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3.86 AVERAGE
3.86 AVERAGE
Sometimes you find a book at the wrong time in your life, and you think how much you would have liked it if you had read it 10 years ago. This is one of those books for me.
I kept reading anyways, probably because there are enough funny/interesting parts to propel you through the annoying parts.
Someone recommended it to me when I was a college freshman, but I only recently got around to reading it. He told me something along the lines of "you're sex positive, so you would enjoy this sexy romp of a book." I don't remember exactly how he described it, but something like that. I probably would have like it back then as an eighteen year old, because it is raunchy and seemingly philosophical. I say seemingly, because if you let yourself be whipped around by Robbins' wordplay, it seems clever, but if you really pay attention, it's fairly routine sort of philosophizing. And a lot of trying waaaaay too hard to point out some truth or theory about humanity. WAAAAAY too hard. I kept thinking, "Um, is that it? Am I suposed to be in suspense?" Nope.
But really why this book is wrong for the 28 year old me is the disappointing extent to which women are discussed and portrayed. The unbelievably standard view of teenage virgins as the ultimate in sexiness is presented as a risky taboo in the book. Oh! The shocking desires of the main character! (/sarcasm) Is there any sexual desire LESS predictable??? I think not. Not to mention all the descriptions of sex scenes that are so not what get women all hot and bothered--even though he implies that aaaaall the women in the book want it, and they want it from Switters soooo bad. I don't know why so many guys think that girls love it when you twist and pinch our nipples, but we don't. Really. We don't. Stop that.
I'm pretty sure this book is who the author wishes he was--super clever CIA agent that all the girls are after, having crazy adventures and saying any random thing he thinks, all of which come out sounding clever and deep. Good for you, Robbins, I'm glad you have dreams.
I kept reading anyways, probably because there are enough funny/interesting parts to propel you through the annoying parts.
Someone recommended it to me when I was a college freshman, but I only recently got around to reading it. He told me something along the lines of "you're sex positive, so you would enjoy this sexy romp of a book." I don't remember exactly how he described it, but something like that. I probably would have like it back then as an eighteen year old, because it is raunchy and seemingly philosophical. I say seemingly, because if you let yourself be whipped around by Robbins' wordplay, it seems clever, but if you really pay attention, it's fairly routine sort of philosophizing. And a lot of trying waaaaay too hard to point out some truth or theory about humanity. WAAAAAY too hard. I kept thinking, "Um, is that it? Am I suposed to be in suspense?" Nope.
But really why this book is wrong for the 28 year old me is the disappointing extent to which women are discussed and portrayed. The unbelievably standard view of teenage virgins as the ultimate in sexiness is presented as a risky taboo in the book. Oh! The shocking desires of the main character! (/sarcasm) Is there any sexual desire LESS predictable??? I think not. Not to mention all the descriptions of sex scenes that are so not what get women all hot and bothered--even though he implies that aaaaall the women in the book want it, and they want it from Switters soooo bad. I don't know why so many guys think that girls love it when you twist and pinch our nipples, but we don't. Really. We don't. Stop that.
I'm pretty sure this book is who the author wishes he was--super clever CIA agent that all the girls are after, having crazy adventures and saying any random thing he thinks, all of which come out sounding clever and deep. Good for you, Robbins, I'm glad you have dreams.
*so* good. i will be recovering from this style of writing for a long time.
I finished this (finally!). Robbins is so clever with words, but I just couldn't connect. 2.5/5 is probably about right.
I haven't been able to finish a Robbins since Still Life. But I keep trying. I begin to forget why.
Tom Robbins writes weird books. I love them and they're entertaining and unique, but they are weird. This was no exception. Our protagonist, Switters, finds himself confined to a wheelchair after an eventful trip to the Amazon. Or from having an inappropriate relationship with his step-sister. Or from living in a nontraditional convent. Does all of this sound weird enough? It is weird and hilarious. Read it.
It is unfair to read any book with Infinite Jest in mind because almost any other book will suffer. Add to that my 24-year-old bias about Tom Robbins, whom I had never attempted but had shelved plenty as a library page before my first boyfriend dismissed his best friend���s favorite author as ���pseudo-intellectual bullshit.��� I was 17 and smitten, so Robbins didn���t stand a chance.
Friends whose judgments I value even though our tastes vary like Robbins in general and this book in particular, and one nominated it for bookclub. Another whose taste overlaps with mine more liked it a lot; another couldn���t get into it; another was struggling with it. I read, interrupting Wallace to do so, and was ready to abandon it when I suspected Parrot Abuse in addition to Parrot Mortality (but it was only Parrot Mortality, brief and off-screen), but I read on.
But all I could see is Not Wallace. Robbins tries too hard in his word play, stretching out a metaphor into a paragraph-length digression, whereas Wallace, who might have put forth the same or more effort, has better results and doesn���t let you see him sweat. Robbins���s protagonist, Switters, cares about word use and etymology (like IJ's Avril Incandenza), and he corrects someone for saying ���very unique,��� but less than a page later, in narration, Robbins says ���more perfect.��� An author isn���t necessarily his character, but with Switters so very much like Robbins in verbiage and with the ���misuse��� of perfect so closely following the quibble about ���unique,��� Robbins looks sloppy.
Infinite Jest has wheelchairs, so does this; Infinite Jest plays on Hamlet (on more levels than title alone), and Robbins���s ���slings and eros��� was my final straw.
But I finished it.
Friends whose judgments I value even though our tastes vary like Robbins in general and this book in particular, and one nominated it for bookclub. Another whose taste overlaps with mine more liked it a lot; another couldn���t get into it; another was struggling with it. I read, interrupting Wallace to do so, and was ready to abandon it when I suspected Parrot Abuse in addition to Parrot Mortality (but it was only Parrot Mortality, brief and off-screen), but I read on.
But all I could see is Not Wallace. Robbins tries too hard in his word play, stretching out a metaphor into a paragraph-length digression, whereas Wallace, who might have put forth the same or more effort, has better results and doesn���t let you see him sweat. Robbins���s protagonist, Switters, cares about word use and etymology (like IJ's Avril Incandenza), and he corrects someone for saying ���very unique,��� but less than a page later, in narration, Robbins says ���more perfect.��� An author isn���t necessarily his character, but with Switters so very much like Robbins in verbiage and with the ���misuse��� of perfect so closely following the quibble about ���unique,��� Robbins looks sloppy.
Infinite Jest has wheelchairs, so does this; Infinite Jest plays on Hamlet (on more levels than title alone), and Robbins���s ���slings and eros��� was my final straw.
But I finished it.