In watermelon sugar the deeds were done…
Have you ever had a dream in which nothing really makes sense, but in dream state your brain accepts everything as perfectly logical? And you don’t really want to wake up and return to reality? That’s kind of what it’s like reading Richard Brautigan’s 1968 novel In Watermelon Sugar.
Set in a place called watermelon sugar, this novel depicts the communal lifestyle of those who co-inhabit and share meals together at a place called iDEATH. In watermelon sugar time seems to move more slowly. The sun shines a different color every day, and nearly everything is made out of watermelon sugar. It makes sense when you read the book…kind of.
Our Nameless Narrator
Brautigan presents this novel as his narrator’s attempt to write a book (the first one written in watermelon sugar in 35 years!). The unnamed narrator writes with a childlike simplicity, mostly just recording what he observes with very little commentary or emotion. This simplistic writing style frequently adds to the bizarre humor of this novel, as his monotone is often in contrast with the events he describes. He writes about his parents being eaten by talking tigers with the same level of interest as what he has for breakfast.
At the same time, this writing style has the reverse effect of elevating the simple. This leads to some rather nice passages, like the two-sentence-long chapter “Hands”:
We walked back to iDEATH, holding hands. Hands are very nice things, especially after they have travelled back from making love.
In Watermelon Sugar
Strawberry Pancakes In Watermelon Sugar
One of the focuses of this slim novel is the love triangle between the narrator, his current girlfriend, Pauline, and his ex-girlfriend, Margaret. Pauline does a lot of the cooking for meals at iDEATH. One morning she offers to make whatever the narrator wants for their communal breakfast.
“I sat in the kitchen at iDEATH, watching Pauline make the batter for hot cakes, my favourite food. She put a lot of flour and eggs and good things into a great blue bowl and stirred the batter with a big wooden spoon, almost too large for her hand.”
In Watermelon Sugar
They eat the pancakes with strawberries gathered in watermelon sugar. For this recipe, I chose to make strawberry pancakes. I added mint and white chocolate to the pancakes, making them more loosely inspired by the book. I chose to use the strawberries as a topping rather than cook them in the pancakes. This keeps them from turning warm and mushy. The pink food coloring is entirely optional, but also super fun!
