"Ένα είναι το σοβαρό ερώτημα. Κι αυτό είναι:
Ποιος ξέρει να κάνει την αγάπη παντοτινή;
Απάντησέ μου σ' αυτό και θα σου πω αν πρέπει ν' αυτοκτονείς ή όχι.
Απάντησέ μου σ' αυτό και θα σε καθησυχάσω για την αρχή και το τέλος του χρόνου.
Απάντησέ μου σ' αυτό και θα σου αποκαλύψω αν έχει λόγο να υπάρχει το φεγγάρι."

When my brother gave me this book for Christmas, he told me to "drink in the writing." Or something to that effect. Whatever it was, he heaped praise on Robbins' use of language. Several people in my family had read this, or some other Tom Robbins book, and they all enthusiastically agreed that reading him was a pleasure unto itself, above and beyond the enjoyment one gets from reading the actual story. I was promised an actual Reading Experience, and that promise was fulfilled in spades.

Reading Robbins is like sitting through a storm. His words flow down the page like the acid dreams of a long-reformed hippie. They dance and spin, curling into strange and exotic shapes that you can't quite take in on the first read, so you look at the page again, convinced that there must have been something there that you missed. You find yourself at the end of a section, convinced that you've read it, but not entirely sure what you've read. Or you go back and read it again just because reading it the first time was just such fun.

Most modern writers do their best to keep you involved in the story, to keep the writing from drawing attention to itself. Much in the same way that many filmmakers try to keep you from thinking, "Oh, I'm looking through a camera," so do writers try to keep you from thinking about the words - their lens through which they transmit their message and images. Robbins completely eschews this principle - not only does he make sure you notice his words, he goes out of the way to make the words themselves more interesting than the story.

This is not to say that the story isn't interesting, of course. It is a romance, albeit a strange and brambly one. A young princess, the only child of an exiled king and queen, has vowed to devote her life to the betterment of the Earth, to use her royal station to help the world and to absolutely never fall in love - or even have sex - again. For very good reasons, of course. Nothing like having a miscarriage while cheerleading for your college football team to dampen your reproductive urges. This plan works up until she gets to a ecology conference in Maui, where she meets the man of her nightmares - a notorious terrorist who is nicknamed the Woodpecker.

The Woodpecker (his real name is Bernard) is a self-professed outlaw, a man who takes joy in subverting order, thumbing his nose at authority and living with a complete disregard for legal niceties such as not blowing things up. He's been in prison and escaped, and has only a short time until the statute of limitations finally runs out. This doesn't stop Bernie from bringing dynamite with him to Maui, and under the influence of alcohol and lust and rage, he tips his hand too soon. The only thing standing between him and prison is the beautiful red-headed princess - Leigh-Cherie - who hates him at first sight and swears that there is absolutely nothing about him that she finds redeeming.

We all know where that kind of thinking leads.

They fall in love, of course, a whirlwind outlaw romance that is only put to rest when Bernie finally lands back in prison. As a show of solitude to her lover, Leigh-Cherie locks herself in her room, turning it into a cell to mirror that of her beloved, and swears not to leave it until he leaves his. The only things in the room are a bed, a chamber pot, and a pack of Camel cigarettes.

That's where things start to get weird.

The nice thing about this book is that you don't really have to ponder what the themes were - Robbins points them out quite clearly by the end of the book, so if you didn't get it the first time, you'll be able to get it the next time 'round. It's a story about love, of course, and the irrational, weird turns it can take. It's about history, about the great, never-ending "why" that drives us from one act to the next. And, interestingly enough, it's about our relationship with the physical world, from the greatest of the Egyptian pyramids to the most mundane pack of Camels.

During her self-inflicted time in solitary, Leigh-Cherie constructs a vast universe inside the label of her cigarettes (which she never actually smokes) and it leads her to truths and realizations that would confound the greatest philosopher or the most devoted mystic. By contemplating the mundane, she finds the key to the universe.

Speaking of relating to objects, the story itself is a kind of romance between Robbins and his typewriter - a Remington SL3 - which doesn't, insofar as I have been able to tell, exist. Theirs is a tumultuous love. It begins with a tentative love, a hope that the machine is The One for this book. It passes through admiration and infatuation, only to end with rejection as Robbins finishes the book in longhand.

As Robbins relates to his Remington, and Leigh-Cherie to her pack of Camels, so do we have relationships with objects. We become familiar with our possessions, imbuing them with character and personality. Not only that, but once we give consideration to the history of that object - its design and manufacturing, where the idea and the materials came from - we find that we can read the history of the universe in something as simple as a paper clip.

It's a weird and wonderful book. The characters are vibrant and real, in a kind of hyper-real way. It's funny and bright, changing pace and rhythm from page to page and really is a delight to sit and read. Even more fun to read aloud, actually, so if you have a chance to do that, jump and take it.

Διάβασα λοιπόν κι εγώ τον περιβόητο Τρυποκάρυδο του Tom Robbins και ξέρετε τι κατάλαβα;
Ότι μάλλον ο τυπάς μας καυλαντίζει όλους.
Γράφει όλο και πιο 'περίεργα', όλο και πιο 'έξτρα' κι απλά θέλει να δει πόσο θα μας πάρει να τού πούμε "Ώπα φίλε, κάτσε λίγο."

Ομολογώ λοιπόν, πως το συγκεκριμένο μού είχε κινήσει την περιέργεια, μιας και είχα διαβάσει διθυραμβικά σχόλια για το εξαιρετικό, ξεχωριστό και καυστικό στυλ γραφής του Robbins.
Και η αλήθεια είναι πως απογοητεύτηκα.

Η πλοκή, είναι ίσως ο ορισμός του "ό,τι να 'ναι". Και ακόμα και ορισμένα σημεία στα οποία βρήκα τον εαυτό μου να σκέφτεται "εδώ έχει κάποιο point" όπως πχ σε σημεία που μίλαγε για τον έρωτα, για την κοινωνία, για την εξουσία κλπ, χάθηκαν ανάμεσα σε ένα μεγάλο ωκεανό κακού γραψίματος που με έκανε να κάνω αυτό που λέμε eye roll.

Κάποια παραδείγματα που με έκαναν να νιώσω έτσι και μού έρχονται αυτή τη στιγμή στο μυαλό, είναι οι διάλογοι μεταξύ των πρωταγωνιστών που προσπαθούσε να τους κάνει να φανούν βαρύγδουποι, αλλά ταυτόχρονα και quirky (ήταν απλά cringy) ή ολόκληρο το side-plot με την πυραμίδα στο πακέτο τσιγάρων και οι αναφορές σε εκείνη την εξωγήινη φυλή, που καλά καλά δεν μας το ανέπτυξε και σωστά. Τελειώνει δηλαδή το βιβλίο και ποτέ δεν μαθαίνουμε γιατί το να χτιστεί εκείνη η πυραμίδα, ήταν τόσο σημαντικό για την πρωταγωνίστρια. Και άλλα, πιο μικρά παραδείγματα, όπως το σημείο για τα μαλλιά της, που "ήταν κόκκινα σαν καμένη κέτσαπ" ή το σημείο που "οι ρώγες της αναπήδησαν με προσοχή".
Και σίγουρα υπάρχουν κι άλλα παραδείγματα, αλλά αυτή τη στιγμή, δεν έχω καμία όρεξη να ανοίξω το pdf και να αρχίσω να τα ψάχνω ένα ένα.

Ακόμα, το συγκεκριμένο βιβλίο, μού έβγαλε πολλά vibes ταινιών τύπου The Room, Θηλυκή Εταιρεία κλπ, κι αυτό γιατί, όπως και οι ταινίες που ανέφερα, μού βγήκε ότι θεωρούσε πως έκανε κάτι ριζοσπαστικό και πως είχε κάτι βαθύ να πει, ενώ στην πραγματικότητα η όλη φάση του είναι "It's not that deep bro" (και cringy, όπως είπα και πιο πάνω.)
Και παρομοίως με τις ταινίες που ανέφερα, όσο και να μη μου άρεσε, δεν μπορούσα να σταματήσω να κοιτάζω το χαμό που εξελισσόταν στις σελίδες μπροστά μου.

Κι επειδή, δεδομένου του πόσο αγαπητός είναι ο Robbins και του ότι μεγάλη μερίδα του κοινού αρέσκεται στο να υποβαθμίζει μια γνώμη που δεν είναι η επιθυμητή, απλά προϊδεάζω τους επίδοξους σχολιαστές πως απαντήσεις του τύπου "Μάλλον εσύ δεν το κατάλαβες, δεν γίνεται όλοι εμείς που το βρήκαμε τέλειο να κάνουμε λάθος, πρέπει να το ξαναδιαβάσεις" κλπ, δεν θα εκτιμηθούν καθόλου.

If you made it this far, congratulations!
'Til next time, take care :) :) :)

So I read this in college (18 years ago) and had fond memories. After reading, I read several other Tom Robbins novels and I recall thinking that he was one of my favorite authors. Now, I'm trying to decide if it is just that he appealed to my younger, more naive, more optimistic, irreverent self because he simply appeals more to the college mentality than to the adult "soccer mom" mentality OR if he really was never that good and I was just caught up in a college fad of "Tom Robbins is great". Maybe I just liked this book so much before because I used to smoke Camel cigarettes and now that I don't I've lost the magic (although if (as Robbins claims) magic comes from mystery one would think that cigarettes are more mysterious to me now that I don't smoke than they were when I did).

Either way, this time around I was not impressed. I had recommended Robbins to my kid brother and then realized that I couldn't quite remember details from any of his books and so, decided to re-read. Now I know, the details are not memorable. He is irreverent and slightly witty, but overall the novel is just a rambling fairy tale; rantings about love and the moon and changing the world one person at a time fall flat and seem outdated to these jaded ears (eyes since I'm reading?).

That said, there are a few quotes worth recording here for my eyes 18 years (or less) hence when I once again can't remember this book:

"half-shellfish half-peach that occupied the warm, watery bowl of her lower regions,"...certainly unique and most likely offensive (but funny as a peachfish reference for the rest of the book) description of the lovely Leigh-Cheri's most sensitive parts.

"Inessential insanities are a brittle amalgamation of ambition, aggression, and pre-adolescent anxiety--garbage that should have been dumped long ago." But of course linger on inside of each of us precisely because of our own insanities.

"objects, as we understand them, are relatively stable, whereas ideas are definitely unstable, they not only can be misused, they invite misuse." What a great argument for the cult of object worship as he develops it....or then could it be an argument for materialism?

"There's a tendency today to absolve individuals of moral responsibility and treat them as victims of social circumstance. You buy that, you pay with your soul." 'nough said.

"we, each of us, are responsible for our own fulfillment. Nobody else can provide it for us, and to believe otherwise is to delude ourselves dangerously." Better summary on happiness than was provided by David Foster Wallace...and in the context of unhealthy relationships and addiction problems.

"Every smoker is an embodiment of Prometheus, stealing fire from the gods and bringing it on back home. We smoke to capture the power of the sun, to pacify Hell, to identify with the primordial spark, to feed on the marrow of the volcano. It's not the tobacco we're after but the fire. When we smoke, we are preforming a version of the fire dance, a ritual as ancient as lightning. Does that mean that chain smokers are religious fanatics? You must admit there's a similarity." As one who struggles with her own addictive tendencies and loves James Frey's comments on replacing one addiction with another (AA with whatever substances were previously abused), I like this image. It is not necessarily the substance (in this case tobacco), it is the act of smoking, the process of repetitive ritual, and the worship of some cruel god.

"Yet, as any half-awake materialist well knows, that which you holds, holds you." We can apply this to the object worship or the addiction theme...certainly not profound, rather quite trite, but true nonetheless.

"Funny how we think of romance as always involved two, when the romance of solitude can be ever so much more delicious and intense." Once again, you need to know and look within yourself for answers to anything.

"it spells it right out. CHOICE. A person's looking for a simple truth to live by, there it is. CHOICE. To refuse to passively accept what we've been handed by nature or society, but to choose for ourselves. CHOICE. That's the difference between emptiness and substance, between a life actually lived and a wimpy shadow cast on an office wall." Despite getting some sort of ridiculous philosophy through a pack of cigarettes, the idea is sound.

Maybe I've just convinced myself that I should have given it more stars...I don't know, I think it was overall just too flippant for my aging taste.

Πραγματικά κάθε φορά που πιάνω ένα βιβλίο του Τομ Ρόμπινς στα χέρια μου (Α)δε μπορώ να το αφήσω,(Β)θαυμάζω συνεχώς το χιούμορ και την ευφυΐα του και (Γ) χάνομαι στους γοργούς ρυθμούς της σκέψης του!Με ποιο βιβλίο του να συνεχίσω;Ακούω προτάσεις!

To me, this book was neither about choice nor about how to make love stay. Instead, I found myself in the self-indulgent, self-absorbed, arrogant, smug, at times downright disgusting fever dream of an author who might have been high on shrooms while writing this novel.

I'm sorry to everyone who loves this book for not having any more words to describe why I downright hated this story and the way it was written. Just like you won't understand my dislike, I doubt I will ever understand how you can like it. Maybe one of us is from Argon and the other a redhead on Earth. No clue.

Ο Τρυποκάρυδος ήρθε στο δέντρο της καθημερινής ζωής και στάθηκε. Άρχισε να σκαλίζει τις φλούδες να ξεκολλάει και να πετάει άχρηστα και σάπια κομμάτια, να ανακαλύπτει παράσιτα κρυμμένα καλά, άνοιξε βαθιά τρύπα στον κορμό και φώλιασε. Αιχμηρή γλώσσα, αντισυμβατικό πολλές φορές αποφεύγοντας όμως τα αντισυμβατικά κλισέ. Σε κάθε περίπτωση τροφή για σκέψη. Ένα καλό τέλος χρονιάς!

Tonight I feel generous. Tonight I feel enchanted by the purpose of the moon. So tonight, I will allow four glittering stars to orbit this frustrating crank of a novel. Without parroting the sensible assertions from the hundred or so Goodreaders, let me be brief and say: I agree, in part, with every criticism and praise in some small way about Robbins. I do. And yes, this book does contain sentences like:

As he throbbed in her throat, pumping jet after jet of that steamy translucent mucilage with which Cupid tries to glue the world together, she felt as if she were gulping concentrated ecstasy, and it made her blood croon.

But. Well, I have a house-big heart for comic novelists. I can tolerate their verbose, stylised prose, their cardboard characters acting as mouthpieces for authorial diatribes, their devotion to female genitals (as a ‘peachfish,’ no less), and general disregard for basic narrative techniques. I can tolerate it, but only once a year. I have shot my wad of tolerance, and won’t be venturing Robbinswards again. Maybe I’ll buy a peachfish instead.

What makes love stay? A prenup.

Μου ήταν γνωστό ήδη από τη Θιβετιανή Ροδακινόπιτα το αδάμαστο ταλέντο του Ρόμπινς να σου φέρνει στα χείλη την λέξη που σου έλειπε και δεν μπορούσες να βρεις, την ξεκαρδιστική παρομοίωση μιας βαρετής εικόνας. Αυτό το βιβλίο, όμως, δεν ήταν μόνο μια ανατρεπτική ερωτική ιστορία. Ήταν αρχή και μέση και αφορμή συζητήσεων για τη ζωή και το νόημα της. Δεν ξέρω πόσες φορές είπα: «Ναι, αυτό που λες, το διάβασα στον Τρυποκάρυδο και πάει ως εξής...». Αυτή ήταν για μένα η μαγεία αυτού του βιβλίου.

I was moderately entertained ...

The possible parable to what goes on in the last quarter of a century within a package of Camels and even possibly within the pyramid pictured on the package.

I honestly believe Tom Robbins has been smoking other stuff while thinking up the plot - or I have never bothered to look inside a package. By throwing empty packages directly into the bin I may unknowingly have changed the course of the universe, the planet Argon included.

I may also have contributed to the possible extinction of redheads, please accept my sincere apologies.

Tom Robbins offers a very detailed look into what goes on inside a princess´ panties under the influence of tequila and a certain woodpecker - while I am not at all offended, it does not really concern me, but it seems to be one of the main drivers in the story that sexual energy - and pyramidical energy are the sources making the world spin, if indeed it does spin.

Everything is of course restored to it´s natural order, though in an order not quite to be expected.

There’s a lot I disliked about this book. The sarcastic tone and writing, while funny and entertaining, was also its downfall; it was just too much. The offbeat tone was also confusing at times, leaving me unsure if certain plot points were important or offhand. (“Hmm, he’s rambling about the design of a pack of Camel cigarettes, is this important? … Oh, I guess so.”) Finally, there were uncomfortable moments as a female reader — some unnecessarily graphic descriptions of female genitalia that, while admittedly engaging and surprisingly accurate coming from a male author, were excessive and in poor taste.

HOWEVER, I can’t deny that the writing was smart and funny. Many sentences required re-reads (in a good way) just to make sure I was fully comprehending whatever double entendre or poetic gymnastics were happening. As imperfect as this book was, now that I’ve finished it, I find myself wistful! Like missing an ex you hate.

I might have trouble recommending this book but I may give another one of the author’s books a try down the road.

A relative who rarely reads fiction recommended this author, so I knew he had to be good. I'll definitely read him again. Robbins manages to skewer just about every facet of American society all while developing a colorful cast of characters who manage to become compelling in spite of being beyond cartoonish.

It's one of those books that makes you wonder what the author was smoking, so you have to be in the mood for the absurd when you read it. If you're never in that mood, beware, because, as Robbins says, "Those who shun the whimsy of things will experience rigor mortis before death."