I think I'm supposed to like this but it just annoyed me. Good narrator though. Life's too short for annoying books. Moving on...

I really liked sissy as a character and what she represented- I didn’t like most of the other characters though, especially the cowgirls. I did like the countess and how they compared to sissy’s ideology

I found the first two thirds of the book to be engaging, after that I felt like I was reading the term paper of an intro to philosophy student.

Also, even if the first two thirds were engaging, I was often uncomfortable, and not uncomfortable in that "hey, I'm stretching my thoughts beyond their normal boundaries" kind of uncomfortable, just the regular kind of uncomfortable.

Take for example the legend of Sissy's earliest hitchhiking endeavors. Reading about a young girl being molested by strangers while hitchikining would probably make me uncomfortable to some extent any time, but, the subject matter could be explored in a worthwhile manner. Here it was put forth as part of the girl's tittilating sexual awakening.

Repeatedly reading this male fantasy of a woman's sexuality grossed me out.

The women in this book are uber-objectified and fetishized.

So, I was alternately grossed out and bored.

I imagine I'll have to read something else of Tom Robbins' though to see if it's his style that I don't like, or if it was just this particular book.

Reading this was like eating way too much candy. It's great at first, but you just end up nauseous and sick by the end.

My two issues with this book are thus: first, the story felt like an insidious package, inside which Robbins was peddling his own philosophies. You don't bite into the preaching until at least halfway into the book, where Robbins (literally a character named after and representing the author) and the Chink start their long, tired monologues of philosophizing. Despite the ridiculous plot and characters, this book takes itself seriously, and it absolutely should not.

My second issue is that it's too long. Robbins's style can often sideline you with its brilliance, but it just as often jumps the shark. He is frequently intolerable. I struggled to finish this because I was fatigued with treading through absurd metaphors and similes. This was only my second Robbins, after Still Life (which I adored), and I took out Another Roadside Attraction, intending to read that right after Cowgirls. That will not be happening; my brain and patience are mush after this. I can't fathom reading another Robbins any time soon.

All that said, there are plenty of passages to wow here. I had to earmark this one, because it floored me. I'll end on a high note:

"They were in the hills now. The sun was sinking. Taking its tambourine with it, the wind went home to supper. Grass lost the beat and fell still. An American loneliness, which is like no other loneliness in the world, was spreading on all sides of the Cadillac, creeping out of the cooling soil, out of the air itself; smelling sweet, colored like the pinched feet of tired salesman, tasting of sweat and beer and fried potatoes, haunted by childhood dreams and the ghosts of Indians -- a lonering gloaming coiling like a smoky snake out of the busted suitcase of the continent. The limousine moved through the hush like a dentist's drill."

Bah. Many people won't find this review helpful. I do care about that, but not enough to change my review, because I feel it encompasses my feelings for this book quite fully. Here it is:

I had to choose between continuing to read ECGTB or staring at the back of the airplane seat in front of me.

I chose the back of the seat.

Repeatedly.

I'd read a section, and think to myself "This is shit!" and put it down to stare at the seat in front of me. Then I would think to myself "Come on. You're on a plane, and you have a book to read--a book by a renowned author. Just read the damn thing!"

But I couldn't!

So I would stare at the seatback for awhile, then pick up the book again and try to read it. It didn't work. So I would put the book down again and stare.

Rinse and repeat. Ugh!

I don't hate this book, but I found it to be self-indulgent drivel. I couldn't finish it, and I can't remember the last book I could say that about.

In my youth I was fortunate enough to be introduced to Robins by my father, who celebrated the author as the king of contemporary fiction, so naturally as my interest in literature blossomed, as did my love for Robins. I blasted through the majority of his work , loving what felt like gonzo diction, “bad boy” literature that dismissed traditional prose and style, rich in juvenile inflictions, vulgar language and hilarious digressions, this work opened my eyes to the limitless potentialities of good fiction. Fast forward sixteen years and I come across this novel in my local bookstore, it was the one “mainstream” body of work that I avoided at the time and eventually Robins become a figment and a relic of a different junction in my life, and in that time I, apparently, forgot just how truly magical this writing is. Perhaps re visiting robins with new eyes allowed to me grasp and digest subject matter that I imagine would have gone way over my head as a teen or at least been identified as merely novelty at the time. This book was such a delight, the type of book that refreshes one’s love for reading.

A sort of plotless story, Even cowgirls get the blues follows the journey of Sissy Hankshaw, a free-spirited, divine and gentle young woman with abnormally large thumbs, who seeks to make the most of her mutation by hitchhiking around America. Along the way, Sissy meets other strange characters and comes to better love herself and internalize her feelings towards others. The novel, clearly inspired by the hippy movement of the 1960s and 1970s, demonstrates Robbins's appreciation for the absurdity and kindness of characters, the light that shines behind us all.

Robin’s self aware meta style of writing, in its sardonic undertone accomplishes what few meta fiction stoies have managed to, a sort of self deprecating awareness not only of the story being told , but the values and characteristics that make up every aspect of individualism, Robins manages to bring the reader into the novel in a way that leaves you feeling as if , still physically holding and reading a novel (written by the narrator and character in the story itself (dr robins)) the reader is engaging with the novel itself within the actual universe the story is taking place, if that makes sense. Perhaps I’m giving too much credit to the author however little sub chapters that explore the authors transgressions and personal attitude towards what is playing out on the story, could only serve that singular purpose of not just for fun, which also would fit within the over-tone of the entire book.

Wise words from “The Chink”

“Love easily confuses us because it is always in flux between illusion and substance, between memory and wish, between contentment and need. Perhaps there are times when the contradictions of love are so intermingled that the only way to see the truth of love is to pit it against the irreducible reality of lust.
Of course, love can never be stripped bare of illusion, but simply to arrive at an awareness of illusion is to hold hands with truth-and sometimes the hard light of lust affords just such an awareness.”

"I set an example. That's all anyone can do. I'm sorry the cowgirls didn't pay better attention, but I couldn't force them to notice me. I've lived most of my entire adult life outside the law, and never have I compromised with authority. But neither have I gone out and picked fights with authority. That's stupid.
They're waiting for that; they invite it; it helps keep them powerful. Authority is to be ridiculed, outwitted and avoided. And it's fairly easy to do all three. If you believe in peace, act peacefully; if you believe in love, act lovingly; if you believe every which way, then act every which way, that's perfectly valid-but don't go out trying to sell your beliefs to the System. You end up contradicting what you profess to believe in, and you set a bum example. If you want to change the world, change yourself. You know that, Sissy."

"Unless the human race can bring itself to abandon the goals and values of civilization, in other words, unless it can break the consumption habit-and we are so conditioned to consuming as a way of life that for most of us life would have no meaning without the yearnings and rewards of progressive consumption.
So I'd say yes, inevitable. It isn't merely that our bad habits will cause global catastrophes, but that our operative political-economic philosophies have us in such a blind crab grip that they prevent us from preparing for the natural disasters that are not our fault.
So the apocalyptic shit is going to hit the fan, all right, but there'll be some of us it'll miss. Little pockets of humanity. Like the Clock People.”

Book on CD read by Michael Nouri

From the book jacket: The whooping crane rustlers are girls. Young girls. Cowgirls, as a matter of fact, all “bursting with dimples and hormones”—and the FBI has never seen anything quite like them. Yet their rebellion at the Rubber Rose Ranch is almost overshadowed by the arrival of the legendary Sissy Hankshaw, a white-trash goddess literally born to hitchhike, and the freest female of them all.

My Reactions
The last time (which was also the first time) I read anything by Tom Robbins was in 2002. It was for my F2F book club, or I don’t think I would have picked it up on my own. I vaguely remembered it was a strange plot but I enjoyed the writing style. My reactions to his writing haven’t changed.

Robbins writes ridiculously absurd storylines, interspersed with long discourses on philosophy, religion, history, etc. His characters are bigger than life and virtually all of them have some unique quirk – physical or philosophical. The “stars” of this novel are Sissy (born with extraordinarily large thumbs, perfect for hitchhiking), the Countess (a man whose business empire is built on feminine hygiene products), Bonanza Jellybean (a teenage cowgirl on the Rubber Rose Ranch), and the Chink (a Japanese American who has befriended the Native American clock people and become a sort of guru to a variety of hippie pilgrims). Oh, and let’s not forget the whooping cranes who stop at Siwash Lake on the Rubber Rose Ranch on their way to and from their traditional winter and summer nesting grounds.

If you’re having trouble figuring out how such a diverse cast could come together in a coherent plot, well, stop trying. You’ll just give yourself a headache. Robbins is nothing if not inventive in his plotting. Where his writing shines, though is in his wild descriptions / similes. A few examples:

The breeze in the grasses made a sound like a silk-lined opera coat falling to the floor of a carriage.

The sky was as tattered as a Gypsy’s pajamas. Through knife holes in the flannel overcast, July sunlight spilled…

[T]he Countess complained, his dentures working over his ivory cigarette holder like a chiropractor realigning the spine of a Chihuahua.

Entertained as I was by the occasional wild description and laugh-out-loud moment, however, in general I was bored by the book. All those interludes to wax poetic about this or that philosophy seemed nothing but an attempt to distract the reader from the lack of a story. Clearly, Robbins is not the writer for me.

Michael Nouri’s performance on the audio is wonderful. He has great pacing, and the way he interprets certain characters brings them to life.

I'll say it as well, because it cannot be said enough - Robbins is a genius, and hilariously so, because he evidently enjoys bumming around ingeniously. Getting to the book... it is full of amazing play on words, amazing metaphors, and (what all these nazis of serious literature consider frivolous), magnificent narrative digressions in the first person. His feministic view is just the cherry on the top, but I was disappointed when he ultimately alluded to the male-female relationship as the only "complete" one.

Heterosexuality was the natural law centuries ago, when we needed incentive to mate with the other sex. The intellectual development since has been exponential enough to carve out new roles for both genders - and in no way is propagation of progeny a big natural concern just like fear of natural phenomena has been eradicated with the guaranteed shelter of civilization.

Apart from that philosophical disagreement, the novel is brilliant. As a work of literature, one of the best I'd've read - extremely intelligent, both in content and writing, very insightful and very ha-ha-ho-ho-and-hee-hee-nothing-matters-that-much.

“If he has confused you, the author apologizes. He swears to keep events in proper historical sequence from now on. He does not, however, disavow the impulses that led to his presentation of cowgirl scenes out of chronological order, not does he, in repentance, embrace the notion that literature should mirror reality.”

Even Cowgirls Get the Blues showcases all the symptoms of a novel plagued by postmodernism: the loss of the real, the rule of the sign, celebrating the fragmented, pastiche and playfulness, metafiction, self-conscious narration, and hauntology. The preface the author dedicates to the amoeba is no coincidence. It simply foreshadows the amount of chaos and play the novel will delve into.

We follow the story of Sissy Hankshaw, a lovely little girl who grows up to be a smoking hot model, notwithstanding the deformity of being blessed with unusually large thumbs—the perfect apparatus for what later constitutes her long-life career passion and hobby: hitchhiking. Sissy ends up in an all-girl teenage ranch, the Rubber Rose, led by the sexy Bonanza Jellybean. Most of the adventure revolves around the cowgirls she meets there and her relationship with what everyone calls the Chink, a wise old man (a pervert if you ask me lol; a caricature of the archetype) who lives on a butte that overlooks the ranch.

I recommend this for people who are interested in postmodernism, people who are interested in knowing how a postmodern novel feelslooks like.

It's hard not to compare this disappointing plotless cult-classic with the disappointing plotless cult-classic I read last year around the same time, A Confederacy of Dunces. Even Cowgirls Get the Blues was by far funnier, but it took me longer to read- I started this book in July, and had to take many sabbaticals from it since then.

This book just became too full of smug hippie bullshit after awhile. It became preachy and obnoxious, and the sleazy 70's dude feminism stuff got grody. While I still found it occasionally funny, I wanted to throw it across the room every time the Chink or the author went on a long diatribe about how Jesus America sucks or time doesn't exist, maaan. I wanted to Chuck the Chink.

And yes, the plotlessness. I don't think a book should really be this long and still be as plotless as a plutonian winter. I need something to go along with quasi-philosophical tomfoolery.

In conclusion, I found this book to be funny yet boring (not unlike that stranger who stares back at me in the mirror every morning). Oh well. I'll probably read some more Tom Robbins somewhere down the road.

PS: This book is a chick magnet. Never have I had so many random girls come up to me and tell me how much they loved the book I was reading.

This is a story about thumbs. Not just any thumbs, but two humongous thumbs that are attached to professional hitchhiker Sissy Hankshaw, the world’s freest woman. At a very young age Sissy leaves home because of her physical deformity and a strong desire to hitchhike. She never has a destination because hitchhiking is her destination. Sissy eventually finds a husband to settle down with through a mutual friend, although she misses the movement and freedom of her previous life. It is at this point in the story that she meets the cowgirls.

The cowgirls are led by Bonanza Jellybean, a fiery woman who grew up wanting to be a cowgirl. She became one due to sheer determination, and leads an all-female ranch in the Dakotas. Sissy is sent to the ranch to assist in getting it under control, but she is seduced by the cowgirls and a wise hermit named Chink who lives in a cave near the ranch. All hell breaks loose when the cowgirls kidnap a bunch of endangered whooping cranes and drug them with peyote buttons. The FBI and US Government, under extreme pressure from the media and public opinion, decide it necessary to wage war against the cowgirls to free the cranes. What happens after that? Well, I’ll let you find out for yourself!

Similar to other books by Robbins that I have read, this story has a well-developed main plot, plenty of side stories and tangents, and conflicting morals thrown around. It’s all very humorous, and I believe it is meant to be taken lightly. There is also a lot of graphic sexual activity. Men and women, women and women, women and themselves... I would venture to say that this is one of the raunchiest books I have ever read. It could easily be classified as a lust story, although I’d like to believe that Sissy and the others are capable of loving everyone that they lay with. Maybe one of the morals that I grabbed from this book is that it is impossible to love just one person, and that we should be free to love as many as our hearts (and loins) can handle.

4/5 Stars. 365 pages. Published 1976.

I found myself in a literary desert after finishing most of the Vonnegut novels, concerned that no other author would tickle that "itch" i craved more and more of. I knew that was not the case within the first 100 pages of this novel. I know this novel is controversial- Tom Robbins waves his intelligence and eloquence at full mast for all to swoon over, or so I imagine he imagines. The male-written feminism, male-centered outlook on female homosexuality, and the whole phallic nature of the entire thumb metaphor itself is outdated, trite at times, and frankly concerning- especially reading it 40 years later. That's not to say that this book does not deserve the 5 stars I gave it.

This is the epic adventure through barren flatlands you have been unknowingly waiting for all your life. If Cat's Cradle blew your mind, or you enjoy novels which takes you to the furthest point away from what you thought the book was going to be about, then this is for you. If you like satirical and often asshole-ish authors who are willing to tell you what they think the meaning of life is, spit on your existentialism, and degrade existence simply to mere existence then this is the one for you as well.

Hunter Thompson said, "Buy the ticket, take the ride". Robbins says fuck that- just show up! Hitchhike there, and who knows, maybe you'll accidentally dethrone a business magnate, intervene in national news, fall in love, fall in love again, fall in love again, effect the election of the next president, and maybe discover that your whole perception of time is bullshit, fabricated, and your enslaver. What would you do with that info? Could you manipulate your perception of that news to grant yourself personal freedoms? Well... wasn't that the goal of this whole adventure- to be free?