History Literature / AConfederateGeneralFromBigSur

* EthicalSlut: Elizabeth. She has a rustic home where she cuts her own firewood, weaves her own cloth and raises vegetables, chickens and beautiful children, but earns huge amounts of money by transforming herself into a high class call girl two or three times a year. Presumably she invests it.

* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: Lee Mellon is a recognizable portrait of Richard's longtime friend Price Dunn, naturally with a few things exaggerated here and there. Price thought the book was marvelous. The idea that Lee's grandfather was a Confederate general started as a family joke about Price's great-uncle John.

* RealLifeWritesThePlot: Among many other things, the four-hundred-dollar motorcycle, Richard counting the punctuation marks in Ecclesiastes, the tiny but deafening frogs and even the alligator brought to eat them all came from Richard and Price's real experiences living in a lodge at Big Sur. Roy Earle was real, too.

This oddball comedy of a novel, written by Creator/RichardBrautigan, centers around Jesse's interactions with the very eccentric vagabond known as Lee Mellon, reputed to be related to the obscure [[TheAmericanCivilWar American Civil War]] general Augustus Mellon.

This oddball comedy of a novel, written by Creator/RichardBrautigan, centers around Jesse's interactions with the very eccentric vagabond known as Lee Mellon, reputed to be related to the obscure [[TheAmericanCivilWar American Civil War general Augustus Mellon.

This oddball comedy of a novel, written by Creator/RichardBrautigan, centers around Jesse's interactions with the very eccentric vagabond known as Lee Mellon, reputed to be related to the obscure civil war general Augustus Mellon.

There be drugs, gallons of booze, enticing women of many flavors, and a pretty accurate cultural snapshot of UsefulNotes/SanFrancisco, Oakland and the central California Coast near Big Sur that still applies in some respects today. There's even alligators, frogs, Winchester rifles and singed eyebrows.

* TheAllegedCar: Lee Mellon's pickup truck as described in the book: "If there were pickup trucks made for [[UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar the Civil War]], this would be it." Doesn't have a gas tank and required someone in the bed at all times to siphon gasoline from a drum into the fuel line.

* TheFifties: Averted. Also barely recognizable as such, but it IS San Francisco we're talking about.

* SouthernFriedGenius: Lee Mellon, despite all his bizarre antics is VERY quick in his feet, a grand schemer and an excellent improvisational master.

Published in the mid 1960's it was apparently a "must read" for the beat generation, and Brautigan's unorthodox writing style treads the line between over-the-top bizarre to unexpectedly beautiful. It's rife with metaphors and filled with hilarious observations. Amusingly, the Times said of the novel "Oh, it flows!"

This oddball comedy of a novel centers around Jesse's interactions with the very eccentric vagabond known as Lee Mellon, reputed to be related to the obscure civil war general Augustus Mellon.

Published in the mid 1960's it was apparently a "must read" for the beat generation, and Creator/RichardBrautigan's unorthodox writing style treads the line between over-the-top bizarre to unexpectedly beautiful. It's rife with metaphors and filled with hilarious observations. Amusingly, the Times said of the novel "Oh, it flows!"

There be drugs, gallons of booze, enticing women of many flavors, and a pretty accurate cultural snapshot of San Francisco, Oakland and the central California Coast near Big Sur that still applies in some respects today. There's even alligators, frogs, Winchester rifles and singed eyebrows.

* AllJustADream : Thankfully averted as everything takes place when Jesse is conscious (or not)
* AllGaysArePromiscuous / DepravedHomosexual: Sadly reinforced, but it IS set in 1957.

Published in the mid 1960's it was apparently a "must read" for the beat generation, and Richard Brautigan's unorthodox writing style treads the line between over-the-top bizarre to unexpectedly beautiful. It's rife with metaphors and filled with hilarious observations. Amusingly, the Times said of the novel "Oh, it flows!"

* CloudCuckooLander: Roy Earle is definitely this, in spades. Although he has a (very) brief lapse from his insanity, this former insurance salesman is prone to impulsiveness and paranoia in addition to his absolute detachment from this plane of reality. He's eventually chained to a log by Lee in an attempt to keep him from the rest of the group. Like a broken record, he blurts out "I'm the head cheese at the Johnston Wade Insurance Company, of San Jose, California!" Also, after spending an entire afternoon sitting next to the pond, he gets up in absolute horror after realizing that the creatures in the pond were alligators, even after being told so.
* TheAllegedCar: Lee Mellon's pickup truck as described in the book: "If there were pickup trucks made for [[UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar the Civil War]], this would be it" Doesn't have a gas tank and required someone in the bed at all times to siphon gasoline from a drum into the fuel line.

* RealLifeWritesThePlot: Among many other things, the four-hundred-dollar motorcycle, Richard counting the punctuation marks in Ecclesiastes, the tiny but deafening frogs and even the alligator brought to eat them all came from Richard and Price's real experiences living in a lodge at Big Sur.

* AbandonedPlaybround: Lee's friend Elizabeth lives in a rustic cabin with her children, but when Lee and Jesse visit nobody's home. Jesse is slightly unnerved by the abandoned playthings in the yard including a game the children had made with dirt, abalone shells and deer antlers: "Perhaps it wasn't a game at all, only the grave of a game." (Elizabeth's all right, though; she turns up later in the story, and presumably the kids are fine.)

!!Tropes

Throughout the book, the "Historical Accounts" of Augustus Mellon are sprinkled liberally, differentiated by italicized text. They have an entertaining parallel to the life of Lee Mellon. Reviewers praise Brautigan's authorship in these passages and say he provides a vividly accurate portrait of the Battle of the Wilderness.

* CloudCuckooLander: Roy Earle is definitely this, in spades. although he as a (very) brief lapse from his insanity, this former insurance salesman is prone to impulsiveness and paranoia in addition to his absolute detachment from this plane of reality. He's eventually chained to a log by Lee in an attempt to keep him from the rest of the group. Like a broken record, he blurts out "I'm the head cheese at the Johnston Wade Insurance Company, of San Jose, California!" Also, after spending an entire afternoon sitting next to the pond, he gets up in absolute horror after realizing that the creatures in the pond were alligators, even after being told so.

* EthicalSlut: Elizabeth.

* UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar: Plays a prominent lietmotif in this book, and ties the 19th century conflict with all the antics occurring in their modern lives. Lots of imagery of all types creatively woven in, sights, sounds, smells and tastes.

* TheAllegedCar: Lee Mellon's pickup truck as described in the book: "If there were pickup trucks made for [[TheAmericanCivilWar the Civil War]], this would be it" Doesn't have a gas tank and required someone in the bed at all times to siphon gasoline from a drum into the fuel line.

Throughout the book, the "Historical Accounts" of Augustus Mellon are sprinkled liberally, differentiated by italicized text. They have an entertaining parallel to the life of Lee Mellon.

* AllJustADream : Thankfully averted as everything takes place when the Jesse is conscious (or not)

* WriteWhoYouKnow: Lee Mellon is Richard's friend Price Dunn to the life. The episodes about tapping into PG&E's gas lines, the frog pond and its "ornamental" alligators, and the $400 motorcycle are all true. Jesse is one of Richard's "Brautigan narrators", based upon himself but in an older, Mark Twain sense; closer to AuthorAvatar than MarySue.

* TheAllegedCar: Lee Mellon's pickup truck as described in the book "If there were pickup trucks made for civil war, this would be it" Doesn't have a gas tank and required someone in the bed at all times to siphon gasoline from a drum into the fuel line.

* NobleConfederateSoldier: Agustus Mellon, in the flashbacks.

* UnreliableNarrator: Jesse is surprisingly accurate as a narrator, but when he gets high the details get sketchy

* UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar plays a prominent lietmotif in this book, and ties the 19th century conflict with all the antics occurring in their modern lives. Lots of imagery of all types creatively woven in, sights, sounds, smells and tastes.
* CloudCuckooLander Roy Earle is definitely this, in spades. although he as a (very) brief lapse from his insanity, this former insurance salesman is prone to impulsiveness and paranoia in addition to his absolute detachment from this plane of reality. He's eventually chained to a log by Lee in an attempt to keep him from the rest of the group. Like a broken record, he blurts out "I'm the head cheese at the Johnston Wade Insurance Company, of San Jose, California!" Also, after spending an entire afternoon sitting next to the pond, he gets up in absolute horror after realizing that the creatures in the pond were alligators, even after being told so.
* TheAllegedCar Lee Mellon's pickup truck as described in the book "If there were pickup trucks made for civil war, this would be it" Doesn't have a gas tank and required someone in the bed at all times to siphon gasoline from a drum into the fuel line.
* EthicalSlut Elizabeth.
* TheFifties averted. Also barely recognizable as such, but it IS San Francisco we're talking about.
* NobleConfederateSoldier Agustus Mellon, in the flashbacks.
* SouthernFriedGenius Lee Mellon, despite all his bizarre antics is VERY quick in his feet, a grand schemer and an excellent improvisational master.
* UnreliableNarrator Jesse is surprisingly accurate as a narrator, but when he gets high the details get sketchy

* AllGaysArePromiscuous/DepravedHomosexual: Sadly reinforced, but it IS set in 1957.

* AllGaysArePerverts Sadly reinforced, but it IS set in 1957.

* TheAmericanCivilWar plays a prominent lietmotif in this book, and ties the 19th century conflict with all the antics occurring in their modern lives. Lots of imagery of all types creatively woven in, sights, sounds, smells and tastes.

* CloudCuckooLander Roy Earle is definitely this, in spades.