Richard Brautigan: Scarlatti Tilt

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“It’s very hard to live in a studio apartment in San Jose with a man who’s learning to play the violin.” That’s what she told the police when she handed them the empty revolver.

Richard Brautigan is well known for his short stories, and he is also famous for experimenting with genres. It is impossible to define the genre of this story, but there is absolutely no need of defining it. The key feature of the story is that it leaves whales of space for fantasy, thinking over, analyzing, asking questions and puzzles, and answering them. (Brautigan, 2007).

All the masterpieces of the world literature do the same with the reader: make him surprised, interested, sometimes puzzled and anxious with the further destiny of the protagonists. Brautigan makes the reader to experience every feeling possible by just writing two extended sentences.

As a proverb goes – brevity is the soul of wit. Richard Brautigan’s talent provides numerous questions that would take up more space than the narration itself:

What was the lady who told this? How old was she? Why San Jose, but not some other city? How did that man play his violin? What did she want to do with a revolver? Why was the revolver empty? (If she wanted to kill her neighbor, or commit a suicide, the revolver should be loaded), who called the police? (if no one was killed or injured) and so on.

Undoubtedly, if all the answers were given by the author, most probably, it would be a second-grade thriller, that would be forgotten right after its publishing. But the fact is that, “Scarlatti Tilt” is a kind of metaphor, which may symbolize Bratigan himself. The Italian composer and virtuoso of harpsichord Giuseppe Domenico Scarlatti (1685 – 1757) is a son of an outstanding Italian composer Alessandro Scarlatti (1660 – 1725). All the sonatas by Scarlatti Jr. are too short, and he invented lots of the contemporary elements of playing the keyboard instruments: arpeggio, repeating of a single note, playing with the hands crossed and others. Scarlatti did with music exactly the same that Brautigan does with literature. These means of composing, differing from the conventional art are generally regarded as a protest – a protest against boredom in conventional literature, as if everyone aims to follow the classics, art enters the period of stagnation, and stops further development. The protests will not be regarded as something serious until they give the origin to unconventionally new direction in literature (music, painting and so on). (Slethaug, 1993).

This micro-fiction story may be regarded as an entire metaphor, as Scarlatti played the harpsichord and piano, and the man from the story plays the violin, nevertheless, the story is called “Scarlatti Tilt”. Most probable, that lady did not want to kill the violinist, but she could not bear that playing, so, she called the police, and decided to pass them her revolver, in order not to get tempted to retort to it. These two sentences may symbolize the process of appearing the innovative genre in the art, and the reaction of the lady symbolizes the reaction of the society on the appearing of the new genre, the new way of creating masterpieces. And the empty revolver, passed to police, stands for the empty criticism that should be taken away, in order to let the genre grow and develop. (Kostelanetz, 1982).

Taking into account the personality of Richard Brautigan, it is necessary to emphasize, that he could not create something moderate or insignificant. Such amount of metaphors in two sentences may be inserted only by a genius, and most probably, this genius will not be understood for a long time.

The first thing that should be understood about Richard’s mind was that he romanticized the general intellect. He was unexpectedly popular, and in the end, he was almost totally forgotten. The people who were shocked by him never dumped their abhorrence of him, and those who loved him, never abandoned him. There was no morbidity in his stories, as it may be considered at first sight. (Hoberek, 2007) All his writing ‑ the lonesome, wry, preoccupied, miniatures he issued as poetry, or the auxiliary boldness of his micro-prose ‑ was dedicated to charming his life. Death was a reality for him that is why most of his stories are on the edge of the death and life. It is often not clearly understood, whether someone died, or not, so the space for fantasy may be split. He could be cruel, but he was not bitter. He had too much pride for that, and that feature is one of the most attractive in his creativity. Brautigan regarded himself as a humorist; that is why he could afford joking with death in his stories. It is one of the matters, that he is hated for, and it is also one of the features, he is adored for. (Hume, 2001).

Genius is not someone, who satisfies everyone, but one who moves against everyone and everything, but finally finds the followers and admirers. Brautigan with his “Scarlatti tilt” is this genius, but unfortunately, he is partly forgotten.

References

Brautigan, Richard. (2007). In The Columbia Encyclopedia (6th ed.). New York: Columbia University Press.

Hoberek, A. (2007). Introduction: After Postmodernism. Twentieth Century Literature, 53(3), 233.

Hume, K. (2001). Brautigan’s Psychomachia. Mosaic (Winnipeg), 34(1), 75.

Kostelanetz, R. (Ed.). (1982). The Avant-Garde Tradition in Literature. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books.

Slethaug, G. E. (1993). The Play of the Double in Postmodern American Fiction. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press.

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Richard Brautigan: Scarlatti Tilt

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