Writer: Tom Robbins

Randy K turned me onto Tom Robbins about 40 years ago. He gave a copy of Still Life With Woodpecker in hard cover. I think he thought it would inspire my ambitions to be a writer. I walked away grom those ambitions but I replaced that copy with another when the first went astray. That copy has gone a way now along with so many of my other books. Luckily, the prison library had a small number of Robbins' books and I was happy to renew my acquaintance with him. If ever I get my PO to approve my laptop and I have time enough left to me, I will posts those notes here. I make note of this to explain why I got curious if there might need about Mr. Robbins.

I found no news but I found an interview and some criticism.

The interview was in January Magazine from about 20 years ago. This includes:

Fierce Invalids is a wonderful book, Tom. And it's, well, not necessarily a happy book, but your writing is happy. If that makes any sense. You seem to approach those words from a happy place.

I like to think that it never, ever turns its head away from the terrible truths of existence and yet at the same time without avoiding the misery and the suffering and the corruption and the danger in the world, that it can make people feel better about being alive. I wouldn't want to just raise people's mood -- to elevate their mood -- without first or simultaneously making them aware of the fact that there are a lot of terrible truths out there. So you have to wed that awareness of the terrible truths to a sense of wonder and appreciation for the beauty and the passion and the love and even the danger itself.

One of the influences on my work is a popular song by Frank Sinatra. "I've Got You Under My Skin." Because he sings from the point of view of a man who is absolutely, obsessively in love. I mean, in love to a point where it's probably psychologically dangerous to him. Yet every now and then he will just start to play with the words as if they were baubles. And he'll be really playful and noodle around with the words for a while and then right back into extreme emotional passion. When I heard that song and really listened to that song I realized what Sinatra was Msybe doing in it. I had a realization that this is the way that I view the world. This is the way that I view my work.

 The criticism includes Tom Robbins: the biggest fraud in literary history?, which seems self-explanatory, and I agreed with some of the comments that he became irrelevant at a certain age. Maybe my reading him as a would-be writer made him relevant to me; maybe that it was me scraping off the crud that I had buried myself under for the better part of 40 years made him delightful company; or it was both.

Jason Sheehan reviewed Robbins' memoir for NPR under Tom Robbins Takes A Bite Out Of Life In 'Peach Pie'. I read this in prison. I liked. Yet there may be some truth in this paragraph:

But were someone to come up to me with a copy of Tibetan Peach Pie and say, "Hey, someone just gave me a copy of Tom Robbins' new memoir. Should I read it?" I'd have a slightly different answer. "That guy," I'd say, "is a stylist. And I mean that in the best possible way. But man, you gotta really like Tom Robbins to want to read that one."

I would say give all of Robbins a try. Like now. An antidote to now.

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3/12/22