Αίσχος. Ένας αχταρμάς χωρίς καμία ουσία. Το βιβλίο σχεδόν μου βρομούσε.

What's up with the juvenile sex talk, man? Ugh it's a great story, pretty funny and exciting and all, but he just has to throw in descriptions of genitals and sex acts wherever he can. I'm certainly no prude, but that doesn't mean that I need to know about every erection and scenario where the main characters have more sex in five minutes of reading than most people have all month! And I'm sorry, but there is no way to make a clever metaphor for boners or boobs or whatever. It's a waste of good writing skills. You end up sounding like a pervy 14 year old no matter what.

But it did inspire me to cook some beets, and I'm seriously in love now. With beets. Weird, I know, but they're great. Since this is a book forum, I won't go on about it, but ask me sometime and I'll tell you all about how awesome beets are.

Her ‘büyülü gerçeklik’ kurgusunda olduğu gibi bu kitabın konusundan bahsetmek te oldukça güç. Hayatımızı oluşturan en temel kavramlar hakkında bolca düşünmeye sevk edildim, yer yer sert geçişlerle üzerime üzerime gelen Batı’dan Doğu’ya uzanan, bitmek bilmeyen uzunca (1000 yıl kadar) bir tarihe tanıklık ettim, ölümsüzlüğün peşinde. İnsanın kalbiyle yaşamasını savunan self-king Alobar ve Kudra’nın temsil ettiği günahkarlar, asiler, şairler, kaçanlar, kovalananlar, unutulanlar, deliler aşkına...İyi ki okudum bu kitabı.

Bununla birlikte belirtmek isterim ki, sabırlı olmayan okur yeltenmesin. Çaba ve sabır gerektiren bir okuma deneyimi sunuyor Tom Robbins. En baştaki hızlı ve heyecanlı başlangıç 100. sayfadan sonra yer yer neye hizmet ettiğini çok anlayamadığım uzun betimlemelere ve tekrarlara da bırakıyor yerini.

Genel anlamda bu kitabı okumak beni mutlu etti ve akşam yemeği için pancar salatası canım çekti.

Jitterbug Perfume was the first Tom Robbins book I ever read, back in the spring of my freshman year of college in 1996 (thanks, Yanek!). I fell in love instantly. If you've never read a Robbins book before, I will warn that they are not for everyone - he likes to push the envelope when it comes to social pre-conceptions, religion, relationships, etc. - but if you tend to like weird, quirky, philosophical stories, you owe to yourself to give at least one of his books a try. This one focuses on themes of life and death and immortality, and the importance of our sense of smell throughout all of these. You meet the ancient Greek god Pan and by the end, you're dying to smell this amazing perfume discovered by our protagonists. It is a crazy romp through centuries and around the world, and I love every minute of it.

32 ay sonra tekrar okumak nasip oldu. Meğer satır aralarında ne çok kara mizah kaçırmışım. Tom Robins' kelimelerle zihninizi adeta lunapark'a çeviriyor. Bahsedecek o kadar çok şey var ama bir o kadar da okuyan arkadaşım olduğu için belki sonra yorumumu güncelleyip içerik hakkında derinlemesine bilgi paylaşımında bulunabilirim..

Here's a discussion board assignment I wrote for an advanced English class regarding Jitterbug Perfume:

My favorite author, Tom Robbins, was my favorite author even before he wrote my favorite novel of all time.  My copies of Robbins’ first three books, Another Roadside Attraction, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, and Still Life with Woodpecker (especially the latter) were tattered and dog-eared with repeated readings long before I got my hands on Jitterbug Perfume.  It was 1985, and I was a twenty-one year old single mom, coping with a new baby and a new job and muddling my way through life.  Jitterbug Perfume was my ticket to a fantastical rocket-ride of metaphorical madness, spiritual surmising, and time-skipping adventure, and I loved it utterly.  My rebellious side adored Robbins’ habit of taking liberties with the English language that would undoubtedly be frowned upon in polite society.  While stretching the art of the metaphor to ridiculous lengths at every turn, Robbins coins new words to suit his language-twisting purposes, pursuing (seeming) tangents and (apparently) unnecessary asides till the reader is all a-tangle in his fanciful, sermonistic, even cartoonish prose, only to tie up every crazily flapping loose end in a manner that somehow includes both the delicious itch of tantalization and the sweet release of complete satisfaction (this is the most Robbins-esque sentence in this paragraph, by the way).  Upon reaching the end of Jitterbug Perfume, I burst into tears and immediately flipped back to the beginning and started over.  Since those first back-to-back readings, I have read the book over and over, including once aloud, cover to cover, to my sweetheart.  I never tire of the story, which is densely plotted across time (from the days when the earth was flat to nine o’clock tonight, Paris time) and space (from ancient Bohemia and the Far East to present-day Seattle, New Orleans, and the aforementioned Paris).  Lyrical, silly, romantic, epic, lusty, and illuminating, Jitterbug Perfume never fails to delight and inspire me.  The book blew my burdened, restless young mind open to the extreme possibilities of writing, transforming the art of writing and the English language itself into something decidedly un-boring and sexy in my eyes.  I often wonder if another book will ever come along to tickle and twist and educate my mind as much as Jitterbug Perfume. Perhaps one day the right book will come along at the right time and once again blow my skull delightfully apart, dethroning Mr. Robbins as my favorite author and deepest influence of all time.  I sort of hope so… and sort of not.

i've found that with tom robbins' novels, you either love it or hate it. i hated this one. disappointing since so many people have told me that i "HAD" to read it, assured that i would just love it. for the record, i liked 'still life with woodpecker' and 'skinny legs and all.' i didn't care for 'even cowgirls get the blues' and thought this one was so full of shit that the topic of perfume was so sorely needed to cover the overwhelming stench. maybe i just wasn't in the right mindset. maybe i'm over his pompous prose and veiled quasi-misogynistic crap. maybe i just don't like old white guys writing southern black women in phonetics. oooh-ee, massa, tom robbins ain't no race-iss. tom robbins an ar-teest, mm-hmm. take a flying leap, jitterbug perfume. twilight was more entertaining than you.

(i'm going to get so much flack for this. i can feel it coming. but really, what the hell do i know? i'm just one dumb woman, right?)

Read this book. It will change your life, and it will stay with you. Keep at it...the beginning seems bizarre and takes a while to come together, but it does, and it's so worth it. This story has probably impacted me more than any book I've read in a long time.

As I'd said to my friend Juliana, once I'd started this book: part of me wonders what took me so long between being recommended the book in 1996 and finally getting around to reading it, like, TODAY. But then another part of me knows that I did not yet dig so heavily on, say, beets and Tibetan Buddhism (both of which have figured crucially by p. 116) back in 1996. And then, oh my God, an accordionist, a crucial accordionist, appears! I mean really.

So maybe I had to, you know, get with it, before I could be worthy of such a damn fine book. It is as if Tom Robbins, way back in 1984, had a portal into what would become my brain, and made a book for it.

As Juliana astutely pointed out in response, "Perchance you need to see what he is writing now so you an get a glimpse of what's to come for you in a decade or so. Would be cheaper than a call to 1-800-CLAIRVOYANT."

Two stars, and I’m being nice. And I am a f*cking huge fan of beetroot.

For the last few weeks, I’ve been eating it like it’s the only vegetable on the menu. It’s good for iron in the blood, and I like it pickled, raw and boiled. I could eat it constantly. I love sex as well, I love reading about it. Of course you want to know a lot about.

But this book was hysterical. In the beginning I was so enthusiastic, and Alobar had a face and body of Gerard in ‘300’ movie. Oh la la la, take me, take me, take me. Even if you don’t shower.

Book had it all, and then he/Robbins started talking. And I started blinking, what are you talking about? And it wasn’t the sex part, nymphs coming all over the grass, sperm all over everybody, lesbians gnawing in the toilet, Rabbit nose, and now I am here, now I am not, bees as an accessorize and religious history.

My thoughts were, aha, ok, yes, ok. Simple thoughts. I’m mocking this book too much now, but what I want to say. General idea is great, really fascinatingly great - people should enjoy more, appreciate life more, look what happened throughout history - we have every reason to understand happiness and love, to live happily and be in love (and to have as much sex as we can) and send positive vibes to each other.

The essence of everything is Pan ... but all together, this book was like warm milk. Something that I was forced to drink when I was younger and it tasted like shite, and in this metaphor, I was forcing myself to finish reading.

Cogito, ergo sum. Sorry Tom, thank you Descartes.

Final result: lets put that nose little bit down, ha, Mr. Robbins? Lets not tear the clouds with it.

*Havanın, Victor Hugo'nun en kötümser sayfalarına taş çıkardığı o günde,...
**Dünyanın henüz tepsi gibi dümdüz olduğu o günlerde, insanlar hep kenardan düşeceklerinden korkar, bununla ilgili korkulu rüyalar görürlerdi.
*Doğmak ve ölmek kolaydı. Zor olan hayatın kendisiydi.
**İşte şeytan denen varlık, horozlara sabahın beşinde ötmeyi, uyuyan çiftlerin yüzündeki gülümseme ifadesini silebilmek için öğretmiştir.
*Her pazar kiliseye giden dindar vatandaşlar nasıl hafta içinde yalan dolanla yaşarsa,...
**Koku çirkin değil.Çekici bile.ama onu her denediğim zaman sanki burnuma faşizmin o pis buharları geliyormuş gibi hissediyorum.
*Doğal ham maddeler azaldıkça,pahalandıkça bizler sentetiklere döndük.
**Kendi gemine kaptanlık edemiyorsan, hangi yanlış limana vardığına şaşırmamalısın. Budala ve miskin kimselere,merkezi sinir sistemlerini soğan gibi soyup cılızlatan serüvenler sunulurdu.
*Suçluluk duygusu nörotik bir duyguydu.O duyguyu hristiyanlık,gerek ekonomik gerekse politik açıdan sonuna kadar sömürecekti.
**Eğer bir insan ıstıraptan kurtulmak uğruna tüm zevkleri de en baştan reddediyorsa ne kazanır?İçinde ne ıstırap ne de zevk olmayan bir hayat boş bir hayattır.Nötr bir hayattır.İsteyerek hiçliği aramak ise yenilgiden bile beter.Bu teslim olmak demek.Korkakça teslim olmak.Acı çekmekten öylesine korkuyorlar ki,hayatın en tatlı zevklerini feda edip canlarının yanmasından o sayede yakayı sıyırıyorlar.Bu tür bir zayıflığa insan nasıl saygı duyar?
*Her hareketsiz kabuklu hayvan,içe kapanıklığın gizli kuvvetini ifade eder zaten. Huzurda saklı olan kuvvettir o kuvvet.
**Aşkın en yüce işlevi, sevilen insanı özgün ve yeri doldurulamaz biri yapmasıdır.Aşkla mantığın farkı da şudur:Aşkın gözünde bir kurbağa pekala prens olabilir.Oysa mantıkçının analizinde,aşığın önce o kurbağanın prens olduğunu kanıtlaması gerekir, ki bu girişim nice tutkunun parıltısını körletmeye yeter.
* "Bana öyle geliyor ki,mutlu denilen insanlar asıl önemsiz olanlar.Gerçeklerden kaçıyor,önemli şeyleri hiç düşünmüyorlar."
**Doğduğumuz zaman bir rüya çorbasının içinden çıkarız.Öldüğümüzde rüya çorbasına gerisin geri batarız.İki çorbanın arasında,geçilecek kuru bir alan vardır.Hayat,bir sevkiyattır.

Bazı kitaplar vardır, insanın karşısına tam da zamanında çıkar hani, sanırım bu kitap da öyle bir dönemde çıktı karşıma, gerek betimlemeler gerekse ucundan tuttuğu konular -ölüm, doğa, tanrı, insan, şehirleşme, bireyselleşme ve ölümsüzlük arayışı vb.-, bu konuları kasvetli bir dille değil de zaman zaman tebessüm ettiren, zaman zaman da aniden suratına çarpan bir şekilde anlatması kitabı birçok kitaptan bi tık öne çıkardı benim açımdan. Okuyun ve de okutun efen'im. Okumak istemeyenin kafasına vura vura da okutabilirsiniz