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Still Life with Woodpecker
This is a sort of a love story that takes place inside a pack of Camel cigarettes. It reveals the purpose of the moon, and paints a portrait of contemporary society that includes powerful Arabs, exiled royalty and pregnant cheerleaders. It also deals with the problem of redheads.
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First published October 1, 1980
2113 people are currently reading
37959 people want to read
About the author
Tom Robbins
80 books7,220 followersThomas Eugene Robbins was an American novelist. His most notable works are "seriocomedies" (also known as "comedy dramas"). Robbins lived in La Conner, Washington from 1970, where he wrote nine of his books. His 1976 novel Even Cowgirls Get the Blues was adapted into the 1993 film version by Gus Van Sant. His last work, published in 2014, was Tibetan Peach Pie, a self-declared "un-memoir".
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 3,678 reviews
April 30, 2008
I first read this book in 1981 or thereabouts when I was married to my first husband. I had three children and felt completely trapped in a dangerously toxic, dead-end relationship that I saw no way out of.
Still Life with Woodpecker, more than anything else, is about CHOICE. About using it, about the freedom it offers, and about being willing to accept the consequences for exerting it. Sometimes I would be reading and have to close the book up suddenly because I couldn't handle the implications in my own life. I desperately needed to make changes that I didn't know how to make, and I didn't see any way out of my life--I really felt I was living in hell. But I would pick the book back up, following the adventures of Princess Leigh-Cherie and the outlaw Bernard Mickey Wrangle as they figure out a way to make love stay. And I swear that in reading that book, I could pick myself up, dust myself off, and start over again. Ultimately, reading Still Life with Woodpecker catalyzed me and helped me to find the strength to leave that relationship and save myself and my children. Who could ask anything more of literature than that it save your life? Or at least inspire you to choose to save it?
Still Life with Woodpecker, more than anything else, is about CHOICE. About using it, about the freedom it offers, and about being willing to accept the consequences for exerting it. Sometimes I would be reading and have to close the book up suddenly because I couldn't handle the implications in my own life. I desperately needed to make changes that I didn't know how to make, and I didn't see any way out of my life--I really felt I was living in hell. But I would pick the book back up, following the adventures of Princess Leigh-Cherie and the outlaw Bernard Mickey Wrangle as they figure out a way to make love stay. And I swear that in reading that book, I could pick myself up, dust myself off, and start over again. Ultimately, reading Still Life with Woodpecker catalyzed me and helped me to find the strength to leave that relationship and save myself and my children. Who could ask anything more of literature than that it save your life? Or at least inspire you to choose to save it?
October 19, 2020
A strange love affair of liberal and anarchistic lead protagonists, reflecting everything out of the Punch and Judy show called politics and it´s strange and illogical ideological foundations.
The woodpecker is such a badass antihero, and his pairing with the redhead hippie girl leads to loads of great plot options Robbins uses to make fun of everything and adds an extra load of filth, sex, and wordplays to the mix to make it even grittier. His language, comparable with some rare ingenious novelists such as Simmons, Irving, etc., makes it difficult to choose if one wants to enjoy the flow of letters or the underlying themes Robbins throws at the reader all the time, because altogether characterization, introspections, and weird world views of the protagonist and the universe around them are astonishing.
I know that I know nothing and so many of the political and some economic innuendos won´t find their target in my mind, because I´ve stopped dealing with the lunacy and stupidity of both fringe sciences a while ago, but readers who are big in history will maybe find many real life inspirations. Although that´s just an assumption, it´s also possible that most of it is purely fictional, but I deem Robbins too clever to not use the option of owning this dysfunctional system. Not to forget the symbolism, individualism, how society deals with progressive tendencies, and how stupid people become by following a mixture of primate and wolf pack instincts.
That´s one of these novels that could get reduced in quality by a bad translation, because some of the puns might get lost, but the German edition is splendid and I´ve read some of the best picks of the English, even better edition some time ago, where Robbin's ingenuity in playing with words is shown in his perfectionistic work attitude. The man might be a stoner, but hell, if some of the greatest writing of all times come out of widening the horizon and the writer doesn´t go completely bonkers, more of the creative heads should try it. It´s not as if I would also suggest it if they would all get seriously mentally ill after a few works, just to be able to enjoy their novels, because people told me that would be antisocial, egoistic, and sociopathic.
Tropes show how literature is conceptualized and created and which mixture of elements makes works and genres unique:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...
The woodpecker is such a badass antihero, and his pairing with the redhead hippie girl leads to loads of great plot options Robbins uses to make fun of everything and adds an extra load of filth, sex, and wordplays to the mix to make it even grittier. His language, comparable with some rare ingenious novelists such as Simmons, Irving, etc., makes it difficult to choose if one wants to enjoy the flow of letters or the underlying themes Robbins throws at the reader all the time, because altogether characterization, introspections, and weird world views of the protagonist and the universe around them are astonishing.
I know that I know nothing and so many of the political and some economic innuendos won´t find their target in my mind, because I´ve stopped dealing with the lunacy and stupidity of both fringe sciences a while ago, but readers who are big in history will maybe find many real life inspirations. Although that´s just an assumption, it´s also possible that most of it is purely fictional, but I deem Robbins too clever to not use the option of owning this dysfunctional system. Not to forget the symbolism, individualism, how society deals with progressive tendencies, and how stupid people become by following a mixture of primate and wolf pack instincts.
That´s one of these novels that could get reduced in quality by a bad translation, because some of the puns might get lost, but the German edition is splendid and I´ve read some of the best picks of the English, even better edition some time ago, where Robbin's ingenuity in playing with words is shown in his perfectionistic work attitude. The man might be a stoner, but hell, if some of the greatest writing of all times come out of widening the horizon and the writer doesn´t go completely bonkers, more of the creative heads should try it. It´s not as if I would also suggest it if they would all get seriously mentally ill after a few works, just to be able to enjoy their novels, because people told me that would be antisocial, egoistic, and sociopathic.
Tropes show how literature is conceptualized and created and which mixture of elements makes works and genres unique:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...
August 19, 2008
Let me first tell you that I dislike modern jazz. You know the type: the free-form kind that only musicians can appreciate. I dislike it because it abandons all the structural qualities that I find appealing about old-fashioned jazz and is all about technical skill. What does this have to do with this book? The comparison came to me early on in reading this book which I begrudgingly forced myself to finish: I liken modern jazz to watching a performer masturbate musically on stage, getting off on playing his crazy stuff and proving he's really talented, but ultimately seeming to be having more fun than his audience. Reading Still Life with Woodpecker felt kind of like watching Tom Robbins masturbate. And with the narrative flowing regularly into explicit and colorful descriptions of sexual acts, that feeling was felt in more ways than normally felt about jazz musicians.
The book flows in a somewhat stream-of-consciousness sort of way, with Robbins sometimes interrupting the narrative to bitch about his new-fangled typewriter. That got old for me very quickly, but apparently not for Robbins. All the while I really felt like he was having a grand old time writing this. That's great, that the artist is enjoying his work. Let's hope that all artists get to enjoy their work. But most artists can enjoy their work without me wanting to punch them in the face because of their smugness. Ultimately, I guess that's what bothered me the most about this novel. The smugness. Having never read anything else by him, including his most famous novel, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, I could be way off the mark here, but it really seemed to me like after the extensive acclaim from Cowgirls, he was using this novel to test the waters as to how much he could fuck around in a book and have critics still eat out of his hand. Either that or he was trying too hard to write something that would be as well-received as Cowgirls. Not sure.
In any case, I know there are some people who absolutely loved this book. I was no one of them. I really wanted to enjoy it. It sounded great. There were a lot of interesting and colorful uses of the English language in the book, and interesting plot devices, but ultimately it left me cold. Ice cold.
The book flows in a somewhat stream-of-consciousness sort of way, with Robbins sometimes interrupting the narrative to bitch about his new-fangled typewriter. That got old for me very quickly, but apparently not for Robbins. All the while I really felt like he was having a grand old time writing this. That's great, that the artist is enjoying his work. Let's hope that all artists get to enjoy their work. But most artists can enjoy their work without me wanting to punch them in the face because of their smugness. Ultimately, I guess that's what bothered me the most about this novel. The smugness. Having never read anything else by him, including his most famous novel, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, I could be way off the mark here, but it really seemed to me like after the extensive acclaim from Cowgirls, he was using this novel to test the waters as to how much he could fuck around in a book and have critics still eat out of his hand. Either that or he was trying too hard to write something that would be as well-received as Cowgirls. Not sure.
In any case, I know there are some people who absolutely loved this book. I was no one of them. I really wanted to enjoy it. It sounded great. There were a lot of interesting and colorful uses of the English language in the book, and interesting plot devices, but ultimately it left me cold. Ice cold.
July 28, 2023
Romantic outlaws move in mysterious ways…
But nevertheless outlaws are prone to fall in love…
A book no more contains love than a clock contains time… But book may serve to measure love as clock serves to measure time. And Still Life with Woodpecker is this kind of book…
Book contains just words but love can contain everything.
Outlaws, like lovers, poets, and tubercular composers who cough blood onto piano keys, do their finest work in the slippery rays of the moon…
But nevertheless outlaws are prone to fall in love…
A book no more contains love than a clock contains time… But book may serve to measure love as clock serves to measure time. And Still Life with Woodpecker is this kind of book…
A romantic, however, recognizes that the movement, the organization, the institution, the revolution, if it comes to that, is merely a backdrop for his or her own personal drama and that to pretend otherwise is to surrender freedom and will to the totalitarian impulse, is to replace psychological reality with sociological illusion…
Book contains just words but love can contain everything.
May 30, 2014
Reading this book is like being invited over to someone's house for dinner, and finding that they're serving you a buffet of artisanal maraschino cherries they've made. At first you're like, "Oh, how whimsical!" Then you're like "Oh, and you flavored this one with cardamom! How clever of you." And then you're like "Oh, another one? I really shouldn't..." and as your host just keeps piling on artisanal maraschino cherries they crafted from hand telling you how each one corresponds to an orgasm by a famous historical figure, you're like "No dude seriously, this is getting fucking irritating."
That was this book for me. No denying Robbins has a way with words, but the way is over-engineered, contrived, and extremely irritating.
Also, the way he writes about female genitalia grosses me out. It reminds me of how an 14yo honors student virginal boy would talk about genitals. Impeccably worded, very clever, and sort of clueless and icky. I loves me some vulva, but am not interested in "folds of saltmeat and peach... with a seaweed trigger."
That was this book for me. No denying Robbins has a way with words, but the way is over-engineered, contrived, and extremely irritating.
Also, the way he writes about female genitalia grosses me out. It reminds me of how an 14yo honors student virginal boy would talk about genitals. Impeccably worded, very clever, and sort of clueless and icky. I loves me some vulva, but am not interested in "folds of saltmeat and peach... with a seaweed trigger."
October 4, 2018
"Ο έρωτας είναι ο ύστατος παράνομος. Απλώς δεν παραδέχεται κανονισμούς. Το περισσότερο που εμείς μπορούμε να κάνουμε είναι να προσυπογράψουμε σαν συνεργοί του. Αντί να ορκιζόμαστε τιμή και υπακοή, καλύτερα να ορκιζόμαστε βοήθεια και παρακίνηση. Αυτό σημαίνει πως η ασφάλεια αποκλείεται. Οι λέξεις "κάνω" και "για να μείνει" καταντάνε ακατάλληλες. Ο έρωτας δε δέχεται δεσμά. Αγαπάμε ελεύθερα και τζάμπα".
Απολαμβάνω.
Είναι η πρώτη λέξη, η πρώτη αίσθηση, το πρώτο σχόλιο, που μου έρχεται στο μυαλό, όταν χαράζεται η μνήμη μου και νιώθω τον εαυτό μου να ταξιδεύει και να βελτιώνεται, μέσα απο το λογοτεχνικό σεληνιακό πανδαιμόνιο του
Τομ Ρόμπινς.
Απόλαυση, ταύτιση, ταξινόμηση ονείρων, απόρριψη σωτήρων, και επαγρύπνηση, σύμφωνα με τους αληθινούς εμπειρικούς στοχασμούς που προσφέρει η γραφή του αφειδώλευτα.
Η χρυσή μετριότητα μιας ευφυέστατης και μεγαλειώδους φιλοσοφίας εισβάλει σε κάθε στοχασμό που μπορεί να δημιουργηθεί, σε κάθε λογής και διαλογής εγκεφαλικά κύτταρα, ώσπου γίνεται ενα καταπληκτικό ελιξίριο βοήθειας και παρακίνησης προς όλους τους αδένες του ανθρώπινου σώματος.
Η γραφή του του Ρόμπινς χορηγείται απο τα παγκόσμια ινστιτούτα ψυχολογικής αποπαρασίτωσης ως νάμα μαλακτικό που θεραπεύει και αγαπάει ελεύθερα και τσάμπα την έκκριση ορμονών, με βάση το φως που αντανακλάται στον καθρέφτη της σελήνης.
Η είσοδος στον κόσμο αυτής της λογοτεχνικής αποδόμησης των συμβάσεων παρέχει στους αναγνώστες κάτι που οι μυστικιστές θα ισχυριζόταν μόνο για διαλογισμό.
Μια ανανέωση του νου, όχι μέσω της ακινησίας του συλλογισμού αλλά μέσω της ψυχικής γυμναστικής που παρέχεται δωρεάν και βρίσκεται μόνο στα δικά του μυθιστόρηματα.
Είναι η σοφία που κρύβεται μέσα ένα πακέτο τσιγάρων, μέσα σε άδοξα σκεπτικά και περιθώρια βελτίωσης.
Μέσα σε πτήσεις φαντασίας, δύσκολες αντιστοιχίες νοημάτων και συμβολικές ανατροπές μέσα και έξω απο το χώρο, μπροστά και πίσω στο χρόνο, μέχρι να εκτεθούν με ολοκληρωτισμό οι πτυχές του πολιτισμού.
Αυτός ο συγγραφέας πραγματικά ανήκει σε ένα ανώτερο επίπεδο στην παγκόσμια κλάση της φαντασίας και των οραματιστών.
Κι αν ο Τρυποκάρυδος θεωρείται ο μέσος όρος των δυνατοτήτων του, συμπερασματικά, η λοξή κοσμοθεωρία του και η πυκνή απο κάθε άποψη πνευματική του προσέγγιση στην δημιουργία λόγου, είναι επικών αναλογιών.
Δεν είναι εύκολο να βρεθεί ανάμεσα στα μυθιστορήματα ένα σύγχρονο αριστούργημα διαφορετικών εποχών.
Ο Ρόμπινς τα καταφέρνει αριστουργηματικά διότι είναι ένας γλυκός αξεπέραστος παράφρονας.
Ένας βίαιος ιππότης που ξεπερνάει αξιοσημείωτα κάθε όριο και γιορτάζει μαζί με τους παραλογισμούς της σύγχρονης ζωής.
Ζωγραφίζει σε έναν ρουά ματ καμβά ανεξίτηλα πορτραίτα ανθρώπινων ζωών σε κίνηση, απο αξέχαστα μοναδικούς και ατρόμητους χαρακτήρες, που είναι ανύπαρκτοι μα αποτελούν παράδειγμα προς μίμηση.
Αυτή είναι η μέθοδος της λατρεμένης τρέλας του. Είναι αφόρητα προβλέψιμος και αξιοποιεί πράγματα της καθημερινότητας που χωρίς αυτόν θα
προσπερνούσαμε, θα τα αγνοούσαμε ως επουσιώδη. Όμως εκείνος περνάει απο το σφαγείο της καθημερινής ζωής και αναδεικνύει ήρωες και καταστάσεις που αναγνωρίζονται σε όλα τα παράλογα χρώματα ��αι τις αποχρώσεις ως γεγονότα της σύγχρονης κουλτούρας.
Ο «Τρυποκάρυδος» είναι μια λαϊκή Βίβλος για τον έρωτα, τη φιλία, την ελευθερία και την βομβιστική αξία των παράνομων υλικών που πηγάζουν απο τη Σελήνη και ακυρώνουν τη δύναμη του ήλιου.
Είναι μια μαύρη πυραμίδα που αποτελεί το διάδρομο απογείωσης των ψαγμένων πνευμάτων, όταν τολμούν μια βόλτα στο φεγγάρι.
Πάνω απο όλα είναι μια δυνατή ιστορία αγάπης που υφαίνει ένα θαυμάσιο έργο τέχνης και καλύπτεται απο μεταμφιεσμένα ψιθυριστά λόγια λαγνείας και ανατρεπτική σοφία.
Και... όποιος μη γνήσιος άνθρωπος ή μαλάκας ανθρωποκοινωνιολόγος πει το αντίθετο να καταντήσει να του τηγανίσουν τη γλώσσα στη θράκα της κόλασης των ψευταράδων..!!
Καλή ανάγνωση
Πολλούς ασπασμούς!!
Απολαμβάνω.
Είναι η πρώτη λέξη, η πρώτη αίσθηση, το πρώτο σχόλιο, που μου έρχεται στο μυαλό, όταν χαράζεται η μνήμη μου και νιώθω τον εαυτό μου να ταξιδεύει και να βελτιώνεται, μέσα απο το λογοτεχνικό σεληνιακό πανδαιμόνιο του
Τομ Ρόμπινς.
Απόλαυση, ταύτιση, ταξινόμηση ονείρων, απόρριψη σωτήρων, και επαγρύπνηση, σύμφωνα με τους αληθινούς εμπειρικούς στοχασμούς που προσφέρει η γραφή του αφειδώλευτα.
Η χρυσή μετριότητα μιας ευφυέστατης και μεγαλειώδους φιλοσοφίας εισβάλει σε κάθε στοχασμό που μπορεί να δημιουργηθεί, σε κάθε λογής και διαλογής εγκεφαλικά κύτταρα, ώσπου γίνεται ενα καταπληκτικό ελιξίριο βοήθειας και παρακίνησης προς όλους τους αδένες του ανθρώπινου σώματος.
Η γραφή του του Ρόμπινς χορηγείται απο τα παγκόσμια ινστιτούτα ψυχολογικής αποπαρασίτωσης ως νάμα μαλακτικό που θεραπεύει και αγαπάει ελεύθερα και τσάμπα την έκκριση ορμονών, με βάση το φως που αντανακλάται στον καθρέφτη της σελήνης.
Η είσοδος στον κόσμο αυτής της λογοτεχνικής αποδόμησης των συμβάσεων παρέχει στους αναγνώστες κάτι που οι μυστικιστές θα ισχυριζόταν μόνο για διαλογισμό.
Μια ανανέωση του νου, όχι μέσω της ακινησίας του συλλογισμού αλλά μέσω της ψυχικής γυμναστικής που παρέχεται δωρεάν και βρίσκεται μόνο στα δικά του μυθιστόρηματα.
Είναι η σοφία που κρύβεται μέσα ένα πακέτο τσιγάρων, μέσα σε άδοξα σκεπτικά και περιθώρια βελτίωσης.
Μέσα σε πτήσεις φαντασίας, δύσκολες αντιστοιχίες νοημάτων και συμβολικές ανατροπές μέσα και έξω απο το χώρο, μπροστά και πίσω στο χρόνο, μέχρι να εκτεθούν με ολοκληρωτισμό οι πτυχές του πολιτισμού.
Αυτός ο συγγραφέας πραγματικά ανήκει σε ένα ανώτερο επίπεδο στην παγκόσμια κλάση της φαντασίας και των οραματιστών.
Κι αν ο Τρυποκάρυδος θεωρείται ο μέσος όρος των δυνατοτήτων του, συμπερασματικά, η λοξή κοσμοθεωρία του και η πυκνή απο κάθε άποψη πνευματική του προσέγγιση στην δημιουργία λόγου, είναι επικών αναλογιών.
Δεν είναι εύκολο να βρεθεί ανάμεσα στα μυθιστορήματα ένα σύγχρονο αριστούργημα διαφορετικών εποχών.
Ο Ρόμπινς τα καταφέρνει αριστουργηματικά διότι είναι ένας γλυκός αξεπέραστος παράφρονας.
Ένας βίαιος ιππότης που ξεπερνάει αξιοσημείωτα κάθε όριο και γιορτάζει μαζί με τους παραλογισμούς της σύγχρονης ζωής.
Ζωγραφίζει σε έναν ρουά ματ καμβά ανεξίτηλα πορτραίτα ανθρώπινων ζωών σε κίνηση, απο αξέχαστα μοναδικούς και ατρόμητους χαρακτήρες, που είναι ανύπαρκτοι μα αποτελούν παράδειγμα προς μίμηση.
Αυτή είναι η μέθοδος της λατρεμένης τρέλας του. Είναι αφόρητα προβλέψιμος και αξιοποιεί πράγματα της καθημερινότητας που χωρίς αυτόν θα
προσπερνούσαμε, θα τα αγνοούσαμε ως επουσιώδη. Όμως εκείνος περνάει απο το σφαγείο της καθημερινής ζωής και αναδεικνύει ήρωες και καταστάσεις που αναγνωρίζονται σε όλα τα παράλογα χρώματα ��αι τις αποχρώσεις ως γεγονότα της σύγχρονης κουλτούρας.
Ο «Τρυποκάρυδος» είναι μια λαϊκή Βίβλος για τον έρωτα, τη φιλία, την ελευθερία και την βομβιστική αξία των παράνομων υλικών που πηγάζουν απο τη Σελήνη και ακυρώνουν τη δύναμη του ήλιου.
Είναι μια μαύρη πυραμίδα που αποτελεί το διάδρομο απογείωσης των ψαγμένων πνευμάτων, όταν τολμούν μια βόλτα στο φεγγάρι.
Πάνω απο όλα είναι μια δυνατή ιστορία αγάπης που υφαίνει ένα θαυμάσιο έργο τέχνης και καλύπτεται απο μεταμφιεσμένα ψιθυριστά λόγια λαγνείας και ανατρεπτική σοφία.
Και... όποιος μη γνήσιος άνθρωπος ή μαλάκας ανθρωποκοινωνιολόγος πει το αντίθετο να καταντήσει να του τηγανίσουν τη γλώσσα στη θράκα της κόλασης των ψευταράδων..!!
Καλή ανάγνωση
Πολλούς ασπασμούς!!
June 27, 2007
I learned that if you have red hair you can write a crappy book and people will love it. I could have written this book in college.
The jokes were forced, the premise was too ridiculous to take seriously, and the payoff was weak, weak, weak. It was little more than a sophmoric creative writing assignment taken, like, way too far.
Plus if you can't write female characters to be anything more then complex sexual fantasies you should just not even try. I got the sense that the lengthy passages discussing the main characters "flower" were written johnson-in-hand. In fact 'mastubatory' would be a good word to describe this crap both literary and otherwise.
The jokes were forced, the premise was too ridiculous to take seriously, and the payoff was weak, weak, weak. It was little more than a sophmoric creative writing assignment taken, like, way too far.
Plus if you can't write female characters to be anything more then complex sexual fantasies you should just not even try. I got the sense that the lengthy passages discussing the main characters "flower" were written johnson-in-hand. In fact 'mastubatory' would be a good word to describe this crap both literary and otherwise.
June 17, 2011
Who knows how to make love stay?
1. Tell love you are going to the Junior's Deli on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn to pick up a cheesecake, and if love stays, it can have half. It will stay.
2. Tell love you want a memento of it and obtain a lock of its hair. Burn the hair in a dime-store incense burner with yin/yang symbols on three sides. Face southwest. Talk fast over the burning hair in a convincingly exotic language. Remove the ashes of the burnt hair and use them to paint a mustache on your face. Find love. Tell it you are someone new. It will stay.
3. Wake love up in the middle of the night. Tell it the world is on fire. Dash to the bedroom window and pee out of it. Casually return to bed and assure love that everything is going to be all right. Fall asleep. Love will be there in the morning.
1. Tell love you are going to the Junior's Deli on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn to pick up a cheesecake, and if love stays, it can have half. It will stay.
2. Tell love you want a memento of it and obtain a lock of its hair. Burn the hair in a dime-store incense burner with yin/yang symbols on three sides. Face southwest. Talk fast over the burning hair in a convincingly exotic language. Remove the ashes of the burnt hair and use them to paint a mustache on your face. Find love. Tell it you are someone new. It will stay.
3. Wake love up in the middle of the night. Tell it the world is on fire. Dash to the bedroom window and pee out of it. Casually return to bed and assure love that everything is going to be all right. Fall asleep. Love will be there in the morning.
Read
April 21, 2008As my lack of stars indicate, this book is ok. However, the Best thing about the book is the following quote - one of the most influential in my life:
"How can one person be more real than any other? Well, some people do hide and others seek. Maybe those who are in hiding--escaping encounters, avoiding surprises, protecting their property, ignoring their fantasies, restricting their feelings, sitting out the Pan pipe hootchy-kootch of experience--maybe those people, people who won't talk to rednecks, or if they're rednecks won't talk to intellectuals, people who're afraid to get their shoes muddy or their noses wet, afraid to eat what they crave, afraid to drink Mexican water, afraid to bet a long shot to win, afraid to hitchhike, jaywalk, honky-tonk, cogitate, osculate, levitate, rock it, bop it, sock it, or bark at the moon, maybe such people are simply inauthentic, and maybe the jackleg humanist who says differently is due to have his tongue fried on the hot slabs of Liar's Hell. Some folks hide, and some folks seek, and seeking, when it's mindless, neurotic, desperate, or pusillanimous can be a form of hiding. But there are folks who want to know and aren't afraid to look and won't turn tail should they find it--and if they never do, they'll have a good time anyway because nothing, neither the terrible truth not the absence of it, is going to cheat them out of one honest breath of earth's sweet gas."
"How can one person be more real than any other? Well, some people do hide and others seek. Maybe those who are in hiding--escaping encounters, avoiding surprises, protecting their property, ignoring their fantasies, restricting their feelings, sitting out the Pan pipe hootchy-kootch of experience--maybe those people, people who won't talk to rednecks, or if they're rednecks won't talk to intellectuals, people who're afraid to get their shoes muddy or their noses wet, afraid to eat what they crave, afraid to drink Mexican water, afraid to bet a long shot to win, afraid to hitchhike, jaywalk, honky-tonk, cogitate, osculate, levitate, rock it, bop it, sock it, or bark at the moon, maybe such people are simply inauthentic, and maybe the jackleg humanist who says differently is due to have his tongue fried on the hot slabs of Liar's Hell. Some folks hide, and some folks seek, and seeking, when it's mindless, neurotic, desperate, or pusillanimous can be a form of hiding. But there are folks who want to know and aren't afraid to look and won't turn tail should they find it--and if they never do, they'll have a good time anyway because nothing, neither the terrible truth not the absence of it, is going to cheat them out of one honest breath of earth's sweet gas."
March 24, 2017
Πρώτη μου επαφή με βιβλίο του Τομ Ρόμπινς, τα συμπεράσματα μου είναι απλά και είναι τα εξής, λάτρεψα την αφήγηση όμως αδιαφόρησα παντελώς για την ιστορία που μου αφηγούνταν.
«Ο Άλμπερ Καμυ έγραψε πως το μόνο σοβαρό ερώτημα είναι αν πρέπει ν’ αυτοκτονήσεις ή όχι.
Ο Τομ Ρόμπινς έγραψε πως το μόνο σοβαρό ερώτημα είναι αν ο χρόνος έχει αρχή και τέλος.
Σίγουρα όταν το έγραψε ο Καμύ θα’ χε στραβοκοιμηθεί κι ο Ρόμπινς θα’ ξεχάσει να βάλει ξυπνητήρι.
Ένα είναι το σοβαρό ερώτημα. Κι αυτό είναι:
Ποιος ξέρει να κάνει την αγάπη παντοτινή; Απάντησε μου σ’ αυτό και θα σου πω αν πρέπει ν’ αυτοκτονήσεις ή όχι.
Απάντησε μου σ’ αυτό και θα σε καθησυχάσω για την αρχή και το τέλος του χρόνου.
Απάντησε μου σ’ αυτό και θα σου αποκαλύψω αν έχει λόγο να υπάρχει το φεγγάρι.»
σσ. 14-15
«Ο Άλμπερ Καμυ έγραψε πως το μόνο σοβαρό ερώτημα είναι αν πρέπει ν’ αυτοκτονήσεις ή όχι.
Ο Τομ Ρόμπινς έγραψε πως το μόνο σοβαρό ερώτημα είναι αν ο χρόνος έχει αρχή και τέλος.
Σίγουρα όταν το έγραψε ο Καμύ θα’ χε στραβοκοιμηθεί κι ο Ρόμπινς θα’ ξεχάσει να βάλει ξυπνητήρι.
Ένα είναι το σοβαρό ερώτημα. Κι αυτό είναι:
Ποιος ξέρει να κάνει την αγάπη παντοτινή; Απάντησε μου σ’ αυτό και θα σου πω αν πρέπει ν’ αυτοκτονήσεις ή όχι.
Απάντησε μου σ’ αυτό και θα σε καθησυχάσω για την αρχή και το τέλος του χρόνου.
Απάντησε μου σ’ αυτό και θα σου αποκαλύψω αν έχει λόγο να υπάρχει το φεγγάρι.»
σσ. 14-15
February 21, 2022
Τί είναι τελικά ο "Τρυποκάρυδος";
"Ο Τρυποκάρυδος είναι μια ερωτική ιστορία που εκτυλίσσεται μέσα σ' ένα πακέτο τσιγάρα Κάμελ".
Επέστρεψα μετά από χρόνια στον Τρυποκάρυδο του τόσο γλυκά "τρελού" Τομ Ρόμπινς για να αποκαταστήσω μια αδικία. Σε πρώτη ανάγνωση (στα πλαίσια κακού timing και έλλειψης συγκέντρωσης) ,αυτό το βιβλίο μου είχε φανεί απλά πολύ περίπλοκο για τα τότε γούστα μου. Σήμερα ο Ρόμπινς επέστρεψε στον θρόνο που του αξίζει! Τι να πρωτοπει κανεις για την "εκρηκτικά" γοητευτική γραφή του. Αν και εκ πρωτης όψεως μπορεί να φανει "λοξός", κάθε παραξενιά του κρύβει ένα βαθύτερο νόημα που σε καλεί να το ερμηνεύσεις και να το κάνεις κτήμα σου. Είναι η πιο "διαδραστική" γραφή που έχω συναντήσει! Κατά τη γνώμη μου, ο καλύτερος τρόπος για να απολαύσεις αυτο το αναγνωσμα είναι να απαλλαγείς από κάθε είδους εκλογικευμένη προσέγγιση και απλά να το αφήσεις να σε παρασύρει. Ακομα και ο πιο έμπειρος αναγνωστης θα χρειαστεί περισσοτερες από μία αναγνώσεις για να "αποκρυπτογραφήσει" όσο το δυνατόν περισσότερα από τα "μαθήματα" ζωής που απλόχερα μας προσφέρει ο Ρόμπινς και που σίγουρα δεν μας διδάσκουν στα σχολεία.
"Ο έρωτας είν’ ο ύστατος παράνομος. Απλώς δεν παραδέχεται κανονισμούς. Το περισσότερο που εμείς μπορούμε να κάνουμε είναι να προσυπογράψουμε σαν συνεργοί του. Αντί να ορκιζόμαστε τιμή κι υπακοή καλύτερα να ορκιζόμαστε βοήθεια και παρακίνηση. Αυτό σημαίνει πως η ασφάλεια αποκλείεται. Οι λέξεις «κάνω» και «να μείνει» καταντάνε ακατάλληλες. Ο έρωτάς μου για σένα δε δέχεται δεσμά. Σ’ αγαπάω ελεύθερα και τσάμπα."
Δεν θα μπω στη διαδικασία να σου περιγράψω την πλοκή του βιβλίου γιατι δεν θα βγάλεις άκρη! Αν καταφέρεις ομως και μπεις μέσα στον κόσμο του μαγικού ρεαλισμού δεν θα θες να φύγεις ποτέ! Τότε μόνο θα καταλάβεις πως μπορεί να συνδέεται ένα πακέτο τσιγάρα Κάμελ, μια κοκκινομάλλα πριγκίπισσα, ένας βομβιστής και τα μυστήρια των πυραμίδων! Ένα είναι σίγουρο...όταν τελειώσεις τον "Τρυποκάρυδο" θα τον ξεκινήσεις πάλι από την αρχή!
Κλείνοντας σου αφήνω το δικό μου αγαπημένο απόσπασμα :
"Υπάρχει μια ιδιαίτερα απεχθής και απελπιστικά κοινή ασθένεια που λέγεται παρωπιδισμός και που προκαλεί τόσα κακά που θα 'πρεπε να βρίσκεται πάνω πάνω στον κατάλογο ασθενειών το υΔιεθνούς Οργανισμού Υγείας. Ο Παρωπιδισμός είναι μια ασθένεια όπου η αντίληψη περιορίζεται από την άγνοια και διαστρεβλώνεται από τα συμφέροντα. Προκαλείται από ένα μύκητα του οπτικού, που πολλαπλασιάζεται όταν ο εγκέφαλος είναι λιγότερο δραστήριος απ' τον εγωισμό. Παρουσιάζει επιπλοκές όταν εκτίθεται στην πολιτική. Όταν μια καλή ιδέα υποχρεώνεται να περάσει μεσ' απ' τα φίλτρα και τα κομπρεσέρ ενός κοινού παρωπιδισμού, όχι μόνο βγαίνει σε μειωμένη κλίμακα και αξία, αλλά η καινούρια δογματική της υπόσταση φέρνει το αντίθετο ακριβώς αποτέλεσμα από κείνο για το οποίο δημιουργήθηκε.
Γι' αυτό ακριβώς οι ιδέες αγάπης του Ιησού Χριστού γίναν τα απαίσια κλισέ του Χριστιανισμού. Γι' αυτό ακριβώς ουσιαστικά όλες οι επαναστάσεις της Ιστορίας έχουν αποτύχει: οι καταπιεσμένοι, μόλις πάρουν στα χέρια τους την εξουσία, γίνονται καταπιεστές και καταφεύγουνν σε ολοκληρωτικές μεθόδους για να "προστατέψουν" την επανάσταση. Γι' αυτό ακριβώς οι μειονότητες που ζητούν την κατάργηση των προκαταλήψεων πέφτουν στην αδιαλλαξία, οι μειονότητες που ζητούν την ειρήνη πέφτουν στην ένοπλη στράτευση, οι μειονότητες που ζητούν την απελευθέρωση πέφτουν στην εχθρικότητα (η κωλοσφίξη είναι το πρώτο σύμπτωμα της αυτοκαταπίεσης)."
"Ο Τρυποκάρυδος είναι μια ερωτική ιστορία που εκτυλίσσεται μέσα σ' ένα πακέτο τσιγάρα Κάμελ".
Επέστρεψα μετά από χρόνια στον Τρυποκάρυδο του τόσο γλυκά "τρελού" Τομ Ρόμπινς για να αποκαταστήσω μια αδικία. Σε πρώτη ανάγνωση (στα πλαίσια κακού timing και έλλειψης συγκέντρωσης) ,αυτό το βιβλίο μου είχε φανεί απλά πολύ περίπλοκο για τα τότε γούστα μου. Σήμερα ο Ρόμπινς επέστρεψε στον θρόνο που του αξίζει! Τι να πρωτοπει κανεις για την "εκρηκτικά" γοητευτική γραφή του. Αν και εκ πρωτης όψεως μπορεί να φανει "λοξός", κάθε παραξενιά του κρύβει ένα βαθύτερο νόημα που σε καλεί να το ερμηνεύσεις και να το κάνεις κτήμα σου. Είναι η πιο "διαδραστική" γραφή που έχω συναντήσει! Κατά τη γνώμη μου, ο καλύτερος τρόπος για να απολαύσεις αυτο το αναγνωσμα είναι να απαλλαγείς από κάθε είδους εκλογικευμένη προσέγγιση και απλά να το αφήσεις να σε παρασύρει. Ακομα και ο πιο έμπειρος αναγνωστης θα χρειαστεί περισσοτερες από μία αναγνώσεις για να "αποκρυπτογραφήσει" όσο το δυνατόν περισσότερα από τα "μαθήματα" ζωής που απλόχερα μας προσφέρει ο Ρόμπινς και που σίγουρα δεν μας διδάσκουν στα σχολεία.
"Ο έρωτας είν’ ο ύστατος παράνομος. Απλώς δεν παραδέχεται κανονισμούς. Το περισσότερο που εμείς μπορούμε να κάνουμε είναι να προσυπογράψουμε σαν συνεργοί του. Αντί να ορκιζόμαστε τιμή κι υπακοή καλύτερα να ορκιζόμαστε βοήθεια και παρακίνηση. Αυτό σημαίνει πως η ασφάλεια αποκλείεται. Οι λέξεις «κάνω» και «να μείνει» καταντάνε ακατάλληλες. Ο έρωτάς μου για σένα δε δέχεται δεσμά. Σ’ αγαπάω ελεύθερα και τσάμπα."
Δεν θα μπω στη διαδικασία να σου περιγράψω την πλοκή του βιβλίου γιατι δεν θα βγάλεις άκρη! Αν καταφέρεις ομως και μπεις μέσα στον κόσμο του μαγικού ρεαλισμού δεν θα θες να φύγεις ποτέ! Τότε μόνο θα καταλάβεις πως μπορεί να συνδέεται ένα πακέτο τσιγάρα Κάμελ, μια κοκκινομάλλα πριγκίπισσα, ένας βομβιστής και τα μυστήρια των πυραμίδων! Ένα είναι σίγουρο...όταν τελειώσεις τον "Τρυποκάρυδο" θα τον ξεκινήσεις πάλι από την αρχή!
Κλείνοντας σου αφήνω το δικό μου αγαπημένο απόσπασμα :
"Υπάρχει μια ιδιαίτερα απεχθής και απελπιστικά κοινή ασθένεια που λέγεται παρωπιδισμός και που προκαλεί τόσα κακά που θα 'πρεπε να βρίσκεται πάνω πάνω στον κατάλογο ασθενειών το υΔιεθνούς Οργανισμού Υγείας. Ο Παρωπιδισμός είναι μια ασθένεια όπου η αντίληψη περιορίζεται από την άγνοια και διαστρεβλώνεται από τα συμφέροντα. Προκαλείται από ένα μύκητα του οπτικού, που πολλαπλασιάζεται όταν ο εγκέφαλος είναι λιγότερο δραστήριος απ' τον εγωισμό. Παρουσιάζει επιπλοκές όταν εκτίθεται στην πολιτική. Όταν μια καλή ιδέα υποχρεώνεται να περάσει μεσ' απ' τα φίλτρα και τα κομπρεσέρ ενός κοινού παρωπιδισμού, όχι μόνο βγαίνει σε μειωμένη κλίμακα και αξία, αλλά η καινούρια δογματική της υπόσταση φέρνει το αντίθετο ακριβώς αποτέλεσμα από κείνο για το οποίο δημιουργήθηκε.
Γι' αυτό ακριβώς οι ιδέες αγάπης του Ιησού Χριστού γίναν τα απαίσια κλισέ του Χριστιανισμού. Γι' αυτό ακριβώς ουσιαστικά όλες οι επαναστάσεις της Ιστορίας έχουν αποτύχει: οι καταπιεσμένοι, μόλις πάρουν στα χέρια τους την εξουσία, γίνονται καταπιεστές και καταφεύγουνν σε ολοκληρωτικές μεθόδους για να "προστατέψουν" την επανάσταση. Γι' αυτό ακριβώς οι μειονότητες που ζητούν την κατάργηση των προκαταλήψεων πέφτουν στην αδιαλλαξία, οι μειονότητες που ζητούν την ειρήνη πέφτουν στην ένοπλη στράτευση, οι μειονότητες που ζητούν την απελευθέρωση πέφτουν στην εχθρικότητα (η κωλοσφίξη είναι το πρώτο σύμπτωμα της αυτοκαταπίεσης)."
March 13, 2019
Δεύτερο ανάγνωσμα του Ρόμπινς κ οδεύω προς τα αστέρια!!!💫⭐🌟
Αυτός ο άνθρωπος έχει μαγική πένα. Δεν μπορώ να το πω πιο κατανοητά.
Νιώθω πως με πετάνε κάθε φορά σε μια αγεωγράφητη περιοχή την οποία καλούμαι να εξερευνήσω. Ψάχνω τα κομμάτια του πάζλ που είναι κρυμμένα στην περιοχή κ προσπαθώ να τα ενώσω.
Η γραφή του αναντίρρητα αλλόκοτη. Ερωτεύσιμα αλλόκοτη! Μόνο αυτός έχει την ικανότητα να συνδυάσει στοιχεία, αντικείμενα, ιδιότητες που δεν έχουν κανένα κοινό μεταξύ τους κ να δημιουργήσει μια παλέτα συναισθημάτων κ εκρήξεων.
Το αστείρευτο χιούμορ του, η ιδιαίτερη γραφή του, η τεκμηρίωση κ επεξήγηση των γεγονότων γίνονται με εμβρίθεια και διέπουν την συγγραφική του αξία στη μοντέρνα λογοτεχνία.
Αυτός ο άνθρωπος έχει μαγική πένα. Δεν μπορώ να το πω πιο κατανοητά.
Νιώθω πως με πετάνε κάθε φορά σε μια αγεωγράφητη περιοχή την οποία καλούμαι να εξερευνήσω. Ψάχνω τα κομμάτια του πάζλ που είναι κρυμμένα στην περιοχή κ προσπαθώ να τα ενώσω.
Η γραφή του αναντίρρητα αλλόκοτη. Ερωτεύσιμα αλλόκοτη! Μόνο αυτός έχει την ικανότητα να συνδυάσει στοιχεία, αντικείμενα, ιδιότητες που δεν έχουν κανένα κοινό μεταξύ τους κ να δημιουργήσει μια παλέτα συναισθημάτων κ εκρήξεων.
Το αστείρευτο χιούμορ του, η ιδιαίτερη γραφή του, η τεκμηρίωση κ επεξήγηση των γεγονότων γίνονται με εμβρίθεια και διέπουν την συγγραφική του αξία στη μοντέρνα λογοτεχνία.
Read
August 2, 2019Υποσχέθηκα σήμερα το πρωί ότι αν μέχρι τα μεσάνυχτα απόψε διαβάσω λιγότερο από 10 σελίδες το παρατάω. Διάβασα 0. . . .
Δεν μπορώ να πω, προσπάθησα. Και στο πλοίο το πήρα, και στο κρεβάτι το πήρα, και στο βεσέ το πήρα, αλλά που να πάρει· 5 μέρες 106 σελίδες, που ισούται με 21,2 σελίδες την ημέρα, άρα 13 ημέρες χρειάζομαι για να το τελειώσω· άρα αν συνεχίσω θα το τελειώσω στις 23 του μήνα, και το θέμα είναι ότι έχω 3 βιβλία να διαβάσω για το Halloween και αυτό το βιβλίο στέκεται εμπόδιο.
Ίσως να φταίει η χρονική στιγμή, ίσως να φταίει το ότι πιέζω ψυχαναγκαστικά τον εαυτό μου να το τελειώσει, πάντως δεν μπορώ, σταματώ εδώ.
Είναι το πρώτο βιβλίο που κάνω dnf από το 2014 τότε που παράτησα το άθλια βαρετό βιβλίο του Νταλί Hidden Faces, που ουδεμία σχέση με σουρεαλισμό είχε.
Θα βαθμολογήσω ό,τι διάβασα και σε συνδυασμό με το αδιάβαστο θα βγάλω μέσο όρο όταν το ολοκληρώσω. Η βαθμολογία είναι 2 αστεράκια και καλά του είναι διότι μεταφράζεται "it was okay".
Είναι μια (έκπτωτη) νυμφομανής? (μου φάνηκε) πριγκίπισσα με δυο γονείς καρικατούρες. Η μάνα παντελώς ηλίθια και η προσποιητή γαλλο-μεξικανο-γερμανο-ισπανική προφορά της μου 'σπασε τα νεύρα ειδικά εκείνο το "Oh-oh, spaghetti- o." που το ‘λεγε όποτε άνοιγε το στόμα της. Ο δε πατέρας είναι ένα χαρτόμουτρο με καρδιακό πρόβλημα.
Όσο αφορά τον Τρυποκάρυδο είναι ένας γλοιώδης γυμνοσάλιαγκας που την πέφτει στην πριγκίπισσα, ο οποίος το χιούμορ του το έχει, αλλά πολλές φορές είναι γλοιώδες σαν του Τζιμ Κάρεϊ. Και αυτή η μανία να κάνει μεταφορές και παρομοιώσεις x4 με ξεπερνά. Μου φάνηκε ότι έφτιαχνε όσες πιο πολλές παρομοιώσεις μπορούσε για να γίνει το διήγημα του μυθιστόρημα.
Και όπως λέει και ο BookTuber Better Than Food: Book Reviews, “Life is way too short to read bullshit”, so συγγνώμη δεν έδεσε το γλυκό με μένα, προσπάθησα να ξεπεράσω το βαρετό πρώτο μισό και να δω εκείνο το πιο ενδιαφέρον δεύτερο ή τρίτο, αλλά δεν. . .
Μην αποθαρρυνθείτε από την κριτική μου, εμένα μπορεί να μη μου άρεσε (όσο διάβασα) εσάς μπορεί όμως να σας καταπλήξει. Θετικά-αρνητικά, θα δείξει.
Δεν μπορώ να πω, προσπάθησα. Και στο πλοίο το πήρα, και στο κρεβάτι το πήρα, και στο βεσέ το πήρα, αλλά που να πάρει· 5 μέρες 106 σελίδες, που ισούται με 21,2 σελίδες την ημέρα, άρα 13 ημέρες χρειάζομαι για να το τελειώσω· άρα αν συνεχίσω θα το τελειώσω στις 23 του μήνα, και το θέμα είναι ότι έχω 3 βιβλία να διαβάσω για το Halloween και αυτό το βιβλίο στέκεται εμπόδιο.
Ίσως να φταίει η χρονική στιγμή, ίσως να φταίει το ότι πιέζω ψυχαναγκαστικά τον εαυτό μου να το τελειώσει, πάντως δεν μπορώ, σταματώ εδώ.
Είναι το πρώτο βιβλίο που κάνω dnf από το 2014 τότε που παράτησα το άθλια βαρετό βιβλίο του Νταλί Hidden Faces, που ουδεμία σχέση με σουρεαλισμό είχε.
Θα βαθμολογήσω ό,τι διάβασα και σε συνδυασμό με το αδιάβαστο θα βγάλω μέσο όρο όταν το ολοκληρώσω. Η βαθμολογία είναι 2 αστεράκια και καλά του είναι διότι μεταφράζεται "it was okay".
Είναι μια (έκπτωτη) νυμφομανής? (μου φάνηκε) πριγκίπισσα με δυο γονείς καρικατούρες. Η μάνα παντελώς ηλίθια και η προσποιητή γαλλο-μεξικανο-γερμανο-ισπανική προφορά της μου 'σπασε τα νεύρα ειδικά εκείνο το "Oh-oh, spaghetti- o." που το ‘λεγε όποτε άνοιγε το στόμα της. Ο δε πατέρας είναι ένα χαρτόμουτρο με καρδιακό πρόβλημα.
Όσο αφορά τον Τρυποκάρυδο είναι ένας γλοιώδης γυμνοσάλιαγκας που την πέφτει στην πριγκίπισσα, ο οποίος το χιούμορ του το έχει, αλλά πολλές φορές είναι γλοιώδες σαν του Τζιμ Κάρεϊ. Και αυτή η μανία να κάνει μεταφορές και παρομοιώσεις x4 με ξεπερνά. Μου φάνηκε ότι έφτιαχνε όσες πιο πολλές παρομοιώσεις μπορούσε για να γίνει το διήγημα του μυθιστόρημα.
Και όπως λέει και ο BookTuber Better Than Food: Book Reviews, “Life is way too short to read bullshit”, so συγγνώμη δεν έδεσε το γλυκό με μένα, προσπάθησα να ξεπεράσω το βαρετό πρώτο μισό και να δω εκείνο το πιο ενδιαφέρον δεύτερο ή τρίτο, αλλά δεν. . .
Μην αποθαρρυνθείτε από την κριτική μου, εμένα μπορεί να μη μου άρεσε (όσο διάβασα) εσάς μπορεί όμως να σας καταπλήξει. Θετικά-αρνητικά, θα δείξει.
November 1, 2018
Για όποιον/α ενδιαφέρεται, υπάρχει αναλυτικό κείμενο στο μπλογκ.
Στην περίπτωση του Τρυποκάρυδου μπορούν να συμβούν δύο τινά. Είτε μια χρυσή κουτάλα θα αναμοχλεύσει μέσα σου μια πρωτόγονη, εφηβική σούπα γεμάτη σπίθες, ορμή και ακατάλυτη τρέλα, εισβάλλοντας σε κάθε νευρώνα σου και ηλεκτρίζοντάς τον, είτε θα αναμετρηθεί με τις αντοχές σου, θα ταράξει τα νεύρα σου και τις προσδοκίες σου σχετικά με το πώς πρέπει να αφηγούμαστε μια ιστορία και θα σε κάνει να τον παρατήσεις.
Για εμένα εδώ έχουμε να κάνουμε με μια ιστορία πλημμυρισμένη από άκοπα διαμαντάκια που χορεύουν στον αέρα κι έτσι όπως περνάνε από δίπλα μας, χαράζουν και σκίζουν μαλακές επιφάνειες, στιγματίζουν νεαρές καρδιές και προσφέρουν απλόχερα ονειρικές εξάρσεις σε εκείνους που δεν τις έζησαν όσο νωρίς θα έπρεπε.
Πιστεύω τελικά ότι ο καλύτερος τρόπος να διαβάσει κανείς αυτό το βιβλίο κρύβεται στο να αφήσει στην άκρη την εκλογίκευση και να αφεθεί ελαφρύς και πράος, να ρουφήξει τις λέξεις και να νιώσει ζωντανός και σφριγηλός μέσα στην καταπραϋντική πρόζα του Ρόμπινς, χωρίς να αναζητήσει την τάξη, αλλά να αφήσει τα λόγια του Τρυποκάρυδου να του πιπιλίσουν το μυαλό για καιρό.
Δεν ξέρω πια τι θα πει αγάπη. Την περασμένη βδομάδα είχα ένα κάρρο ιδέες. Για το τι είναι η αγάπη και πώς να την κάνεις να μείνει. Τώρα που είμαι ερωτευμένος, δεν έχω ιδέα.
Τώρα που είμαι ερωτευμένος, είμαι τελείως βλάκας πάνω σ’ αυτό το θέμα.
Στην περίπτωση του Τρυποκάρυδου μπορούν να συμβούν δύο τινά. Είτε μια χρυσή κουτάλα θα αναμοχλεύσει μέσα σου μια πρωτόγονη, εφηβική σούπα γεμάτη σπίθες, ορμή και ακατάλυτη τρέλα, εισβάλλοντας σε κάθε νευρώνα σου και ηλεκτρίζοντάς τον, είτε θα αναμετρηθεί με τις αντοχές σου, θα ταράξει τα νεύρα σου και τις προσδοκίες σου σχετικά με το πώς πρέπει να αφηγούμαστε μια ιστορία και θα σε κάνει να τον παρατήσεις.
Για εμένα εδώ έχουμε να κάνουμε με μια ιστορία πλημμυρισμένη από άκοπα διαμαντάκια που χορεύουν στον αέρα κι έτσι όπως περνάνε από δίπλα μας, χαράζουν και σκίζουν μαλακές επιφάνειες, στιγματίζουν νεαρές καρδιές και προσφέρουν απλόχερα ονειρικές εξάρσεις σε εκείνους που δεν τις έζησαν όσο νωρίς θα έπρεπε.
Πιστεύω τελικά ότι ο καλύτερος τρόπος να διαβάσει κανείς αυτό το βιβλίο κρύβεται στο να αφήσει στην άκρη την εκλογίκευση και να αφεθεί ελαφρύς και πράος, να ρουφήξει τις λέξεις και να νιώσει ζωντανός και σφριγηλός μέσα στην καταπραϋντική πρόζα του Ρόμπινς, χωρίς να αναζητήσει την τάξη, αλλά να αφήσει τα λόγια του Τρυποκάρυδου να του πιπιλίσουν το μυαλό για καιρό.
Δεν ξέρω πια τι θα πει αγάπη. Την περασμένη βδομάδα είχα ένα κάρρο ιδέες. Για το τι είναι η αγάπη και πώς να την κάνεις να μείνει. Τώρα που είμαι ερωτευμένος, δεν έχω ιδέα.
Τώρα που είμαι ερωτευμένος, είμαι τελείως βλάκας πάνω σ’ αυτό το θέμα.
February 12, 2018
Ε, τι να πούμε... Τομ Ρόμπινς.
EDIT: Του είχα βάλει 4 αστέρια. Γύρισα και διάβασα όλα τα quotes που έχω αποθηκεύσει από αυτό το βιβλίο. Οκ, η αδικία διορθώθηκε.
EDIT: Του είχα βάλει 4 αστέρια. Γύρισα και διάβασα όλα τα quotes που έχω αποθηκεύσει από αυτό το βιβλίο. Οκ, η αδικία διορθώθηκε.
October 1, 2007
"The most important thing is love," said Leigh-Cheri. "I know that now. There's no point in saving the world if it means losing the moon."
Leigh-Cheri sent that message to Bernard through his attorney. The message continued, "I'm not quite 20, but, thanks to you, I've learned something that many women these days never learn: Prince Charming really is a toad. And the Beautiful Princess has halitosis. The bottom line is that (a) people are never perfect, but love can be, (b) that is the one and only way that the mediocre and the vile can be transformed, and (c) doing that makes it that. Loving makes love. Loving makes itself. We waste time looking for the perfect lover instead of creating the perfect love. Wouldn't that be the way to make love stay?"
The next day, Bernard's attorney delivered to her this reply:
Love is the ultimate outlaw. It just won't adhere to any rules. The most any of us can do is to sign on as its accomplice. Instead of vowing to honor and obey, maybe we should swear to aid and abet. That would mean that security is out of the question. The words "make" and "stay" become inappropriate. My love for you has no strings attached. I love you for free.
Leigh-Cheri went out in the blackberries and wept. "I'll follow him to the ends of the earth," she sobbed.
Yes, darling. But the earth doesn't have any ends. Columbus fixed that.
-Tom Robbins
Leigh-Cheri sent that message to Bernard through his attorney. The message continued, "I'm not quite 20, but, thanks to you, I've learned something that many women these days never learn: Prince Charming really is a toad. And the Beautiful Princess has halitosis. The bottom line is that (a) people are never perfect, but love can be, (b) that is the one and only way that the mediocre and the vile can be transformed, and (c) doing that makes it that. Loving makes love. Loving makes itself. We waste time looking for the perfect lover instead of creating the perfect love. Wouldn't that be the way to make love stay?"
The next day, Bernard's attorney delivered to her this reply:
Love is the ultimate outlaw. It just won't adhere to any rules. The most any of us can do is to sign on as its accomplice. Instead of vowing to honor and obey, maybe we should swear to aid and abet. That would mean that security is out of the question. The words "make" and "stay" become inappropriate. My love for you has no strings attached. I love you for free.
Leigh-Cheri went out in the blackberries and wept. "I'll follow him to the ends of the earth," she sobbed.
Yes, darling. But the earth doesn't have any ends. Columbus fixed that.
-Tom Robbins
August 30, 2008
My favorite book of all time. I used a quote from this book in my wedding vows. It is funny, silly, and romantic.
October 29, 2020
I remember over the years, I would come across Still Life with Woodpecker every now and then in bookshops and book bazaars. Each time, I would take it in my hands, read the backcover and put it back on the shelf. I don't know why, although it seemed interesting to me, something always stopped me from buying it. Of course I was aware of all the praise about it but that is never enough for me to want to read a book.
I think I get why it became such a big success all over the world. Its romantic and at the same time cynical aura can be appealing to people of both sexes. But let's face it people. It's not a masterpiece. While it's full of cheesy themes and everyday philosophy, it lacks the ingredients that make a novel timelessly brilliant. Now, I'm not saying it's trash. On the contrary, I found it good with moments of awesomeness. And that's it. In fact, I think Jitterbug Perfume is better on many levels. Truth is though, had I read it when I was younger, I probably would have liked it more.
The humor is nice, although after a while it feels a bit forced. Storywise, it lost me from time to time probably due to all the abstract blabbering. I think it's clear that finally it left me with a feeling of... meeehh.
I think I get why it became such a big success all over the world. Its romantic and at the same time cynical aura can be appealing to people of both sexes. But let's face it people. It's not a masterpiece. While it's full of cheesy themes and everyday philosophy, it lacks the ingredients that make a novel timelessly brilliant. Now, I'm not saying it's trash. On the contrary, I found it good with moments of awesomeness. And that's it. In fact, I think Jitterbug Perfume is better on many levels. Truth is though, had I read it when I was younger, I probably would have liked it more.
The humor is nice, although after a while it feels a bit forced. Storywise, it lost me from time to time probably due to all the abstract blabbering. I think it's clear that finally it left me with a feeling of... meeehh.
January 26, 2022
gotta say... this is my favorite book of all time, expertly written... more like prose than an actual novel. who can resist a book whose first sentence is "if this typewriter can't do it, then fuck it, it can't be done!"
June 22, 2011
Tonight I feel generous. Tonight I feel enchanted by the purpose of the moon. So tonight, I will allow four glittering stars to orbit this frustrating crank of a novel. Without parroting the sensible assertions from the hundred or so Goodreaders, let me be brief and say: I agree, in part, with every criticism and praise in some small way about Robbins. I do. And yes, this book does contain sentences like:
As he throbbed in her throat, pumping jet after jet of that steamy translucent mucilage with which Cupid tries to glue the world together, she felt as if she were gulping concentrated ecstasy, and it made her blood croon.
But. Well, I have a house-big heart for comic novelists. I can tolerate their verbose, stylised prose, their cardboard characters acting as mouthpieces for authorial diatribes, their devotion to female genitals (as a ‘peachfish,’ no less), and general disregard for basic narrative techniques. I can tolerate it, but only once a year. I have shot my wad of tolerance, and won’t be venturing Robbinswards again. Maybe I’ll buy a peachfish instead.
What makes love stay? A prenup.
As he throbbed in her throat, pumping jet after jet of that steamy translucent mucilage with which Cupid tries to glue the world together, she felt as if she were gulping concentrated ecstasy, and it made her blood croon.
But. Well, I have a house-big heart for comic novelists. I can tolerate their verbose, stylised prose, their cardboard characters acting as mouthpieces for authorial diatribes, their devotion to female genitals (as a ‘peachfish,’ no less), and general disregard for basic narrative techniques. I can tolerate it, but only once a year. I have shot my wad of tolerance, and won’t be venturing Robbinswards again. Maybe I’ll buy a peachfish instead.
What makes love stay? A prenup.
November 29, 2018
"Ένα είναι το σοβαρό ερώτημα. Κι αυτό είναι:
Ποιος ξέρει να κάνει την αγάπη παντοτινή;
Απάντησέ μου σ' αυτό και θα σου πω αν πρέπει ν' αυτοκτονείς ή όχι.
Απάντησέ μου σ' αυτό και θα σε καθησυχάσω για την αρχή και το τέλος του χρόνου.
Απάντησέ μου σ' αυτό και θα σου αποκαλύψω αν έχει λόγο να υπάρχει το φεγγάρι."
Ποιος ξέρει να κάνει την αγάπη παντοτινή;
Απάντησέ μου σ' αυτό και θα σου πω αν πρέπει ν' αυτοκτονείς ή όχι.
Απάντησέ μου σ' αυτό και θα σε καθησυχάσω για την αρχή και το τέλος του χρόνου.
Απάντησέ μου σ' αυτό και θα σου αποκαλύψω αν έχει λόγο να υπάρχει το φεγγάρι."
June 19, 2015
Edit, Jan 2013: Funny story, I'm one of those people who totally loves Tom Robbins now, in part for a bunch of the reasons that I decided I didn't like him originally. What can I say, tastes change, and I've come to respect him a ton--in part, for his incredible similes/metaphors, which are worth anyone who ever wants to write picking up one of his books for.
Original review:
I'm not one of those people who hates or loves Tom Robbins, which I guess puts me in the minority.
I'm a redhead, thus why I chose this Robbins novel to start with. There, I admitted it.
The "plot," to put it broadly, is about a well-intentioned albeit naive redheaded "princess" who meets a redheaded self-obsessed "outlaw."
Reading Robbins reads a lot like talking to someone with ADD or on some kind of mind-altering substance. It's entertaining at times - probably moreso if you're on the same substance - and at other times, you really just wish they'd shut the fuck up.
Robbins' writing style is unique, that's for damn sure. After reading this, I'm pretty sure I've got him down pat. Give me a page from any other Robbins book, I bet you I could nail it. Here's the thing. Having a unique voice is important and all that, but it doesn't automatically make what they're writing worthwhile. In tandem with that voice, that personality, you have to know how to use it. You have to have some tact. Kurt Vonnegut, for example, kind of lives in his own world, and he uses that to his advantage, but he also knows how to use it to draw in those who are from other planets. Lester Bangs was crazy as fuck, but had a point hidden among his craziness. Robbins is definitely his own brand, but he doesn't give a flying fuck about making it palatable or accessible - which, on some level, I totally respect, but on another, I don't.
The level on which I don't respect his disregard for the reader is that good art, good creativity feels as though it has a purpose, as if it makes a point, as if it reflects something about existence. This doesn't mean it has to be profound or ground-breaking, just that it captures something real, whether that reality is a feeling, a place, a time, a person, a... whatever. I think there's some kind of point hidden in here, but it's loose. It's reaching. It feels like he was just throwing a bunch of shit at a wall. You could argue Still Live with Woodpecker is about love, and that'd be sort of accurate, but the annoying thing is that the very subject he addresses is the one thing he's conventional about (I don't want to spoil it, but let's just say I found the ending/basic plot a little drab), whereas he chooses to toss convention in every other regard. He puts his personal stamp on everything except the one thing that could really use it. He reminds me of a guy who tries really hard to be funny, really hard to be profound, and it's not that he isn't funny or profound, just that because he's trying so damn hard, all of the failed efforts distract from the times he nails it.
All that said, Still Life with Woodpecker has its attractions. I can see the appeal. Because Robbins' writing is so intricately connected to his personality, it possess a certain level of charm, it's fun to get lost in somebody else's world for awhile, even if you wouldn't really want to live there, and Robbins, at the very least, can certainly draw you in. He does make some interesting points/arguments here, but unfortunately he's more of a smash and grab kind of guy and doesn't really develop any of them. I can't help but feel like this would have been a better book if he had taken what's here to an editor, who would have, undoubtedly, pointed out his strongest points and had them focus on those. But Robbins' writing style is crazy - he basically writes a sentences as many times as he needs to until he thinks it's perfect, then moves on to the next, with no consideration as to what came before it or to what comes after it. He also apparently never goes back to edit. When it's done, it's done. I knew this before I read this book, and it totally shows. If he had any kind of editing, if he had any kind of pre-thought as to where he was going, he'd probably be a great writer. But maybe that's just the editor in me.
This is, admittedly, the first book of his I've read. But I get a strange feeling that he's one of those, you've read one you've read 'em all kinds of authors. I'll probably pick up one of his better known works, just to see if I get more of what the fuss is about, but it'll be awhile.
Original review:
I'm not one of those people who hates or loves Tom Robbins, which I guess puts me in the minority.
I'm a redhead, thus why I chose this Robbins novel to start with. There, I admitted it.
The "plot," to put it broadly, is about a well-intentioned albeit naive redheaded "princess" who meets a redheaded self-obsessed "outlaw."
Reading Robbins reads a lot like talking to someone with ADD or on some kind of mind-altering substance. It's entertaining at times - probably moreso if you're on the same substance - and at other times, you really just wish they'd shut the fuck up.
Robbins' writing style is unique, that's for damn sure. After reading this, I'm pretty sure I've got him down pat. Give me a page from any other Robbins book, I bet you I could nail it. Here's the thing. Having a unique voice is important and all that, but it doesn't automatically make what they're writing worthwhile. In tandem with that voice, that personality, you have to know how to use it. You have to have some tact. Kurt Vonnegut, for example, kind of lives in his own world, and he uses that to his advantage, but he also knows how to use it to draw in those who are from other planets. Lester Bangs was crazy as fuck, but had a point hidden among his craziness. Robbins is definitely his own brand, but he doesn't give a flying fuck about making it palatable or accessible - which, on some level, I totally respect, but on another, I don't.
The level on which I don't respect his disregard for the reader is that good art, good creativity feels as though it has a purpose, as if it makes a point, as if it reflects something about existence. This doesn't mean it has to be profound or ground-breaking, just that it captures something real, whether that reality is a feeling, a place, a time, a person, a... whatever. I think there's some kind of point hidden in here, but it's loose. It's reaching. It feels like he was just throwing a bunch of shit at a wall. You could argue Still Live with Woodpecker is about love, and that'd be sort of accurate, but the annoying thing is that the very subject he addresses is the one thing he's conventional about (I don't want to spoil it, but let's just say I found the ending/basic plot a little drab), whereas he chooses to toss convention in every other regard. He puts his personal stamp on everything except the one thing that could really use it. He reminds me of a guy who tries really hard to be funny, really hard to be profound, and it's not that he isn't funny or profound, just that because he's trying so damn hard, all of the failed efforts distract from the times he nails it.
All that said, Still Life with Woodpecker has its attractions. I can see the appeal. Because Robbins' writing is so intricately connected to his personality, it possess a certain level of charm, it's fun to get lost in somebody else's world for awhile, even if you wouldn't really want to live there, and Robbins, at the very least, can certainly draw you in. He does make some interesting points/arguments here, but unfortunately he's more of a smash and grab kind of guy and doesn't really develop any of them. I can't help but feel like this would have been a better book if he had taken what's here to an editor, who would have, undoubtedly, pointed out his strongest points and had them focus on those. But Robbins' writing style is crazy - he basically writes a sentences as many times as he needs to until he thinks it's perfect, then moves on to the next, with no consideration as to what came before it or to what comes after it. He also apparently never goes back to edit. When it's done, it's done. I knew this before I read this book, and it totally shows. If he had any kind of editing, if he had any kind of pre-thought as to where he was going, he'd probably be a great writer. But maybe that's just the editor in me.
This is, admittedly, the first book of his I've read. But I get a strange feeling that he's one of those, you've read one you've read 'em all kinds of authors. I'll probably pick up one of his better known works, just to see if I get more of what the fuss is about, but it'll be awhile.
August 11, 2024
”Those who shun the whimsy of things will experience rigor mortis before death.”
”I have a black belt in haiku.”
It was during my early 20s vagabond period that I discovered Still Life with Woodpecker. I was holed up in a dilapidated, rural motel with an old hippie wino pseudo-Indian (white, balding, full bearded, but swore his mother was a “Cherokee princess.”) He was plenty sketchy, but possessed a cool tape collection of Alan Watts lectures, Janis Joplin concerts, and self recorded Grateful Dead shows — he seemed the perfect avatar of an era. He gifted me his worn copy of Still Life with Woodpecker which introduced me to what Tom Robbins dubbed the Last-Quarter-of-the-Twentieth-Century-Blues.
In this book, Tom Robbins parses the difference between criminals and outlaws, and inessential and essential insanities. He says profound stuff like,
”Morality depends on culture. Culture depends on climate. Climate depends on geography.”
And he dares to ask those really important questions:
”Does the moon have a purpose? Are redheads supernatural? Who knows how to make love stay?”
Still Life with Woodpecker is a sophomoric book, and I mean that in the best and most positive way. It is a wise-fool of a book. While the author plays with some serious themes throughout, play is the essential word. He refuses to take his themes, his book, or himself seriously, and clearly has no intention that his reader do so either. He give the game away in one of his authorial asides within the story:
”Humans have evolved to their relatively high state by retaining the immature characteristics of their ancestors. Humans are the most advanced of mammals because they seldom grow up. Behavioral traits such as curiosity about the world flexibility of response, and playfulness are common to practically all young mammals but are usually rapidly lost with the onset of maturity in all but humans. Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been sober, responsible, and cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious, and immature.”
This book is wonderfully immature. It plays with concepts just as it plays with language — clever, funny, and without a hint of seriousness. The characters are delightful, but aren’t even close to real. It’s a twisted parable told as an intoxicated fairytale — it’s characters are meant to be denizens of fairytales.
This was my first re-read of Still Life with Woodpecker since 1988. I started it afraid that I would be disappointed, that it wouldn’t tickle me the same at sixty as it did at twenty-four. I needn’t have worried — apparently I have manage to preserve my immaturity intact.
”I have a black belt in haiku.”
It was during my early 20s vagabond period that I discovered Still Life with Woodpecker. I was holed up in a dilapidated, rural motel with an old hippie wino pseudo-Indian (white, balding, full bearded, but swore his mother was a “Cherokee princess.”) He was plenty sketchy, but possessed a cool tape collection of Alan Watts lectures, Janis Joplin concerts, and self recorded Grateful Dead shows — he seemed the perfect avatar of an era. He gifted me his worn copy of Still Life with Woodpecker which introduced me to what Tom Robbins dubbed the Last-Quarter-of-the-Twentieth-Century-Blues.
In this book, Tom Robbins parses the difference between criminals and outlaws, and inessential and essential insanities. He says profound stuff like,
”Morality depends on culture. Culture depends on climate. Climate depends on geography.”
And he dares to ask those really important questions:
”Does the moon have a purpose? Are redheads supernatural? Who knows how to make love stay?”
Still Life with Woodpecker is a sophomoric book, and I mean that in the best and most positive way. It is a wise-fool of a book. While the author plays with some serious themes throughout, play is the essential word. He refuses to take his themes, his book, or himself seriously, and clearly has no intention that his reader do so either. He give the game away in one of his authorial asides within the story:
”Humans have evolved to their relatively high state by retaining the immature characteristics of their ancestors. Humans are the most advanced of mammals because they seldom grow up. Behavioral traits such as curiosity about the world flexibility of response, and playfulness are common to practically all young mammals but are usually rapidly lost with the onset of maturity in all but humans. Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been sober, responsible, and cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious, and immature.”
This book is wonderfully immature. It plays with concepts just as it plays with language — clever, funny, and without a hint of seriousness. The characters are delightful, but aren’t even close to real. It’s a twisted parable told as an intoxicated fairytale — it’s characters are meant to be denizens of fairytales.
This was my first re-read of Still Life with Woodpecker since 1988. I started it afraid that I would be disappointed, that it wouldn’t tickle me the same at sixty as it did at twenty-four. I needn’t have worried — apparently I have manage to preserve my immaturity intact.
March 6, 2016
“Still Life with Woodpecker” opens with a paragraph that is worth the cost of the book just in itself. If the book is to be found for 5 bucks or so. Let’s not get carried away here.
I am a huge Tom Robbins fan, despite the fact that when first introduced to him years ago I just was not all that enthralled. I changed somewhere along the line, and now I devour his works. I am continually amazed by his skills as a figurative writer, and the miasma of his mind. Robbins can write a paragraph (as he does in “Woodpecker”) describing tequila or the rain and it is absorbing, beautifully written, and catches the essence of what it is he is describing. I have not come across many writers in my reading life capable of that feat. But as he writes in this book “Outlaws, like poets, rearrange the nightmare.” Mr. Robbins probably qualifies as both. Another example of the excellence of this text is in chapter 38 where Robbins has insightful things to say about the true nature of socialism, capitalism, equality, good & evil, and red hair!
The weakness of this novel is the part called “Phase III”. It gets a little dull (compared to the parts that preceded it) and a little too out there for my tastes. It is philosophical a bit too much for its own sake and not in service to the story. It is a little “precious” and detracts from the text.
“Still Life with Woodpecker” is a unique read. You will not come across many novels like it. Like most Robbins it is incredibly inventive and creative, and Robbins inserts himself as the “author” in a persona throughout the text in a device that works well.
If you have never read Tom Robbins before I would not start with “Still Life with Woodpecker”, but if you have read and appreciated Robbins before you must continue the journey with this book.
I am a huge Tom Robbins fan, despite the fact that when first introduced to him years ago I just was not all that enthralled. I changed somewhere along the line, and now I devour his works. I am continually amazed by his skills as a figurative writer, and the miasma of his mind. Robbins can write a paragraph (as he does in “Woodpecker”) describing tequila or the rain and it is absorbing, beautifully written, and catches the essence of what it is he is describing. I have not come across many writers in my reading life capable of that feat. But as he writes in this book “Outlaws, like poets, rearrange the nightmare.” Mr. Robbins probably qualifies as both. Another example of the excellence of this text is in chapter 38 where Robbins has insightful things to say about the true nature of socialism, capitalism, equality, good & evil, and red hair!
The weakness of this novel is the part called “Phase III”. It gets a little dull (compared to the parts that preceded it) and a little too out there for my tastes. It is philosophical a bit too much for its own sake and not in service to the story. It is a little “precious” and detracts from the text.
“Still Life with Woodpecker” is a unique read. You will not come across many novels like it. Like most Robbins it is incredibly inventive and creative, and Robbins inserts himself as the “author” in a persona throughout the text in a device that works well.
If you have never read Tom Robbins before I would not start with “Still Life with Woodpecker”, but if you have read and appreciated Robbins before you must continue the journey with this book.
May 31, 2021
writes women worse than murakami
September 4, 2019
Πραγματικά κάθε φορά που πιάνω ένα βιβλίο του Τομ Ρόμπινς στα χέρια μου (Α)δε μπορώ να το αφήσω,(Β)θαυμάζω συνεχώς το χιούμορ και την ευφυΐα του και (Γ) χάνομαι στους γοργούς ρυθμούς της σκέψης του!Με ποιο βιβλίο του να συνεχίσω;Ακούω προτάσεις!
January 8, 2021
I absolutely hated this book. I could tell from the start it wasn't for me and finally bailed after 100 pages. It felt like being trapped on a road trip with someone who thinks they're funny and won't shut up.
January 31, 2018
"Non è mai troppo tardi per farsi un’infanzia felice"
Strampalato, divertente, romantico, ironico, commovente, surreale, illogico e anche profondo (a suo modo). Leggere questo libro è stata una corsa a perdifiato per tenere il passo di Tom Robbins, a volte arrancando, ma sempre con un’espressione beata sul viso.
Re e regine, principi azzurri bombaroli e principesse dai capelli rossi, rospi, pacchetti di Camel, macchine da scrivere saputelle, lunacezione… e su tutto, sotto tutto, dentro tutto sorge una domanda: come si può far perdurare l’amore?
Il libro è il regalo di un’amica, l’ho letto qualche anno fa, non lo ricordo benissimo, ma mi basta guardare la copertina per mettermi a sorridere. Lo adoro!
“Quando se ne va il mistero nel rapporto a due, se ne va l’amore. Semplice, no? Il che spinge a pensare che non tanto l’amore è importante per noi, quanto il mistero stesso. Il rapporto amoroso forse è solo un accorgimento per metterci in contatto con il mistero, e desideriamo che l’amore perduri affinché perduri l’estasi di stare vicino al mistero”.
https://youtu.be/5rkNBH5fbMk
Strampalato, divertente, romantico, ironico, commovente, surreale, illogico e anche profondo (a suo modo). Leggere questo libro è stata una corsa a perdifiato per tenere il passo di Tom Robbins, a volte arrancando, ma sempre con un’espressione beata sul viso.
Re e regine, principi azzurri bombaroli e principesse dai capelli rossi, rospi, pacchetti di Camel, macchine da scrivere saputelle, lunacezione… e su tutto, sotto tutto, dentro tutto sorge una domanda: come si può far perdurare l’amore?
Il libro è il regalo di un’amica, l’ho letto qualche anno fa, non lo ricordo benissimo, ma mi basta guardare la copertina per mettermi a sorridere. Lo adoro!
“Quando se ne va il mistero nel rapporto a due, se ne va l’amore. Semplice, no? Il che spinge a pensare che non tanto l’amore è importante per noi, quanto il mistero stesso. Il rapporto amoroso forse è solo un accorgimento per metterci in contatto con il mistero, e desideriamo che l’amore perduri affinché perduri l’estasi di stare vicino al mistero”.
https://youtu.be/5rkNBH5fbMk
February 21, 2009
When my brother gave me this book for Christmas, he told me to "drink in the writing." Or something to that effect. Whatever it was, he heaped praise on Robbins' use of language. Several people in my family had read this, or some other Tom Robbins book, and they all enthusiastically agreed that reading him was a pleasure unto itself, above and beyond the enjoyment one gets from reading the actual story. I was promised an actual Reading Experience, and that promise was fulfilled in spades.
Reading Robbins is like sitting through a storm. His words flow down the page like the acid dreams of a long-reformed hippie. They dance and spin, curling into strange and exotic shapes that you can't quite take in on the first read, so you look at the page again, convinced that there must have been something there that you missed. You find yourself at the end of a section, convinced that you've read it, but not entirely sure what you've read. Or you go back and read it again just because reading it the first time was just such fun.
Most modern writers do their best to keep you involved in the story, to keep the writing from drawing attention to itself. Much in the same way that many filmmakers try to keep you from thinking, "Oh, I'm looking through a camera," so do writers try to keep you from thinking about the words - their lens through which they transmit their message and images. Robbins completely eschews this principle - not only does he make sure you notice his words, he goes out of the way to make the words themselves more interesting than the story.
This is not to say that the story isn't interesting, of course. It is a romance, albeit a strange and brambly one. A young princess, the only child of an exiled king and queen, has vowed to devote her life to the betterment of the Earth, to use her royal station to help the world and to absolutely never fall in love - or even have sex - again. For very good reasons, of course. Nothing like having a miscarriage while cheerleading for your college football team to dampen your reproductive urges. This plan works up until she gets to a ecology conference in Maui, where she meets the man of her nightmares - a notorious terrorist who is nicknamed the Woodpecker.
The Woodpecker (his real name is Bernard) is a self-professed outlaw, a man who takes joy in subverting order, thumbing his nose at authority and living with a complete disregard for legal niceties such as not blowing things up. He's been in prison and escaped, and has only a short time until the statute of limitations finally runs out. This doesn't stop Bernie from bringing dynamite with him to Maui, and under the influence of alcohol and lust and rage, he tips his hand too soon. The only thing standing between him and prison is the beautiful red-headed princess - Leigh-Cherie - who hates him at first sight and swears that there is absolutely nothing about him that she finds redeeming.
We all know where that kind of thinking leads.
They fall in love, of course, a whirlwind outlaw romance that is only put to rest when Bernie finally lands back in prison. As a show of solitude to her lover, Leigh-Cherie locks herself in her room, turning it into a cell to mirror that of her beloved, and swears not to leave it until he leaves his. The only things in the room are a bed, a chamber pot, and a pack of Camel cigarettes.
That's where things start to get weird.
The nice thing about this book is that you don't really have to ponder what the themes were - Robbins points them out quite clearly by the end of the book, so if you didn't get it the first time, you'll be able to get it the next time 'round. It's a story about love, of course, and the irrational, weird turns it can take. It's about history, about the great, never-ending "why" that drives us from one act to the next. And, interestingly enough, it's about our relationship with the physical world, from the greatest of the Egyptian pyramids to the most mundane pack of Camels.
During her self-inflicted time in solitary, Leigh-Cherie constructs a vast universe inside the label of her cigarettes (which she never actually smokes) and it leads her to truths and realizations that would confound the greatest philosopher or the most devoted mystic. By contemplating the mundane, she finds the key to the universe.
Speaking of relating to objects, the story itself is a kind of romance between Robbins and his typewriter - a Remington SL3 - which doesn't, insofar as I have been able to tell, exist. Theirs is a tumultuous love. It begins with a tentative love, a hope that the machine is The One for this book. It passes through admiration and infatuation, only to end with rejection as Robbins finishes the book in longhand.
As Robbins relates to his Remington, and Leigh-Cherie to her pack of Camels, so do we have relationships with objects. We become familiar with our possessions, imbuing them with character and personality. Not only that, but once we give consideration to the history of that object - its design and manufacturing, where the idea and the materials came from - we find that we can read the history of the universe in something as simple as a paper clip.
It's a weird and wonderful book. The characters are vibrant and real, in a kind of hyper-real way. It's funny and bright, changing pace and rhythm from page to page and really is a delight to sit and read. Even more fun to read aloud, actually, so if you have a chance to do that, jump and take it.
Reading Robbins is like sitting through a storm. His words flow down the page like the acid dreams of a long-reformed hippie. They dance and spin, curling into strange and exotic shapes that you can't quite take in on the first read, so you look at the page again, convinced that there must have been something there that you missed. You find yourself at the end of a section, convinced that you've read it, but not entirely sure what you've read. Or you go back and read it again just because reading it the first time was just such fun.
Most modern writers do their best to keep you involved in the story, to keep the writing from drawing attention to itself. Much in the same way that many filmmakers try to keep you from thinking, "Oh, I'm looking through a camera," so do writers try to keep you from thinking about the words - their lens through which they transmit their message and images. Robbins completely eschews this principle - not only does he make sure you notice his words, he goes out of the way to make the words themselves more interesting than the story.
This is not to say that the story isn't interesting, of course. It is a romance, albeit a strange and brambly one. A young princess, the only child of an exiled king and queen, has vowed to devote her life to the betterment of the Earth, to use her royal station to help the world and to absolutely never fall in love - or even have sex - again. For very good reasons, of course. Nothing like having a miscarriage while cheerleading for your college football team to dampen your reproductive urges. This plan works up until she gets to a ecology conference in Maui, where she meets the man of her nightmares - a notorious terrorist who is nicknamed the Woodpecker.
The Woodpecker (his real name is Bernard) is a self-professed outlaw, a man who takes joy in subverting order, thumbing his nose at authority and living with a complete disregard for legal niceties such as not blowing things up. He's been in prison and escaped, and has only a short time until the statute of limitations finally runs out. This doesn't stop Bernie from bringing dynamite with him to Maui, and under the influence of alcohol and lust and rage, he tips his hand too soon. The only thing standing between him and prison is the beautiful red-headed princess - Leigh-Cherie - who hates him at first sight and swears that there is absolutely nothing about him that she finds redeeming.
We all know where that kind of thinking leads.
They fall in love, of course, a whirlwind outlaw romance that is only put to rest when Bernie finally lands back in prison. As a show of solitude to her lover, Leigh-Cherie locks herself in her room, turning it into a cell to mirror that of her beloved, and swears not to leave it until he leaves his. The only things in the room are a bed, a chamber pot, and a pack of Camel cigarettes.
That's where things start to get weird.
The nice thing about this book is that you don't really have to ponder what the themes were - Robbins points them out quite clearly by the end of the book, so if you didn't get it the first time, you'll be able to get it the next time 'round. It's a story about love, of course, and the irrational, weird turns it can take. It's about history, about the great, never-ending "why" that drives us from one act to the next. And, interestingly enough, it's about our relationship with the physical world, from the greatest of the Egyptian pyramids to the most mundane pack of Camels.
During her self-inflicted time in solitary, Leigh-Cherie constructs a vast universe inside the label of her cigarettes (which she never actually smokes) and it leads her to truths and realizations that would confound the greatest philosopher or the most devoted mystic. By contemplating the mundane, she finds the key to the universe.
Speaking of relating to objects, the story itself is a kind of romance between Robbins and his typewriter - a Remington SL3 - which doesn't, insofar as I have been able to tell, exist. Theirs is a tumultuous love. It begins with a tentative love, a hope that the machine is The One for this book. It passes through admiration and infatuation, only to end with rejection as Robbins finishes the book in longhand.
As Robbins relates to his Remington, and Leigh-Cherie to her pack of Camels, so do we have relationships with objects. We become familiar with our possessions, imbuing them with character and personality. Not only that, but once we give consideration to the history of that object - its design and manufacturing, where the idea and the materials came from - we find that we can read the history of the universe in something as simple as a paper clip.
It's a weird and wonderful book. The characters are vibrant and real, in a kind of hyper-real way. It's funny and bright, changing pace and rhythm from page to page and really is a delight to sit and read. Even more fun to read aloud, actually, so if you have a chance to do that, jump and take it.
December 21, 2025
“It’s a wonderful time to be alive. As long as you have enough dynamite.”
That, plus a packet of Camel cigarettes, is all you need to understand the meaning of life, according to Tom Robbins. My kind of writer: inventive, irreverent, sharp and unrepentantly romantic.
The book is a love story, a comedy, a philosophical treatise, a science-fiction adventure and more, but the reader need not be scared of its ambitious scope. Robbins places enough flags on the map to make sure you don’t lose your way in the blackberry bushes or in the midnight darkness at the center of an ancient pyramid. Remember: dynamite and Camels are your friends.
There is only one serious question. And that is:
Who knows how to make love stay?
>>><<<>>><<<
There are actually several additional questions to make the journey more entertaining. These include, but are not limited to: neoteny, the sex appeal of Ralph Nader, the Great Hawaiian Mongoose Reaction*, the Twelve Most Famous Redheads, how could Seattle become the Blackberry Brandy Capital of the World, dragon bait, the habits of peachfish in its natural habitat, Marcel Carne**, the relations between animate and inanimate objects, the true purpose of the moon, the difference between a criminal and an outlaw, how to tap into the secret energies of ancient pyramids, the merits of Chiclets or Hostess Twinkies, moving versus standing still, the yum-yuck approach to life ...
What do you say to an Argonian space traveler in a pyramid at midnight? Care for a Camel, sailor?
Some questions are answered before being asked. For example: why are frogs so important in the economy of the novel?
It might be noted here that Freudian analysts of fairy tales have suggested that kissing toads and frogs is symbolized fellatio.
Others will need to wait for the last page of the novel to get answered:
What happened to the golden ball? ***
For now, let’s just relax, and enjoy the ride!
>>><<<>>><<<
Which is more than could be said about the writer of this story, who has to struggle with modern technology. For a book first published in 1980, Tom Robbins shows uncanny prophetic skills.
Tired of his old Olivetti, the artist goes shopping for a new tool:
“What are you looking for in a typewriter?” the salesman asked.
“Something more than words,” I replied. “Crystals. I want to send my readers armloads of crystals, some of which are the colors of orchids and peonies, some of which pick up radio signals from a secret city that is half Paris and half Coney Island.”
He recommended the Remington SL3.
There are hilarious and prescient interludes describing the uneasy relationship between an artist and his productivity instruments that make me wish Robbins was still with us today to point out the ridiculous and the dangerous in our rush to let computers do the thinking for humanity.
For the novelist, any typewriter is a formidable thing; and the Remington SL3, with its interchangeable printing units, its electric margins, variable line spacer, paper-centering scale, personalized touch control, automatic paraphrasing button, vertical and horizontal half-spacing, express backspace, skip tabulation, improved umlaut maker, and mispell alarm, well, to face that degree of mechanical sophistication in the midnight of your sanctum is to know a brand of fear.
What is more likely is that technology will bypass artists, that a day is coming when our novels will be written by computers, the same devices that will paint our murals and compose our tunes.
Those questions I mentioned earlier in lieu of a plot synopsis? The artist puts them to his Remington SL3 in the interludes, very like the prompts we give to OpenAI and its siblings today:
Does the moon have a purpose? Are redheads supernatural? Who knows how to make love stay? I’m going to submit these questions, and several significant others, to the Remington SL3.
Which makes me wonder what answers these artificial wunderkids would come up with? Tom Robbins novels were probably included in the fodder that was
The noise that his heart valve produced sounded like two mechanical mice making love in a spoon drawer.
Gulietta and Leigh-Cheri were as buzzed as the door button at a discount whorehouse.
The moon can’t help it if the best toys are made of paper. And the best metaphors made of cheese.
>>><<<>>><<<
Let’s get back to our dragon bait, our outlaw and our pack of cigarettes.
Her Royal Highness Princess Leigh-Cheri Furstenberg-Barcalona, an exile with her parents from her home country in Europe, is hiding in their FBI provided Puget Sound castle, surrounded by frogs and blackberry thickets, rained on incessantly while she recovers from a cheerleading pregnancy mishap. She is a young person with a conscience who is interested in saving the planet, so she jumps at the ocassion to take part in a global conference in Hawaii, particularly after she finds out Ralph Nader will give a speech there.
On the plane, she meets Bernard Mickey Wrangler, Camel smoker and dynamite carrier, a known terrorist on the FBI’s most wanted list nicknamed the Woodpecker.
Oh, and he resents being called a terrorist or a criminal. The Woodpecker is an outlaw, and proud of it.
“Outlaws are can openers in the supermarket of life.”
The redhead Woodpecker manages to derail the environmental conference, for purposes unknown. He also manages to open the legs of the redhead princess Leigh-Cheri for several sessions of hot sex under the moonlight, to the delight of the peachfish and for the stimulation of her own rebellious, fiery mind. The nominal guardian of the princess’ virtue, her octogenarian maid Gulietta seems more interested in bikini sunbathing, frogs and white powder buzzing.
The tropical romance doesn’t survive the return to the rainy shores of Seattle, especially after some suitor incidents with ink and small dogs. The Woodpecker ends up in federal prison and the princess self-isolates in an attic room with only a pack of Camel cigarettes for company, trying to replicate the experience of her missing lover.
Which is enough for a plot description I think. We can move now to the ‘serious’ part of the novel, noting that the ‘comedy’ part refuses to take a bow and politely retreat to a back seat.
Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been sober, responsible, and cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious, and immature.
>>><<<>>><<<
The Life of an Outlaw:
The rest of my review is quotation heavy and slightly spoilerish, not about actual events but about the questions mentioned at the start of the trip, so tread carefully.
Tom Robbins is the real outlaw here for me, the Woodpecker only serving as the voice of his convictions, while the Princess stands out for women-lib, for refusing to be just dragon bait and a follower of rules made by others for her life.
“Me? I stand for uncertainty, insecurity, surprise, disorder, unlawfulness, bad taste, fun, and things that go boom in the night.”
“But I can’t open the pack,” she’d try to explain. “If I did, all this would collapse. A successful external reality depends upon an internal vision that is left intact.”
They glared at her the way any intelligent person ought to glare when what they need is a smoke, a bite, a cup of coffee, a piece of ass, or a good fast-paced story, and all they’re getting is philosophy.
I myself love getting philosophy from satire, just like Italo Calvino or Kurt Vonnegut did it. There’s even a planet Argon here that serves a similar role to Tralfamadore.
“Get my drift? I’m an outlaw not a philosopher, but I know this much: there’s meaning in everything, all things are connected, and a good champagne is a drink.”
Love is the ultimate outlaw. It just won’t adhere to any rules. The most any of us can do is to sign on as an accomplice. Instead of vowing to honor and obey, maybe we should swear to aid and abet.
I think of the Luna card in the Tarot deck: some strange, huge crustacean, its armor glistening and its pinchers wiggling, clatters out of a pool while wild dogs howl at a bulging moon. Underneath the hearts and flowers, love is a loony like that.
Some folks hide, and some folk seek, and seeking, when it’s mindless, neurotic, desperate, or pusillanimous can be a form of hiding. But there are folks who want to know and aren’t afraid to look and won’t turn tail should they find it – and if they never do, they’ll have a good time anyway because nothing, neither the terrible truth nor the absence of it, is going to cheat them out of one honest breath of earth’s sweet gas.
>>><<<>>><<<
More philosophy slipped between the pages of entertainment, plus some end notes that I couldn’t spoil earlier:
* How is a mongoose like a cop?
How could Leigh-Cheri draw for Gulietta the appropriate analogy between Hawaii’s rodents and society at large? Society had a crime problem. It hired cops to attack crime. Now society has a cop problem.
** Why is Marcel Carne saved for the last chapter in the novel?
Because he is the best kind of outlaw! This novel is written for him.
The film is a three-hour affirmation of life and an examination of the strange and sometimes devastating magnetism of love. Romantic? Oh, babe, it’s romantic enough to make a travel poster sigh and a sonnet blush. But completely uncompromising. It’s a celebration of the human spirit in all of its goofy, gentle, and grotesque guises. And he made it in the very midst of Nazi occupation.
*** The golden ball is from the bed time story about frogs that Gulietta told the princess over and over and over ...
# How can we make love stay?
## Why is the title referencing stillness?
### What can a pack of Camels teach us about Life, The Universe and Everything?
In a society that is essentially designed to organize, direct, and gratify mass impulses, what is there to minister to the silent zones of man as an individual? Religion? Art? Nature?
>>><<<>>><<<
Is there poetry in chaos? in standing still?
Alone, the world offers itself
freely to us.
To be unmasked,
it has no choice.
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