That´s Robbins´closest encounter with some fantastic elements, not just letting the characters and their actions be the center of the show, but adding a second higher, meta line to the whole thing, next to the usual subtle criticism.Ī journey on the search of immortality leads to meeting the god pan, slowly killed by Christianity in ancient times, finally a second time terminated by economics currently and in the future to make sure sure that he´s dead, going through time periods of the past, while different present plotlines are combined with the ancient origins of higher powers. I never thought a book about immortality-one of my favorite subjects-could ever inspire in me such a desperate desire for it all to please just end.ĭo you smell that? Most ingenious alternative indie writing ever.

Imagine 350 dense, unrelenting pages of this crap. ()Īnd that’s just me culling annoying descriptions of the sky. ()Ībove Seattle, the many-buttocked sky continued to grind. Chestnut blossoms, weary from having been admired all day, wore faint smiles of anticipation. Pompadours of supper-time smoke billowed from chimneys, separating into girlish pigtails as the breeze combed them out, above the slate rooftops. ()Ī few flat clouds folded themselves like crepes over fillings of apricot sky. The sun was so round and glossy and black that had it a figure eight on it, well, it would have validated a lot of long-standing philosophical and theological complaints, underlining once and for all just where we earthlings sit on the cosmic pool table.

When Claude glanced at the sky, he saw that the text of Les Miserables had been painted over by Salvador Dali. With the absence of the cloud cover that normally caused the sky over Seattle to resemble cottage cheese that had been dragged nine miles behind a cement truck, the city, for the first time in memory, would have an unobstructed view of one of nature’s most mystical spectacles. The sky was a velvety black paw pressing on the white landscape with a feline delicacy, stars flying like sparks from its fur. The sky, layered with thin altostratus clouds and smog, appeared to reflect human suffering and failed to awaken in Claude visions of paradise. And here’s the kind of prose you can look forward to: Here’s what seems to pass for humor in a Tom Robbins novel: beets (the very existence of), a woman getting stung in a delicate place by a bee, and lesbians (the very existence of). People have recommended him on the basis of comparisons to Douglas Adams, but Adams is, you know, funny. Well, I officially don’t get Tom Robbins.

Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins