Booooooooo

Κατά κοινή ομολογία, ο Robbins είναι αντισυμβατικός συγγραφέας με αχαλίνωτη φαντασία. Γενικά δεν τον προτείνω εύκολα γιατί είναι weirdo και εγώ δεν είμαι τόσο weirdo (ελπίζω). Αnyhow, αυτό είναι το τέταρτο ανάγνωσμά του που πιάνω. Το πρώτο ήταν το Άρωμα του ονείρου (πολύ ιδιαίτερο βιβλίο με την καλή έννοια), το δεύτερο ο Τρυποκάρυδος (my favorite), το τρίτο η Θιβετιανή Ροδακινόπιτα (που να πω τη μαύρη αλήθεια δεν ικανοποίησε τον ‘’ουρανίσκο’’ μου). Μεσολάβησε αρκετό διάστημα για το νέο μυθιστόρημα. Ξεκίνησα τις πρώτες σελίδες με ενθουσιασμό γιατί αφενός ήταν δώρο κα ήθελα να το υπερλατρέψω , αφετέρου μου είχε φανεί πιασάρικο το στόρυ. BIG MISTAKE!

Το πρώτο μισό του βιβλίου είναι απολαυστικό με άφθονες χιουμοριστικές ριπές αλλά στο δεύτερο τα περισσότερα κεφάλαια δεν έχουν διηγηματικό ενδιαφέρον.
Ακατάσχετη φλυαρία χωρίς να εξυπηρετεί ουδεμία σκοπιμότητα. Πέρα από το να με πονοκεφαλιάσει. Ειλικρινά δεν κατακρίνω καν την αθυροστομία του, την δικαιολογώ ως απότοκο της αφοπλιστικής ειλικρίνειας του. Ειλικρινά απογοητεύτηκα γιατί μου άρεσαν οι κεντρικές ηρωίδες, ειδικά η τρου καουμπόισσα Μπονάτσα Τζελυ-Μπην. Δεν υπήρξε ποτέ καμία κλιμάκωση και μου άφησε μία πικρή επίγευση.
Ακόμη και ο Ρόμπινς απογοητεύει…

I'm giving it three stars because of Tom Robbins' ability to make fantastical and creative (although sometimes rather esoteric) metaphors.

I'm not sure if my biggest problem with the rest of the book is that he's actually an ass about women while thinking he's a feminist OR if it's that the book is such a self-indulgent vehicle for him to spout all of his own philosophies through the "opinions" of his characters. He wrote this book about points he wants to make about life and the universe, not really a story with challenges for characters.

Some of those observations are interesting...but it was laborious to read his 416 page philosophy essay that was disguised as "creativity" by overdoing his similes and relying on sex as art.

Plus, is he implying in his last chapter that lesbian relationships don't work because women aren't whole without a man...? I think he might be...

I really wanted to give it 2.5 stars, but that wasn't an option.

Tom Robbins you smug and clever bastard. He's such a good writer and he knows it -- maybe too good and too knowledgeable of his goodness for his own good.

Cowgirls is the epitome of this. Too many tricks. Too much deus ex machina (which with Robbins, more often becomes douche ex machina).

Took me longer to read than it should have. I'd say 55% compelling plot and ideas and turn of phrase, 45% meandering and over-philosophizing and under-developing a couple of key characters who come majorly into play in the 4th act (looking at you cowgirl ensemble -- apart from Bonanza Jellybean, for the most part).

Would I read it again? 55% of it...

Lost a star as one of the morals of the story is "Lesbians, deep down, need dicking." I'm not going to get mad at a lesbian-identified person who falls in love with or wants to have sex with cis men, but Robbins goes on to explain that this is literally what lesbians, lovely and sweet and cute as their affairs are, need. Boo.

This book is a jailbreak! Looking at other reviews, people either loved it or hated it. It took me 10 months to read it in small chunks, in part because the typeface was tiny, tiny, very difficult to read for an old man like me! I had to read it in small spurts to keep my eyesight! Bummer!! And in part because it is really a strange and ridiculous and entertaining book. Maybe if I had been on drugs I would have read it faster. I was given a copy 20 years ago by a special professional friend to read. She died about 10 years ago and I have been riven with guilt ever since and finally decided I should read it in her honor. It was a labor of love to do so, but I am glad I did.

Published in 1976 at the height of the LSD, etc., mania, the book is a reflection of the revolution that is still shaking the US out of its “color-only-inside-the-lines” boring, proper self. Robbins throws bits and pieces of personal philosophy, psychology, anthropology and whatever into a mulligan stew of a piece and spits it out in a very weak plot, if any kind of a plot there is. His total lack of reverence for political correctness occasionally makes one uncomfortable, but he has lack of reverence in general, so no surprise. No individual or institution is left unscathed by his sarcasm. I worry about his understanding of women throughout, but they are the only important figures in the book. Except for the Asian philosopher hidden away in a cave near the ranch who I shall not name.

As other reviewers have pointed out, reading between the lines is at least as important as reading the lines. And in the long run, the book is a cry for acceptance of the unusual, the stuff that kids get bullied about and embarrassed adults turn their backs on in cocktail parties. Sissy’s huge thumbs is a metaphor for acceptance of the odd, a Mr. Rogers approach without the sweet songs and with a great deal of not-for-Sunday-school-activities. To some it is revolting, disgusting, vile. To others it is a breath of fresh air and justified pokes in stuffy eyes. If you find human biology a bit off-putting this is not the book for you. I found it occasionally amusing in this time of disease and death and political chicanery.

"Αν θες να αλλάξεις τον κόσμο, άλλαξε τον εαυτό σου. Αυτό το ξέρεις εσύ, Σίσσυ."

Και βέβαια η Σίσσυ το ήξερε. Αυτή δεν ήταν η αρχή που ακολουθούσε πάντα η μεγαλύτερη ωτοστόπερ του κόσμου; Μονάχα που είχε έναν εγκέφαλο, και οι εγκέφαλοι διασκεδάζουν πάντα βάζοντάς μας να μάθουμε ξανά και ξανά αυτά που ξέραμε από την αρχή. Μπορεί ο εγκέφαλος να έχει δεχτεί πολλές επικρίσεις σε αυτό το βιβλίο, αλλά θα πρέπει να το παραδεχτείτε, ο εγκέφαλος έχει μια παράξενη αίσθηση του χιούμορ.


Ο Τομ Ρόμπινς έχει γίνει πλέον η αγαπημένη ετήσια συνήθεια των διακοπών μου. Πραγματικά δεν ξέρω τι θα κάνω όταν θα έχω διαβάσει όλα τα βιβλία του.

Το συγκεκριμένο τώρα, είναι από τα πρώτα που έγραψε και αυτό φαίνεται. Είναι σε νεαρότερη ηλικία και οι γνωστές του απόψεις για την ελευθερία, την κατανάλωση, την ανάπτυξη του δυτικού πολιτισμού και την επαφή με τη φύση είναι λιγότερο διαμορφωμένες από τα μεταγενέστερα βιβλία του αλλά και περισσότερο "αυστηρές". Ο Ρόμπινς καταπιάνεται με το παράδοξο, το ιδιαίτερο, την εξαίρεση στον κανόνα και το ρόλο που έχει - ή που θα έπρεπε να έχει - στη ζωή μας. Σε κάποια σημεία είναι λίγο κουρ��στικό αν έχεις διαβάσει και άλλα δικά του βιβλία (γιατί επαναλαμβάνεται), αλλά και πάλι είναι αρκετά απολαυστικό.

Σε κάθε περίπτωση, ο τρελο-Τομ έχει μια ξεχωριστή θέση στην καρδιά μου γιατί ξέρει να μην παίρνει τον εαυτό του και πολύ στα σοβαρά και τι έχει πραγματική σημασία: η αγάπη και το γέλιο.

Έχω όμως και την εξής παρατήρηση: εκεί στον Αίολο πρέπει να δουν ξανά λίγο το θέμα επιμέλεια ή, εάν είναι μεμονωμένο περιστατικό του συγκεκριμένου βιβλίου, να το διορθώσουν. Έχει υπερβολικά πολλά τυπογραφικά και ορθογραφικά λάθη για το μέγεθός του.

I read this when I was around 26. I was open to all kinds of books back then. I remember this book thrilling the hell out of me because it had a lot of lesbian sex. But that wasn't all. It had a beautiful passage about the migratory habits of cranes. This was a road novel with a lot of ingredients that I enjoyed. Every reader searches for themselves in the art they consume. Very rarely do I like a work of art which does not include me. Even Cowgirls Get the Blues is one such novel. It had nothing about me. I still liked it. It was about activists and hippies. I do not like it when artists turn into activists. But Tom Robbins pulls it off. Robbins is a brilliant writer. I enjoyed the part where he says the only contribution of white people to sex was the French kiss. Hahaha! I wish I could lure this guy into the crime fiction genre. We all long for our favorite artist to make a work of art which we want to make/watch/read. Tom Robbins is one such guy. But every Robbins novel that I ever read, I felt myself going farther away from his writing. Some readers get too distracted. Some readers discover porn/IG Thots which does posses a raw truth. But most readers turn into total assholes and cannot enjoy a Tom Robbins novel when they enter their thirties.

I read Tom Robbins' EVEN COWGIRLS GET THE BLUES as a teenager. I loved every word. It was sexy, funny, and full of glamorous scenery and beautiful writing.

But when I read the reviews on Goodreads, I cannot believe there are actually people who find it ugly and offensive. Why? Because it isn't a realistic look at the gay lifestyle as it's "supposed" to be lived? Anyone over 12 who reads the book will know it has NOTHING TO DO with "real" lesbians, any more than STAR WARS is a documentary about the daily lives of people working at NASA. The book was obviously -- and I do mean OBVIOUSLY -- written by a heterosexual male who loves the IDEA of lesbians (in the nude, all the time)but has never really met one.

So like, why is that a problem? When you read a Regency romance, you don't get angry because dukes and duchesses were not having fabulous sex day and night in real life like they are in a good Regency romance. No one expects a "romance author" to describe the "typical" experience of Regency rakes, or Vikings, or cowboys. So why is Tom Robbins being crucified because he gets a little harmless pleasure out of imagining sex between two beautiful young women? If he were a woman writing M/M romance novels on a trendy website like Loose ID or Ellora's Cave (or Blushing Books) no-one would even question his right to express his fantasies.

It's interesting that the same political correctness types who want to lynch Robbins for not making his lesbians dull, sour, man-hating battle axes turn a blind eye some of the other characters in the book.

Take, for example, "The Chink." I need hardly say how peculiar it is that Robbins seems to find it cute to call his Oriental character by this offensive slur. Why doesn't he call "The Countess" something similar, like "The Queer" or "The Faggot?" How come one kind of bigotry is cute and funny, while the other kind is objectionable and unthinkable? And how comes lesbians want to lynch this guy, while Orientals don't even care? I'm not offended myself, just curious.

And then again, look at "The Countess." Robbins shows him due deference in some ways, giving him a better nickname than "The Chink." Yet while Sissy Hankshaw can switch-hit with the best of them (as if that's normal for women) the countess is stuck with men only. And we certainly don't get any explicit sex scenes celebrating the love between two men! The Countess is a gay stereotype in a lot of ways, a dreadful snob, a celebrity name dropper, supercilious and arrogant, yadda yadda yadda. Yet you never hear of male homosexuals attacking this book. Why?

Bonanza Jellybean is such an adorable character. She's funny, playful, cheerful, tender towards both sexes, and a life-loving personality all around. She made me laugh and cry, and I never do that. What sort of minority group is offended to have a person like this counted among their ranks?

I don't want to pretend this book is flawless. Sissy Hankshaw really is an unusually passive and timid heroine. The sentimentality about Native Americans is so over the top as to be some kind of joke. (Larry McMurtry's Blue Duck would make quick work of Julian Gitche.) A lot of what Robbins has to say about the poor whites of South Richmond is the smug posturing of a patronizing liberal, mixed with the self-loathing of a cracker who rose too fast and has to keep assuring his Manhattan friends he's really one of them.

But you know what? I don't care. The prose is glorious, the characters are lovable, the humor is light and breezy, and the sex (especially in Julian's apartment) is hotter than anything this side of Blushing Books.

Wow, what an, er, wild ride of a book. I remember my friends reading and loving this back when I was in college, and when I saw a copy in the bargain bin I thought I might as well give it a try. In some ways the book hasn't aged well - the level of casual sexism and racism really annoyed me at quite a few points - perhaps at the time of its writing those things were just more acceptable. At the same time, I must say, there were deeply feminist and racial justice themed aspects to the book, especially as it transitioned from silly story into deep philosophical content in the last third. In the end, I think I'd recommend it, but I'm not entirely sure to whom - one would need to have a good deal of patience to get through the many chapters of surrealist absurdity to find the interspersed droplets of wisdom. I did dog-ear a number of pages that had wildly unexpected insights, and the one line that I think I will always remember is the brilliant description of magic - "the phenomena of one thing acting on another thing via a *secret* connection." So true.

Okay. I was just gonna rate "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues," and then I realized I could not leave it at that. I mean. Reading the negative reviews got me to thinking, Since I know that, beyond a doubt, this book has flaws.

I mean, look at these striking examples..
1) Lesbian “sex” drawn so cartoonish that it is laughable.
2) A teen-age cowgirl in a skirt so short that her crotch didn’t get the message is – well – so “seventeen year old boy reading Playboy while watching a scrambled Cinemax signal.”

In short, preposterous. Exploitative. Etc. And the idea that all lesbians – and by extension, homosexuals like the Countess – are straight? Why, the idea would make Pat Robertson proud – until he read the book, that is.

And this, mind you, is in a purportedly socially aware, feminist novel.

Yikes. Shades of a stoner uncle preaching while reminiscing about seeing Dylan and Jefferson Airplane and the freaky stuff he saw in the seventies.

And don’t get me started on the philosophy. It’s the sort of stuff we’d spin after smoking [tobacco, of course] from the hookah in my sophomore year in college. Speculating on matriarchal cultures being all peace, patriarchal all violence taking them over – despite archeological evidence to the contrary.

Funny thing is, even Robbins acknowledges this – albeit from the mouth of Julian, the “civilized Indian” – riddled with asthma and other civilized evils. You know. The Noble Savage gone patriarchal? Of course he’s sick.

Right. Obvious much?

So let’s see. Bonanza Jelly Bean and a gaggle of scantily clad teen-aged cowgirls. A Nordic looking model with huge thumbs that makes an art of hitchhiking. A Japanese person who escapes and Internment camp in 1946 to be saved by some Amerindians living in the wilds who call him, on error, “The Chink.” A gay entrepreneur, turned off by feminine pheromones, who makes millions selling douches to kill that odor. The sickly civilized Indian. A dominatrix with a whip and a bag of peyote… and drugged-out whooping cranes, Feds, FBI, guns, explosions, outlaws.

Hmmm. Let me guess. The seventies? Right as they “sold out?” Quaint, but not exactly “timeless” in the way Pynchon and Vonnegut are.

And yet, despite this – I still like this novel.

Sure, it is silly. Sure, it reeks of patchouli. And I hate having to move aside the lava lamp when I want to take notes. But it works at times, Especially when it talks about magic. Which is not about accepting or transcending reality, but transforming it.

And when Robbins sparks magic, the novel works.

At it's core -- despite the silly premise of Sissy Hankshaw's enormous thumbs -- "Even Cowgirls" is about the incomparable Bonanza Jelly Bean. Bonanza refuses to succumb to societal-imposed limitations about female gender roles, and becomes a cowgirl. But she doesn’t just become one on her own, but creates around her a space where other girls can dream and become themselves. She draws people into her dream, transforming them.

I like that. To me, that is liberating. And spoiled by too much monkey-business.

Robbins also seems to hit the mark on other things, too. Despite his all-thumbs handling of lesbian lust [sorry – could not resist], he hits the mark on love. Love hides behind all spirituality, so all love is spirit. And how rational minds tend to mash that love into rote and rite. From Debbie’s New Age philosophies that shift from day to day, to Christianity, to the greatest Hindu sages. Followers ossify their spiritual master’s thoughts, the love and juice squeezed out.

In the end, this book does transform. It is not great – but it works.

Somehow, I find something endearing about Robbins. The novel still managed to raise a few chuckles in my first reading after thirty years. But “Even Cowgirls” struck me as a relic of its time, showing its age less-well than other relics. Like how the Dead now seem quaint, but Marley still rings true and becomes classic.

But at times, “Casey Jones” still hits the spot.

Starting the year strong with a DNF.