Try some Thomas Pynchon.

Tom Robbins is more over the top hippy than Braut but while his books are marginal his sentences are exceptional and worth the time to read.

If you liked Vineland, try Inherent Vice, same author, even (although you'll have to pay attention) some of the same characters, and like Vineland you can think about it as much or as little as you like. You can read it just for texture, and get only every three jokes Pynchon makes, and it's still great.

Hmmmm... Like Tom, Brautigan does remind me of Tom Robbins – maybe try one of the early ones? And just going back to the era, also maybe Terry Southern’s Magic Christian. Maybe Emmet Grogan's Ringolevio, for an interesting bit of non(?)fiction about life in the Haight...

I also wonder if you might enjoy Robert Walser’s prose: there is something charming and slightly uncanny about it, and it definitely takes you gently into a different headspace: try his short stories, maybe. Likewise, I really enjoy David Markson’s stuff, though I’d have a hard time tell you why. He does what I guess you could call de-constructed novels – I don’t know, I’m not up on my lit-crit – but I find them consistently interesting, which I guess is the point. Try The Last Novel, This is Not a Novel, or Vanishing Point. Which reminds me of that intriguing collection of short short bits – Felix Feneon’s Novels in Three Lines. Simplicity, precision, and some hauntingly good gestures at the unspoken. I guess someone just did a graphic novel version of this, which I have yet to see, but I think the point is to enjoy the words.

Based on what you say about On The Road it sounds like you’re not too crazy about the Beats, though they do have that tossed off style, so you might sample some of the others, like John Clellon Holmes, or maybe try Richard Farina. Likewise, you’re not liking Burroughs makes me wonder if you’d like David Ohle’s Motorman, which is pretty amazingly inventive, and also intense and a bit claustrophobic. Salvador Dali wrote a novel – Hidden Faces – that is also something to try.

Maybe Raymond Queneau’s Zazie in the Metro. Maybe Bohumil Hrabal’s Too Loud a Solitude. Maybe Nabokov’s Pale Fire. Maybe Kevin Sampsell. Maybe John Fante or Bukowski. Mabye Jerome Charyn’s Isaac Sidel books. Maybe Stanley Crawford’s Gascoyne. Maybe Tao Lin (or maybe not!) Maybe Hunter. You see – I’m just making a little pile here, for you to kick over and pick through. Or not. Hell, I don't know.

I bet Paul has some good ideas on this one...

Have you read any Haruki Murakami? HIs work reminds of Braughtigan in the simplicity of writing, and the offbeat world his characters inhabit.

The Alligator Report by W. P. Kinsella is the most Brautiganish non-Brautigan I've read: it ranks among my favorites of Kinsella books.

Thanks by the way for mentioning a Daniel Odier book. I hadn't read him since his Alba and Gorodish novels under the Delacorta nom de plume and lost track of him until now...

It's been a long time since I've read any Brautigan, but the first book that came to mind is William Kotzwinkle's "The Fan Man."

I had to look up the plot because it's been 15 years since I've read it, but according to Stan Willis on Amazon (heh), it's about "the sleazy misadventures of a self absorbed hippie named Horse Badorties who lives in the East Village and tries to sell small battery powered fans which he hopes to use in his Love Concert at a church. It's written in the stream of consciousness style and captures the end of the hippie era when people began to drop out without tuning in or turning on."

I think that's a great synopsis based on my memory of the book. Anyway, it was one of my favorites when I was in college and I'd recommend it.

Also, Kotzwinkle went onto write ET.