Dreaming of Babylon, Richard Brautigan
Dreaming of Babylon, Richard Brautigan
1 Rating(s)
List: $16.95 | Sale: $11.87
Club: $8.47

Dreaming of Babylon
A Private Eye Novel 1942

Author: Richard Brautigan

Narrator: Bronson Pinchot

Unabridged: 3 hr 29 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 02/28/2017

Synopsis

It is early 1942. You are in San Francisco, and you need a private eye. Sam Spade is rumored to be in Istanbul. The Continental Op has been drafted and is a sergeant in the Aleutians. Philip Marlowe is up at Little Fawn Lake investigating the disappearance of Mrs. Derace Kingsley. Lew Archer is in the army. Who’s left? Nobody but C. Card. You haven’t heard of C. Card? That’s all right. Nobody has.When you hire C. Card, the hero of Richard Brautigan’s eighth novel, you have scraped the bottom of the private-eye barrel. But you won’t be bored. No, indeed. Because when C. Card finds some bullets for his gun, you will be in for some fast, funny, slam-bang private eye adventures. Unless of course C. Card starts dreaming of Babylon. If C. Card starts dreaming of Babylon, all bets are off. Not since Trout Fishing in America has Brautigan so successfully combined his wild sense of humor with the incredible poetic imagination he is rightfully famous for around the world. The adventures of seedy, not-too-bright C. Card, as he carefully wends his way between fantasy and reality, Babylon and San Francisco, are a delight to both the mind and the heart.

About Richard Brautigan

Richard Brautigan (1935–1984) was a literary idol of the 1960s and 1970s whose comic genius and iconoclastic vision of American life caught the imagination of young people everywhere. He was born and raised in Tacoma, Washington, and moved to San Francisco in the mid-1950s when he became involved in the emerging beat scene. During the 1960s, he became one of the most prominent and prolific writers of the counterculture. Out of this period came some of his most famous works, the best known of which are Trout Fishing in America; his collection of poetry, The Pill versus the Springhill Mine Disaster; and his collection of stories, Revenge of the Lawn. Translated the world over, his works helped establish him as one of the most significant American writers of his generation. As his popularity waned towards the end of the 1970s, he became increasingly disillusioned about his work and his life. He committed suicide in 1984. He was the author of eleven novels, ten volumes of poetry, a collection of short stories, and miscellaneous nonfiction pieces, works that often employed parody, satire, and black comedy.

About Bronson Pinchot

Bronson Pinchot, Audible’s Narrator of the Year for 2010, has won Publishers Weekly Listen-Up Awards, AudioFile Earphones Awards, Audible’s Book of the Year Award, and Audie Awards for several audiobooks, including Matterhorn, Wise Blood, Occupied City, and The Learners. A magna cum laude graduate of Yale, he is an Emmy- and People’s Choice-nominated veteran of movies, television, and Broadway and West End shows. His performance of Malvolio in Twelfth Night was named the highlight of the entire two-year Kennedy Center Shakespeare Festival by the Washington Post. He attended the acting programs at Shakespeare & Company and Circle-in-the-Square, logged in well over 200 episodes of television, starred or costarred in a bouquet of films, plays, musicals, and Shakespeare on Broadway and in London, and developed a passion for Greek revival architecture.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Dan on October 18, 2012

This book was terrific. It is composed of three novels as the title above plainly states. I started reading the Hawkline Monster first because of the raving of a friend. I must say I was quite happy I did so. The tale was strange, supernatural and funny. It had all the hallmarks of a Brautigan novel......more

Goodreads review by James on April 15, 2012

After years of reading just Sombrero Fallout and some shorter stories I found in anthologies (from Rebel Inc, I believe), my in-laws gave me this as a birthday present. A Confederate General is an interesting debut, it is full out potential and (to paraphrase the blurb) a 'preview of things to come'.......more

Goodreads review by Dave on July 02, 2023

This book contains three Brautigan novels from the 60's and 70's. First up is A Confederate General from Big Sur which is about the speaker Jesse and his adventures with Lee Mellon. The two literally end up living in a make shift "home" with some women and some loud bullfrogs and all of this makes f......more

Goodreads review by Sarah on May 02, 2011

I love Big Sur. I could read it over and over again. It's probably my favorite prose piece by Brautigan and I have a real and strong affection for it, come to think of it, I think I have affection for this piece than several of my family members.......more

Goodreads review by Benjamin on December 08, 2022

Confederate general is four star rating. Middle one is not as good. Hawklike is in betweenies. None as good as watermelon.......more

Quotes

“Babylon upends the conventional private eye novel…A masterful comedy mixed with pathos.” Booklist

Add to Cart
Add to Wish List