3.61 AVERAGE


Not my favorite by Tom Robbins, but a good read nonetheless. Gives you some images that stick with you and some food for thought.

It's got all the pieces I expect from Robbins at this point for better or worse, but the structuring of things over Easter weekend and the significance of that does make for clever moments. Some of the ideas don't seem to go anywhere which is a shame, but the ending is pretty solid.

It's got some novel elements and the choice of second person was also something new to me, but overall when I finished this I just didn't feel like I had really gotten into it.

I think maybe had I read this closer to when it had been written I might have enjoyed it more, both for the 90s being more recent and for me being quite a bit younger.

In recalling this book after a couple of days, I am finding that I feel like I missed a lot when reading it, in terms of trying to remember which plot elements were important. Some things that had been going on that I guess in retrospect were maybe supposed to evoke a sense of conflict (which choice will Gwen make?!) but didn't really ever seem like the choice was seriously in doubt.

Just didn't have the concentration to follow all the ramblings.  

Robbins is a wonderful sort of nuts, but this one just wasn't that interesting to me. It had some great lines, "As Popeye said, I sweet potato what I sweet potato" and I laughed out loud a few times, but the book felt too long. I was annoyed for a while of the use of second person, but eventually got used to it. I like how Robbins draws on history, philosophy and religion and enjoy his word play immensely. Still, this one moved too slowly or in directions that didn't excite me.

"Love makes the world go 'round, it's true, but lust stops the world in its tracks, love renders bearable the passage of time, lust causes time to stand still; lust kills time, which is not to say that it wastes it or whiles it aimlessly away but rather annihilates it, cancels it, extirpates it from the continuum; preventing, while it lasts, any lapse into the tense and shabby woes of temporal society; lust is the thousand-pound odometer needle on the dashboard of the absolute."
As always, TR teaches me so much about obscure topics that I was no more interested in the day before than in doing my dirty laundry. I am so quickly launched from my mundane day-to-day into a world where every word matters, where each sentence is a far-fetched metaphor that somehow applies perfectly. Only read this book (and any others) if you are interested in entering at least three different realities at once. Kept this book way past the due date, but it was well worth the 20 cents.

Took a little but to get into it but enjoyed it.

I normally LOVE Tom Robbins, but was so disappointed by this book. None of the characters are likable or interesting, and the storyline is pretty boring as well. I tried to get into it just because of the author, but ended up stopping halfway through. Maybe it gets better at the end and I missed out, but I just couldn't get there.

I read this in perhaps 2002, and wrote a note on it. Going through my old blogs, I found the note. And I thought: so this is who I was ~20 years ago.
And now you know too. Here you go, from September 2004.
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And after re-reading “Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas” do I realise that I had made the cardinal mistake of reading it right after “Still Life with Woodpecker”. Still Life…, well, is very close to my heart. And true, Half Asleep does not quite get there. But now, after re-reading this book after quite a while, I realise that this book was not quite so just-about-average after all.

The quirky Robbins humour is still there in healthy dollops. The un-self-conscious, politically all screwed up humour, a little male-chauvinist too maybe, but which even a few of my vociferously feminist friends have mentioned to have found totally awesome, is present by the bucketloads. It is sexy, funny and totally cool for a book. Sure it does not tug at as many heartstrings as Still Life does, and the storyline is not much to write home about either, but it still does spin a cool yarn. And deserves to be mentioned as a recommendable book. True, it will not make you think, like ‘Still life’ or ‘Another Roadside Attraction’ did, but if you are game for about five hours (that’s my reading speed) of wild, crazy fun, you will enjoy the ride.

There are, as usual, those snippets, those pieces of magic that Robbins weaves with the written word, which you would have never thought possible. Apart from those bits of magic, there also are the wildly unbelievable but factual trivia, a hot lead lady (tough as nails, not quite a Leigh-Cheri…. Ah-ha, she’s got an MBA to boot), a vintage Robbins lead guy (which goes on to mean a commonly-perceived loser, who also happens to be an iconoclast, a world-traveler, an excruciating cynic, a smooth-talking, caricaturish-ly over-sexualised, philosophy-spewing stud, so out of the ordinary that it is impossible for women not to flock to him like moth to the fire), some ensemble characters (human and non-human) who threaten to take the show away, and yes, genuine hope.

Read it if you have never read a Robbins earlier. Rather, read it. You will probably love it.

First time to write a review. Discovered Tom about a year ago and have absolutely loved every single book so far. Until this one. It just did not have the same energy. I struggled to finish it honestly. Could not find any connection to the characters or storyline. I really hope my next Robbins read is another five star because I absolutely love him. But this one just was not for me.