...
Show More
I can't really decide what to rate this book. It wasn't awful. In the first few pages I was immediately intrigued since I had never read Tom Robbins and was unfamiliar with his unique and arguably excessive prose style. I was informed before reading this that the main character is unlikable. Generally, I enjoy unlikable protagonists --and I have no issues with the character Gwen as far as her simply being morally bereft-- but it felt like Robbins just set up this horrible character for him to philosophize profusely all over her chest as the character Larry Diamond. I wonder if the men reading this have any idea how poorly Gwen is written as a female character? Some parts were difficult to get through. I couldn't stand Larry Diamond calling her "pussy fondue" and her blushing (as if every girl secretly wants to be called horrible nicknames) and her later parroting his philosophy about charity harming the less fortunate. This was, perhaps just to me, the least likeable and most inexcusable part of Gwen's characterization-- that she was a prude who needed to be fucked by the *right* man in order to discover her sexuality and she was amoral because she hadn't yet been lectured sternly enough by Uncle Larry. I feel that, instead of this being satirized as a harmful and idiotic trope, the author genuinely used her increase in libido in an attempt to foreshadow personal growth. In the end, the book stops short of any significant personal growth in Gwen and, in my interpretation, sort of ends on a deterministic note that seems to imply Gwen is going to be enlightened whether she wants to or not.
It was interesting, but I'm not going to read it again or probably even recommend it to anyone.
It was interesting, but I'm not going to read it again or probably even recommend it to anyone.
