This story in Brautigan’s Trout Fishing in America creates an incredibly displeasing and repulsive image in my mind. The meaning of the combination of the putrid environment and the distant sexual encounter remain somewhat mysterious to me.
The visual descriptions of the hot springs discourage me from wanting to swim in the water. The path of the spring is covered in “bright orange scum,” and the tub itself is filled with “green slime growing around the edges” and “dozens of dead fish…their bodies has been turned white by death.” These are the kinds of things that people don’t like to touch, yet Brautigan turns them into a kind of attraction. The narrator takes his family into the water and enjoys the temperature, not at all worried about the rotting surroundings. This is understandable; perhaps he is not bothered by the slimy filth as I assume most would be.
The narrator’s sexual encounter with “[his] woman” is what bothers me more about the passage. The woman realizes that the narrator has started to “get ideas,” so she puts the baby in the car. The narrator says that the “deerflies were at her, and then it was [his] turn.” This line both implies that the flies’ biting her is sexual in a way, and that what he does with her is no different. It makes him seem parasitic, and it makes the encounter one-sided. His pleasure is the only thing that matters.
Throughout the entire passage, there is no mention of the woman’s happiness. In fact, she is only referred to by the narrator as “my woman,” as if she is his possession and unworthy of a name. There is no language that would cause a reader to think this man is overly controlling and chauvinistic, but the absence of any feeling toward her is a hint. He comments on the dead fish and green slime several times, but the only time he talks about her is when a dead fish floats under her neck or when she tells him she doesn’t have her diaphragm. Instead of worrying about her pleasure or whether she was satisfied, the narrator decides to contemplate his sperm mingling with the dead fish.
I cannot figure out how this particular passage speaks to my vision of San Francisco. I can’t seem to get past the parts I dislike, but I also assume there is something important that I fail to understand about it. Trout Fishing in America and the narrator are separate entities, and I am still uncertain about the function of the narrator in the series of stories.
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I felt your interpretation of Worsewick was very interesting. Like you, I also found the Worsewick Hot Springs to be extremely unappealing. These are waters that if encountered, I would not be swimming, let alone having a sexual experience in. I also would not allow my child to enter these waters, but it seems like a place the narrator has been to many times. This may be why he is so comfortable with the disgusting surroundings.
I also agree that the sexual encounter is very one-sided and selfish. His girlfriend is described as something that is there just for him, and like you said, a "possession."
I am also not sure of how this relates to San Francisco, except for Brautigan being a San Francisco writer. Worsewick Hot Springs is also not located in California but in Idaho. I think it is related to other sections in Trout Fishing in America only because the woman and her baby are described elsewhere. The poem did not seem to do anything for me except create vivid images in my mind that I did not necessarily want to create.
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