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Fiction.
Literature.
HTML:??Robbins??s comic philosophical musings reveal a flamboyant genius.???People
Still Life with Woodpecker is a sort of a love story that takes place inside a pack of Camel cigarettes. It reveals the purpose of the moon, explains the difference between criminals and outlaws, examines the conflict between social activism and romantic individualism, and paints a portrait of contemporary society that includes powerful Arabs, exiled royalty, and pregnant cheerleaders. It also deals with the problem… (mais)
I've had a few conversations that remind me of this book: always with a fast-talker armed with cheesy jokes, half-baked notions, and conspiracy theories, salted with tasteless stereotypes, but interesting and weird enough that I want to hear just a little more. But I do always feel relief when it's over... ( )
Tom Robbins books all fit into a pattern: beautiful woman needs direction/help, and an eccentric man uses sex to unlock her mind and give her wisdom. Robbins will also focus on a particular thing - in this book it is redheads - and philosophize upon it at length. So basically if you've read one of his books you've read them all, and this is by far the best of the bunch. ( )
The beginning of this book was a bit of a struggle to get into. Tom Robbins is an absurd writer, with nonsensical descriptions, and overly sexual tones, it can be random and cringy at times. For this, I really struggled with the first 50 pages.
That being said, his writing can also be genius, and incredible insightful about society and human nature. I flew through the next 150 pages. The Woodpecker character is fascinating, and Leigh-Cheri's self imprisonment was incredible. Some of the random thought tangents characters would go through are incredible original, interesting, and occasionally insightful.
The last 50 pages were a slog again though, similar to the beginning. I lost interest in the plot and characters. The writing felt closer to the cringe side of the spectrum vs the genius side a lot more often. I had to force myself to finish, but the very end was pretty decent.
I'm interested in trying more Robbins, and the peaks of this book were very high. But the valleys have me apprehensive. Robbins strikes me as a very manic writer, who needs a better editor. ( )
Tom is my new hero; I loved this story and is outrageous humor. I mean seriously.. when an exiled Queen's favorite response to just about any incident is "Oh, Oh, spaghetti-o's" you gotta love it! Tom obviously lives in a world far different from most of us and that's why he's so great. And no Seattle isn't that odd though it IS different, LOL. I'm hooked on his wacky mind and will read everything he's written. I've give this 5 stars and maybe some of his others will merit it. ( )
Once I got through the first chapter and Tom Robbins tangential, wordy voice, I had a blast. It's a very fun, weird book. I must admit I skipped all the direct, typewritter referencing chapters. ( )
Informação do Conhecimento Comum em inglês.Edite para a localizar na sua língua.
You don't need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Don't even listen, simply wait. Don't even wait. Be quite still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you. To be unmasked, it has no choice. It will roll in ecstasy at your feet. —Franz Kafka
Here should be a picture of my favorite apple. It is also a nude & bottle. It is also a landscape. There are no such things as still lifes. —Erica Jong
Dedicatória
Informação do Conhecimento Comum em inglês.Edite para a localizar na sua língua.
To the memory of Keith Wyman and Betty Bowen: if there is a place where people go after death, its proprietors have got their hands full with those two.
To everybody whose letters I haven’t answered. and to G. R., special delivery.
Primeiras palavras
Informação do Conhecimento Comum em inglês.Edite para a localizar na sua língua.
In the last quarter of the twentieth century, at a time when Western civilization was declining too rapidly for comfort and yet too slowly to be very exciting, much of the world sat on the edge of an increasingly expensive theater seat, waiting—with various combinations of dread, hope, and ennui—for something momentous to occur.
PROLOGUE If this typewriter can't do it, then fuck it, it can’t be done. This is the all-new Remington SL3, the machine that answers the question, “Which is harder, trying to read The Brothers Karamazov while listening to Stevie Wonder records or hunting for Easter eggs on a typewriter keyboard?” This is the cherry on top of the cowgirl. The burger served by the genius waitress. The Empress card.
Citações
Informação do Conhecimento Comum em inglês.Edite para a localizar na sua língua.
"One must agree that the last quarter of the twentieth century was a severe period for lovers. It was a time when women openly resented men, a time when men felt betrayed by women, a time when romantic relationships took on the character of ice in spring stranding many little children on jagged and inhospitable floes."
"Regardless of what else the press might have contributed to our culture, regardless of whether it is our first defense against totalitarianism or a wimpy force that undermines authentic experiences by categorizing them according to faddish popular interest, the press has give us big fat Sunday papers to ease our weekly mental menstrual bloat."
"If beneath the great issues and all-encompassing questions (as underplayed as they were in the last quarter of the twentieth century) a more intimate struggle rages, a struggle whose real goal was romantic fulfillment, maybe it was courageous and honorable to attempt to transcend that struggle, to insist on something more than that. Maybe."
"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."
"Who does have a love life anymore? These days people have sex lives, not love lives... I don't have a love life because I've never met a man who knew how to have a love life. Maybe I don't know how, either."
"Tunnel vision is a disease in which perception is restricted by ignorance and vested interest. Tunnel vision is caused by an optic fungus that multiplies when the brain is less energetic than the ego. It is complicated by exposure to politics. When a good idea is run through the filters, it not only comes out reduced in scale and value but in its new dogmatic configuration produces effects opposite of those for which it was originally intended. That is how the loving ideas of Jesus Christ became the sinister clichés of Christianity."
"This is not an easy time for lovers, either... True, most lovers don't work at it hard enough, or with enough imagination or generosity, but even those who try don't seem to have any ultimate success these days. Who knows how to make love stay?"
"Love is the ultimate outlaw. It just won't adhere to any rules. The most any of us can do is sign on as its accomplice. Instead of vowing to honor and obey, maybe we show swear to aid and abet. That would mean the 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."
"Maybe both lust and love demand something more than most of us have the stomach for. These days, certainly, folks seem more concerned with furthering careers than with furthering romance."
"...until we admit that while a partner can add sweet dimensions to our lives, we, each of us, are responsible for our own fulfillment. Nobody else can provide it for us, and to believe otherwise is to delude ourselves dangerously and program for eventual failure every relationship we enter."
"One day we wake up and the magic is gone. We hustle to get it back, but by then it's usually too late, we've used it up. What we have to do is work like hell at making additional magic right from the start. It's hard work, especially when it seems superfluous or redundant, but if we can remember to do it, we greatly improve our chances of making love stay."
"Three of the four elements are shared by all creatures, but fire was a gift to humans alone. Smoking cigarettes is as intimate as we can become with fire without immediate excruciation. Every smoker is an embodiment of Prometheus, stealing fire from the gods and bringing it on back home. We smoke to capture the power of the sun, to pacify Hell, to identify with the primordial spark, to feed on the marrow of the volcano. It's not the tobacco we're after but the fire. When we smoke, we are performing a version of the fire dance, a ritual as ancient as lightning."
"It occurred to her that in every relationship in which she had participated, in every union older than a year that she'd observed, imbalance existed. Of a couple, one person invariably loved stronger than the other. It seemed a law of nature, a cruel law that led to tension and destruction. She was dismayed that a law so unfair, so miserable prevailed, but since it did, since imbalance seemed inevitable, it must be easier, healthier to be the lover who loved least."
"Love is private and primitive and a bit on the funky and frightening side... Underneath the hearts and flowers, love is loony like that. Attempts to housebreak it, to dress the crabs up like doves and make them sing soprano always results in thin blood."
Últimas palavras
Informação do Conhecimento Comum em inglês.Edite para a localizar na sua língua.
Fiction.
Literature.
HTML:??Robbins??s comic philosophical musings reveal a flamboyant genius.???People
Still Life with Woodpecker is a sort of a love story that takes place inside a pack of Camel cigarettes. It reveals the purpose of the moon, explains the difference between criminals and outlaws, examines the conflict between social activism and romantic individualism, and paints a portrait of contemporary society that includes powerful Arabs, exiled royalty, and pregnant cheerleaders. It also deals with the problem
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