Oh, Tom Robbins. Tom Robbins, I would like to apologize to you. When I wrote that review of Still Life With Woodpecker, I was a little angry at you, but for reasons beyond your control.

I do still kind of take issue with Tom Robbins for all of the things I mentioned in that review - namely, he could use a good editor. But my editor leanings can stop being so stuffy and be pushed aside.

Even Cowgirls Get The Blues follows one miss Sissy Hankshaw, a woman with extraordinarily large thumbs and a passion for hitchhiking. She loves her Native American blood but also loves a band of Cowgirls who become her cohorts. The plot order is not so chronological, but one of the book's themes takes issue with the concept of time, so it makes sense for time to not quite fit in there. Other themes are pretty much the kind of thing I eat up - relationships, strong women, travel, identity ("normal" and "strange").

In comparison to Still Life With Woodpecker, Cowgirls does feel more thought-out, less random, overall more cohesive, though, in retrospect, I like Woodpecker more than I did at the time. Sometimes a writer takes something that is so important to you (in this case, good editing), and gives it the middle finger, so the knee-jerk response is something of a "fuck you." Truth is, I don't think Robbins could be edited well, so he may as well not be edited at all. The best thing about Robbins is his voice, and any person mucking around with it is just going to make it weaker.

He's also better at simile & metaphor than any other author I can name, so if you ever want to learn how to do those things well, with panache, with flair, with personality, pick up something by Robbins.

Even cowgirls get the blues baby - and I consider myself a cowgirl - so I would know. Love this author, love sissy and love her thumbs ❤️

“Even Cowgirls Get the Blues” was an interesting reading experience for me. I was not drawn into the novel for the first 100 pages or so, my feelings on the book were ambivalent, but by the time I finished it I really enjoyed it. Don’t get me wrong, the text is not ever really bad, but the vulgarity was more irritating to me than Robbins usually is, and the book does not employ as much unique figurative language as one can expect from Tom Robbins, although there is a ton compared to other writers. The use of language is still unique and clever but it was not as standout a facet of the text to me as in other Robbins novels.
The first chapter, called “Single Cell Preface” is just fun and clever and starts you off smiling in expectation.
Other highlights include a chapter that is a conversation between the brain and a thumb. It is worth a reread. And lines like, “Cursing the chemical Calvinism that causes alcohol to make us suffer for the good time it gives us” are one of the main joys of reading Tom Robbins. Who can’t enjoy the brilliant juxtaposition of language and the clever (and totally apropos) use of allusions? Mr. Robbins always rewards readers who know stuff, and I adore that about him.
Others joys of the text are the occasional lines that pop out that encompass wisdom and human truth, and usually in service of the story. An example you ask…”We only pollute our own waters when we try to extend our true affection to those who don’t know how to accept love or to give it.” Wow! And like most of Robbins novels there are more than a few moments like that in this text.
Overall, “Even Cowgirls Get the Blues” is a good novel, and I don’t find myself agreeing with those who charge it as sexist, and too philosophical. I think they projected some things on the text that the writer does not intend, but hey such is the reader’s’ prerogative.

Şöyle bir baktım yorumlara, herkes "i hated" diye başlamış. Niye hated arkadaşım, neden sevmediniz bu kitabı? Robbins'in cıvık oyunculuğuna ben de çok tahammül edemiyorum gerçi, o yüzden bir türlü cesaret edemiyordum kitaplarına başlamaya. Kalın kalın kitaplar da olduklarından bir süre sonra "öeeh" dedirtebiliyorlar. Ama kurgularına bayılıyorum. Her şeyi her şeyle karıştırması (mitolojik göndermeler, fizik, metafizik, gerçek, hayal, oyun, ciddiyet), hayatla ve doğayla ilgili fikirleri muazzam. İnanılmaz keyifliydi, inanılmaz!