . . . shows what the pioneer movement might have come to if this great migration had sought culture rather than material conquest, and an intensity of life, rather than mere extension over the continent (Mumford 108)In his passive manner, Thoreau revolted against the society he lived in. In a time of the importance of the man-made, Thoreau emphasized the natural.
The social standards that Thoreau knew and protested against were those dominated by New England mercantilism. He granted that the life of a civilized people is an institution in which the life of the individual is to a great extent absorbed, in order to preserve and perfect that of the race' (Thoreau 32). But he insisted that it was essential to re-examine the terms under which that absorption was being made, to see whether the individual was not being ruthlessly sacrificed to the dictates of a mean-spirited commercialism. (Matthiessen 78-9)Despite his criticisms, he realizes the value of technology. "Thoreau uses technological imagery to represent more than industrialism in the narrow, economic sense. It accompanies a mode of perception, an emergent system of meaning and value- a culture" (Ruland 104). This culture is present in the small bustling town of Concord, and Thoreau often wanders the streets simply observing the people and their commercialized existence.
As if no organized society existed to the west, the mysterious . . . primal world seems to begin at the village limits . . . Thoreau is delighted by the electric atmosphere of the depot and the cheerful valor of the snow-plow crews. He admires the punctuality, the urge toward precision and order, the confidence, serenity, and adventurousness of the men who operate this commercial enterprise. (Ruland 103, 107)Thoreau recognizes the most basic needs of man- food, shelter, and warmth. "As for a Shelter, [he does] not deny that this is now a necessary of life, though there are instances of men having done without it for long periods in colder countries than this" (Thoreau 27). These basic advances from primitive man are, to Thoreau, acceptable aspects of technology.
There are two men from near Walden Pond, "the Canadian wood chopper and the Irishman John Field," (Ruland 23) who come to visit Thoreau and provide a basis of comparison for him,
the former engaged in a contented life at the animal level, unaware of his latencies of intellect and spirit and innocent of the world's perverted sense of values; the latter, too, at the animal level but disconnected, troubled by a desire for something better than what he has but addicted to the world's luxuries and lacking faith to make a trial of life that would take him beyond material acquisition. (Ruland 23)These two men contrast with Thoreau in that he is conscious of, and on the verge of finding, the pastoral lifestyle of which these men do not know. The opposite poles of society and raw Nature these two represent are merged within Thoreau to provide the balance he seeks.
The train, which touches Walden Pond, is a primary symbol of Thoreau's sanction and criticism of technology. The train is both a burden and a convenience to the people of Concord.
When Thoreau depicts the machine as it functions within the Concord environment, accordingly, it is an instrument of oppression We do not ride upon the railroad; it rides upon us' (Thoreau 92). But later, when seen from the Walden perspective, the railroad's significance becomes quite different. (Ruland 105)He sees the influence of the railroad on the peoples' lives, both as a benefit and a burden.
The startings and arrivals of the [railroad] cars are now the epochs in the village day. They go and come with such regularity and precision, and their whistle can be heard so far, that the farmers set their clocks by them, and thus one well-conducted institution regulates a whole country. Have not men improved somewhat in punctuality since the railroad was invented? Do they not talk and think faster in the depot than they did in the stage- office? There is something electrifying in the atmosphere of the former place. (Thoreau 117)Thoreau sees the possibilities that are incorporated in this growth of industry, but the undertones of his statement indicate that he also sees the drawbacks. Thoreau also questions the virtue of capitalizing upon Nature's offspring, and the entire Industrial Revolution. He declares "men have become the tools of their tools" (Thoreau 37). "The omnipresence of tools, gadgets, and instruments is symptomatic of the Concord way" (Ruland 104). Thoreau, in his search for an agrarian lifestyle, rids himself of this clutter. There is irony to be found in the ice cutters using Walden for their business. Despite its purity, the citizens of Concord prefer "the weedy-tasting white ice of Cambridge" (Gale 77) to the clear ice found at Walden. In addition, the institution of farming is questioned by Thoreau, who wonders how a price can be put on plant life and animal byproducts. He feels "it is a vulgar error to suppose that you have tasted huckleberries who never plucked them. A huckleberry never reaches Boston; they have not been known there since they grew on her three hills. The ambrosial and essential part of the fruit is lost with the bloom which is rubbed off in the market cart, and they became provender" (Thoreau 173). "The profit motive [in selling berries] despoils the country side of spiritual fruits' which cannot be transported into the city. This is an attack on economic progress, and on those who believe that the market-place can sell happiness" (Ruland 15). In this manner Thoreau speaks out against commercialism. Yet despite his preaching of the gospel of transcendentalism, he enjoys the bustle of the city and the regularity of the train.
Brautigan is disillusioned by the commercialization of the American society he lives in, but though the same issues are present, he is not as forgiving as Thoreau.
The last third of Trout Fishing in America is crowded with episodes emphasizing in different ways the disappearance or commercialization of the great American outdoors; the narrator's conversation with the disgruntled doctor who searches in vain for the old America; the story of Mr. Norris, who loads himself down with camping equipment only to find the campgrounds all filled up with people; the narrator's climatic final meeting with that mythic figure, Trout Fishing in America; the crucial account of the Cleveland Wrecking Yard, with its trout streams for sale by the foot; the narrator's brief meditation on Leonardo da Vinci, reincarnated as an American designer of commercial fishing lures which receive endorsements from Thirty-four ex-presidents of the United States' (Brautigan 108). (Malley 147)In these scenes, mythical characters created by Brautigan are used to describe the state of American society, as well as his quest. Brautigan sees the corruption of ethics and morals, as personified by two such characters, Trout Fishing in America Shorty and Jack the Ripper, as critical to what hinders him in his pursuit. These individuals contrast with the Trout Fishing in America Terrorists, a group of sixth grade students harrassing the younger students in the true sprit of Trout Fishing in America, as well as providing a context for Trout Fishing in America, which can be best described as Brautigan's search for a pastoral lifestyle.
Ultimately, Jack the Ripper and Trout Fishing in America Shorty are not the true disciples of Trout Fishing in America, instead they are perverted or degraded manifestations of what has happened to the pastoral myth of America as a land of freedom. The real heirs of Trout Fishing in America are those schoolboys who resist the stultifying indoctrination of the classroom by chalking Trout Fishing in America' on the backs of first- graders, those Trout Fishing in America Terrorists.' (Malley 152)Of the symbolic characters used in the novel, the two most representative of the ills of society are Jack the Ripper and Trout Fishing in America Shorty.
Jack the Ripper disguises himself as the gentle spirit of life and freedom to commit sudden, violent murders. Trout Fishing in America Shorty is the debased, urbanized, and finally commercialized modern equivalent of the open road. Taken together, they emphasize Brautigan's point that it has become more and more difficult- maybe ultimately impossible- to meet or discover the true Trout Fishing in America. (Malley 173-4)Trout Fishing in America Shorty capitalizes on his handicap, allowing for "The New Wave" to film him ranting and raving on a cobblestone alley (Brautigan 63). "Here the narrator is satirizing the tendency of our society to make a hero, a personality out of virtually anyone" (Malley 172). "Later on, probably, a different voice will be dubbed in. It will be a noble voice denouncing man's humanity to man in no uncertain terms" (Brautigan 63). By using Trout Fishing in America Shorty's handicap to their benefit, the movie crew represent the corruption of American Society.
The incident that best describes the capitalistic sense Brautigan feels is present in American society during the 1960's is his visit to the Cleveland Wrecking Yard. Upon entering, the narrator reads a sign stating "USED TROUT STREAM FOR SALE. MUST BE SEEN TO BE APPRECIATED" (Brautigan 104). He then encounters stacks of slices of a stream, stacked and tagged for sale. "The fact of this sale, while not literally plausible, is real in a symbolic context of America sizing up its trout streams in a materialistic fashion; feverishly prostituting nature for cold, hard cash" (Hayden 21). Nature, typically steadfast, is perverted in this case to be a transportable commodity. Thoreau sees expansionism in a positive light, while Brautigan sees little hope for future generations. "Looking ahead, Thoreau [sees] what [is] needed to preserve the valuable heritage of the American Wilderness" (Mumford 117). He sees the growth of industry as a necessary evil, and finds solace in its continuity. Brautigan, on the other hand, sees the technology as what destroys Nature, leaving nothing for future generations.
Thoreau looks ahead, leaving the reader with a hopeful message for some people, but acknowledges that not all people will be able to achieve the pastoral Utopia.
I do not say that John or Jonathan will realize all this; but such is the character of that morrow which mere lapse of time can never make to dawn. The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star. (Thoreau 333)Thoreau feels that "Those who are dead to nature's beauties, those who claw cranberries off their bushes for monetary profit only, those who call their muck-heaps model forms and make burdened beasts of themselves-" such as the commercialized citizes of Concord, "these are the Johns and Jonathons for whom no transcendental day will ever come" (Gale 106). For the rest of the population however, there is still hope.
In contrast, Brautigan feels as though the degradation of American society will be the catalyst for its downfall. It is not surprising that the statue of the optimistic Benjamin Franklin bears an inscription celebrating the future. "The statue speaks, saying in marble PRESENTED BY H. D. COGSWELL TO OUR BOYS AND GIRLS WHO WILL SOON TAKE OUR PLACES" (Brautigan 1). Brautigan's distrust of the future is evident even in small incidents. The narrator reflects, while having sex with his woman, "I didn't want any more kids for a long time," (Brautigan 44) which is in direct response to his present surroundings, in which "the green slime and dead fish were all about [their] bodies" (Brautigan 44). He is concerned for the future of his family, even that they have socks. I wish I hadn't lost that guarantee [to replace the pair of socks he bought]. That was a shame. I've had to face the fact that new socks are not going to be a family heirloom. Losing that guarantee took care of that. All future generations are on their own. (Brautigan 59)
Brautigan struggles also with issues of impending death as a fact of the future. In "Death by Portwine," he describes a "natural death" which is debased by the increased interaction between society and nature. He feels that "it is against the natural order of death for a trout to die by having a drink of portwine (Brautigan 29). The poisoning of the fish is repesentative of the "wanton" (Hayden 24) manner in which the environment is polluted by industrial waste. The cynicism Brautigan uses to discuss death represents his fear of it, as well as his lack of hope for the future.
Both Henry David Thoreau and Richard Brautigan describe their pursuit for the myth of the pastoral existence in their novels. However, because of the time period in which Walden is set, Thoreau is able to achieve his dream to a greater extent than Brautigan. Their views regarding the importance of the past are similar, but the outlook of the future differs in each case. In the end both come to terms with the time in which they live, Thoreau with a message of hope and inspiration, Brautigan with a letter of condolences mourning the "passing of Mr. Good," (Brautigan 112) representing the very lifestyle for which he searches. Thoreau finds his ideal pastoral lifestyle, but Brautigan's narrator becomes entangled in the myths of American idealism and regresses to the life he knew before his search.
Brautigan, Richard. Trout Fishing in America. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1968.
Child, Lydia Marie. "Thoreau's Walden." Thoreau: A Century of Criticism. Ed. Walter
Harding. N.p.: Southern Methodist University Press, 1954. 8-11.
Gale, Robert L. Barron's Book Notes: A Simplified Approach to Thoreau: Walden. New York: Barron's Educational Series, Inc., 1965.
Hayden, Brad. "Echoes of Walden in Trout Fishing in America." Thoreau
Journal
Quarterly 7 (1976): 21-6.
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