tom robbins

[simon]

Tom Robbins, Tom Robbins
who reads Tom Robbins?
Another Roadside Attraction,
gets confusing with all the action
or how about the recent
Villa Incognito being more decent
afterall he's filled with erotica
but somehow its all logica.

[Jester]

i read even cowgirsl get the blues and loved it, im waiting to narrow down my reading lsit before i start on another of his

[simon]

I have yet to read Even Cowgirls get the Blues, and as you have aptly expressed, I too am narrowing down the list of novels to reach this one. Do you know anyhting about Tom Robbins as an author. I heard, through unreliable voices(not gnomes) that he is an ex-priest. Can anyone add validity to this statment, I wonder how that effects his writing, his often lurid and erotic liguistic spurts are a counter weight of the confines of the non-sexual preisthood.

[Jester]

not sure about that but i know he was intereviewed from teh one giant leap guys and he's got some wild ideas and is pretty funny

[BSturdy]

Simon - I would be interested to know what you have against gnomes - has one previously given you unreliable information?

[simon]

Oh gnomes are tricky devils, small, sneaky, and prone to midnight exhibitions of stunning snobbery (the snobbery of making lurid faces and dashing off beofre one can catch hold of them.) Who is it that turns on stereo's full blast in the middle of hte night? Who is it that locks the door after you in dorms when your dripping naked in a towel? Who is it that knocks over glasses, puts chairs, walls and such in your unavoidable path? Who is it that steals your underwear? As for speaking to me, well they can give reliable info but it is difficult to acertain what is fact from fiction. But what have I really got agianst the gnomes? Not much, I just want my bra back.

[Jester]

bra, your female?????

[simon]

So I've been informed.

[Scheherazade]

Informed by whom?

Gnomes?? :D

[Piramni]

Still Life with Woodpecker is a great book by Tom Robbins. Half Asleep in Frog Pajama's isn't bad either.

Robbins is a genius.

[Jester]

i concur
;)

[kushi]

ooh big word ;)

ok..sorry that was a bit random hehe

[Scheherazade]

So concurism is spreading? :D

[simon]

I haven't even heard of Half Asleep in Frog's Pajamas, I shall have to look into it. Appearantly there is a contagion of concurism, as there is little doubt of Robbins genius. Here's a quote from an interview conducted with him in 1985.

H.F: Your style is dazzling. It seems like you are composing with some kind of lucid orchestra or the way the Grateful Dead are known to jam.

T.R: Oh, thank you! My model of the universe is non-linear. In writing , like to be consistent with that model. At the same time, you do have to be lucid. If you can't be lucid , what's the point? Everyone uses language. What I've tried to do, having seen the limitations of a non-linear approach, is to work in a state of multi-layers. There are series in the plot which are climactic and anti-climactic and continue to build or ascend in a spiral of climax/anti-climax. There are certain feelings that I try to create to affect the reader and there are a series of effects at work in the reader's psyche already. That's pretty much where I begin. I try to make it up as I go along. It's a scary way to work. Not at all secure.

[Jester]

that's the reason i like his work, its unlike anything I've read and throws conventional organizational models out the window... makes it interesting you never knwo whats going to happen next and the stories are unpredictable...

In even cow girls get the blues there is a pychiatrist names Dr Robbins and he goes off to write the story that we read... I keep wondering if this charact is based on Tom robins himself.

[baddad]

...*considers concurring comment cautiously*....T. Robbins is great! Another Roadside Attraction is most readable. The interview posted by simon.....*wow, simon is a girl*....wherein Robbins explains his approach to writing, peels back the layers of this novel........but I'm sure he is crazy......'cause his stories sure are!

[simon]

Crazy for sure, and for such crazy and seemingly plotless stories at times, he has such a diligent, meditated approach. Another Roadside Attraction is his first work is it not? His style is fresher and freeer than in his latest works. Filled with more random diatribes on things such as butterflies.

[Jester]

Even cowgirls get the blues is a little like that he just has so many tangents one chapter was completly devoted to explainging his writing style, it was halfway through the book and his last pragraph of that chapter was completly about the sentences, for example; This sentence went to climb a mountain. THis sentence went to date the period at the end of it. This sentence is at the market. This sentence is scratching his head. ... reminds me of soem of the people in the forum... completle random.

[simon]

The great thing about Robbins is that while he is going off on these tangents he does it in the most lovingly created sentences, he has the most unique metaphors, similies, and analogies. He constructs sentences so that the world can see his appriciated for words and they come out in new and beautiful creations. I think he's a linguistic master.

There is a poet, who with the same randomness has constructed poems, though not nearly to the same depth. Mason Williams should anyone chance a peek at his style.

[Jester]

hmm, will do when i get the chance