Great Huygens quote, by the way.

Wow, how interesting. I have just started working through Tom Robbins. I started with Still Life with Woodpecker, and enjoyed it once it all came together. I moved on the Jitterbug Perfume and just LOVED it. But. . .

I am now reading Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates, and I cannot seem to get into it. It's a good thing I read on the train, because honestly, if I had something else on hand to read, I would have already put it down. It gets the train ride home tonight to suck me in, or I'll probably just ditch it.

So, Jack - does it pick up? Is it worth reading more into it than 100 pages or so?

~smile~
Meredith

This is my all time favorite book. My parents read it in the eighties because they were into rebirthing(breathwork, hot tubs). I read it as a teen because I loved the cover, and it made such an impact on me. I read it again as an adult and loved it even more. The smell, yes, the smell.

I cant stand Tom Robbins. I must be a mutant.

half asleep is the most irregular of his books. it's a straight forward timeline which is strange. and the main character is an obnoxious chick who is very anti-bohemian. it's one of my favorites (look at my screen name) but very irregular style for him.
favorite is definitely another roadside attraction. none of his other books, however wonderful, have the depth this one has.
curious to see what folks have to say of his latest novel, villa incognito,
and his new collection of works is great because w/o it's tom robbins for his own sake. very raw and personal (wild ducks flying backward)
also got turned on to other artists/writers from reading this one.

i loved jitterbug perfume, but my favorite is skinny legs and all. it's a bit more political, but it was my first tom robbins novel and it really affected me. and you should definitely give fierce invalids home from hot climates a chance. it's fantastic.

Amanda and Sister Hilary have my heart from that book. Two sides of the same coin.

I am a huge Robbins fan and Jitterbug Perfume is my favorite of his.

That said, have you read American Gods by Neil Gaiman? He addresses exactly this subject: "what happens to our gods when we stop believing in them." I highly recommend it. Especially if you liked JP. And Douglas Adams.

Skinny Legs and All is one of my all time favorite books. I know some people have issues with the talking inanimate objects, but I loved them. I loved the story of Jezebel and the long ongoing sentences.

Funny how now I'm bellydancing and have a shoe fetish. Maybe I am Ellen Cherry Charles.

Once i was sick and the only books around were by TR. HATE that dude. his tone is like nails on a chalk board. not sure if i hate him more than KV, SK and AR.

I started Still Life with Woodpecker early in college and may have physically thrown it across the room.
Hate, hate, Hated his tone, his style, his flippant attitude toward miscarriage and the like.
His whole vibe is certainly phallocentric, quite literally at times...

My book club all wanted to read Jitterbug Perfume, and I'm so glad they did.
I NEVER would have picked it up otherwise, and I really enjoyed it... I'm sorry it's over.
Glad to see some tips about what to read next.

As I read, I keep a bookmark that I can write down quotes, or at least page numbers, as I go.
This was a book that I also ended up writing down a handful of words I wanted to look up in the dictionary-
I love being challenged a little with new vocabulary!
Often I'll use a pencil to make a tiny dot in the margin next to the quote I want to be able to find again
(and even that still feels sacreligious to me!)
Since the copy I just read belongs to the library, I sat down and typed up some quotes to add to my collection.
(Page numbers are based on a hardcover from the 80's.)
May as well share them here:


p. 51
When Christ came along, Christ, who slept with no female, neither two-legged nor four,
Christ, who played no musical instrument, recited no poetry, and never kicked up his heels by moonlight, this Christ was the perfect wedge.
Christianity is merely a system for turning priestesses into handmaidens, queens into concubines, and goddesses into muses.

p.135
Pan had begun to live in his memories, an unhealthy symptom in anyone, suggesting as it does that life has peaked.

p.144
Critics must laud polish and restraint, attack what is quirky and disobedient

p. 184
Like that rarity, the wise husband, it was strong enough to possess its mate, secure enough to allow her her freedom.
[beet pollen with jasmine]

p. 210
Your unhappy person resents it when you try to cheer him up, because that means he has to stop dwellin' on himself and start payin' attention to the universe.
Unhappiness is the ultimate form o' self-indulgence.

p. 225
It is better to be small, colorful, sexy, careless, and peaceful, like the flowers,
than large, conservative, repressed, fearful, and aggressive, like the thunder lizards;
a lesson, by the way, that the Earth has yet to learn.

p. 319
In the end, politics is always a depressant, and I've preferred to be stimulated.

p. 320: Wiggs Dannyboy's letter to Priscilla:
As Marcel LeFever suggested in his address to the perfumers' convention, reptile consciousness is cold, aggressive, self-preserving, angry, greedy, and paranoid.
321:
When we are in a cold sweat, a blind rage, or simply feeling smugly dispassionate, we may be sure that, for the moment, our reptile brain is in control of our consciousness.
...
Characteristics of mammal consciousness are warmth, generosity, loyalty, love (romantic, platonic, and familial), joy, grief, humor, pride, competition, intellectual curiosity, and appreciation of art and music.
...
If the reptile brain equates with cold and the mammal brain with warmth, then the neocortex equates with light.
322:
The physical frontiers have been conquered. The Industrial Revolution has shot its steely wad.
In our age of high technology, the rough and tough manifestations of mammalian sensibility are no longer a help but a hindrance.
(And the vestiges of reptilian sensibility, with its emphasis on territory and defense, are dangerous to an insane degree.)
We require a less physically aggressive, less rugged human being now.
We need a more relaxed, contemplative, gentle, flexible kind of person, for only he or she can survive (and expedite) this very new system that is upon us.
Only he or she can participate in the next evolutionary phase. It has definite spiritual overtones, this floral phase of consciousness.

p. 325
Beowulf, Siegfried, and the other dragon slayers are aspects of our own unconscious minds.
The significance of their heroics should be apparent.
We dispatched them with their symbolic swords and lances to slay reptile consciousness.
The reptile brain is the dragon within us.