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Along with Another Roadside Attraction, this is probably my favourite Tom Robbins book. It explores the life of a teenage girl who also happens to be a princess of a country ruled by a military junta. She lives in Seattle with her parents and by the time that book starts she is already bored with her protected life and after a miscarriage in the middle of a cheerleading gig decides to go to Hawaii to attend a festival which is intent on saving the earth.
In the book, Princess Leigh-Cheri learns a lot about herself, and also discovers the origin of all true red-heads like herself (we are a special breed you see). An interesting character is also found in her chaperone Guileta who attends to her charge's underage drinking and secret meet-ups while also able to not speak English. Possible the funniest part is the fact that her parents, the King and Queen of the home country are prevented from going home and dumping the military junta as the USA supports it (sounds a little familar). Her love interest, known as Woodpecker the outlaw also becomes an important part of the plot as he dodges policing officials the world over.
As per usual, Robbins never stops surprising you or adding a new element to this book, such as the origin of the picture on the front of a packet of Camel cigarettes and how it relates to the picture on a NZ $1 bill, and it's not the Illuminati either. Read this book and be entertained for days (or one day if you couldn't stop reading it like me). By that token, I don't think I've been disappointed by any book Robbins has written but I definitely do have my favourites.
To be honest, I've read quite a bit of this guy's work and this has been my least favourite so far. It tells the story of the worst day of a woman's life followed by a weekend which progressively gets stranger and stranger. Nothing about Robbins' books conveys a normal sense of what you would expect in a fiction novel. There is no over-reaching plot, climax or distinct characterisation but rather a combination of unreal and extenuating circumstances. This is what makes his books so different and so fantastic.
In this one, after a stock market crash before the Easter weekend, a stockbroker, Gwendolyn stresses about her future. We then follow her from looking for her boyfriend's pet monkey who has escaped and getting to know another man, Larry Diamond who attempts to expand her purely stock-oriented mind and searching for her friend Q-Jo who is a tarot card reader who has mysteriously failed to turn up home and cannot be found anywhere. Gwendolyn, over this weekend which she begins with what she believes is the "worst day of my life" discovers what she really wants; sexually, career-wise and for herself.
As usual, Robbins uses his brilliant prose and infinitely random mind in a new way. The book is full of metaphors and it wouldn't do me any harm to read it again just to remember some of the more brilliant ones. Plus monkeys are one of my favourite animals so that also helps.
To fully appreciate Tom Robbins' books, you have to be willing to wait. Most of his books open confusedly and this one was no exception. I think I enjoyed this book more than any of his others because the character of Sissy was introduced early on and expanded throughout the book.
The book centres around Sissy, a young girl with abnormally large thumbs. Random? Yes. Fits into the book well? Yes. Sissy learns about hitchhiking from an early age, she hitchhikes the wind, the cars and life in general. She is introduced to the 'cowgirls' through a part-time employer, shortly after she surprisingly gets married. Sissy's marriage, however, is also important to the book. She experiences life tied down, not as free to hitchhike when she wants and bewildered by not being able to keep moving as she is used to.
With the short-term escape to the Rubber Rose ranch, Sissy meets one of the loves of her life, aptly named Jellybean. She learns from her fellow cowgirls about loving the skin you're in (to put it lightly) and eventually journeys out to meet the second love of her life; Chink, who is a Japanese ex-prisoner living off the land. There's more, believe me but I don't want to ruin the book.
The reason I liked this book more that the others I have read was because the story flowed easily, but kept with Robbins' pattern and haphazard story-telling manor. You never quite know what is coming next and the story leads to a fanatical climax and an unusual ending. It effectively explores Sissy's unusual personality and changes in her life which lead to different outlooks. I highly recommend it, I really appreciate most of Robbins' work and his delightful imagination.
This author is genius, the one thing you can be sure of in his books is that they will never ever be predictable. The twists and turns of the book come out of nowhere and seem completely unlikely but they contribute something to the plot as well. The underlying theme of religion was what kept this book going, and it did so very well.
The book details the lives firstly of Amanda and John Paul Ziller, a young couple living in the sixties in the USA. Several other characters are introduced throughout but mainly Marx Marvelous, a scientist gone astray and Plucky Purcell, an ex-athlete joining in on the spectacular.
There's not much to say about this book that won't give it away. It deals primarily with the concepts of spirituality and philosophy and each character contributes in his/her own way. There is a convergence of ideas showing the similarities between religion and science collecting an interesting philosophy throughout the entire book that not so much combines the two as it debates and settles with neither one nor the other. And when I say debates, it is not debating...
Definitely more scandalous than The Da Vinci Code but less read. Mainly because a lot of people just can't see where the hell Tom Robbins is coming from but personally I can and I think his writing borders on excellent.
