I just re-read this book after like 10 years and I loved it so much more. The characters were as I remembered them, but I noticed so many things that I didn't remember were in this book.. like the whole subject of biodiversity and ecological stuff that I probably didn't really notice before..
And I noticed this time around that most of it seems like Terrence McKenna was in the room when it was written.. I really needed a good dose of all that don't fall for the bullshit and it's not what it seems to be goodness that this book delivers..
It took me 10 years to really grok that title. But I've believed it all along, that we need to wake up to our roots, find the elemental connections.. that in our core somewhere we know.. and that reality that isn't at all material or measurable.. but, Tom and Terrence and many others describe it better so I'll leave it to them!

Tom Robins' use of simile and metaphor used to be comforting, like an old pair of sandals. In this book, as you trudge along the pulverous beach, searching for a shell of meaning, or even a fishing line of a story the grains of overuse and awkwardness start to irritate the toes of your tolerance. eventually, a haboob encircles you, blinding you so that you can't even see your flip-flops anymore. All you can hope for is to finally stumble to the end, and come out the other side, holding your damaged footwear in your hand only slightly abraded by the experience.
Here and there, (and repeated ad nauseam), are references to subjects, people or items that, to all appearances, are things that Mr. Robbins recently read about while using a random web site generator. They are like a plague in this book! Like the frogs that went up into Egypt.
Then, it ends.

Well... ok I gave up halfway through. I get it's like, fun sometimes to just have a book where crazy stuff happens and it's entertaining and... whatever... but this book just sort of sucks. It's clear that Tom Robbins (through Gwen the protagonist) thinks that being a woman is just another crazy thing to throw into the story, and that being an immigrant is just another crazy thing, and being a Filipina is just another crazy thing. But these aren't just crazy things, many people are these things and it affects their lives in actually profound ways, whereas in this book they're just thrown around whenever Tom Robbins wants to sound deep (or something). Excuse me for being an immigrant woman who wants to read about similar experiences by people who can deal with these matters with careful nuance and thought. I don't particularly give a shit about Tom Robbin's perspective on these experiences, or on anything else for that matter.

Well, I made it to page 84 before giving up on this book. There was just too much about this book I didn't like to attempt to read on further. First off I don't care for the author's writing style whatsoever. The further into the book I read the more annoyed I got with his descriptions. At points it just seemed like words thrown together to use of space.

The idea of reading the book as me being the main character was a neat concept, at least until I found that I could not stand the main character.  She's a shallow, whiny, money hungry girl who's only concern seemed to be tearing apart the people who don't fit into her ideals. When she decides to turn her judgement towards the only people she could have considered real friends I found the book got downright offensive. Seriously how many times does it need to get hammered into my head that Q-Jo is fat and that Belford is too much of a bleeding-heart? They seem to be okay with themselves but Gwen is so shallow she's embarrassed and disgusted by them. She's shallow to the point that I think I cracked my skull open just looking at the pool, no diving necessary. It's pretty much impossible for me to continue reading a book if I don't like the main character. In this case I could have cared less what happened to her.

“Future? Oh I get it. You mean you don’t foresee a pot of gold at the end of our juicy rainbow. You mean that our intimacy isn’t likely to yield a dividend. You disappoint me Gwendolyn. I hoped you might have a watt or two more light in your bulb than those poor toads who look on romance as an investment, like waterfront property or municipal bonds. Would you complain because a beautiful sunset doesn’t have a future or a shooting star a payoff? And why should romances lead anywhere? Passion isn’t a path through the woods. Passion is the woods. It’s the deepest, wildest part of the forest; the grove where the fairies still dance and obscene old vipers snooze in the boughs….. well remember this pussy latte: we’re not involved in a relationship, you and I, were involved in a collision. Collisions don’t much lend themselves to secure futures, but the act of colliding is hard to beat for interest. Correct me if I’m wrong.”

It's disappointing when you revisit a favorite author and realize they're no longer a favorite. In my teens and twenties, Cowgirls, Still Life and Jitterbug were some of my all-time favorites. However, decades later, his formula of young woman with brains but a lot of problems is taken under wing of older geezer who mansplains life and the universe, and sexes her up, has lost it's luster. It's unclear exactly how old the character Larry Diamond is meant to be, but he is suffering from rectal cancer, and could easily be the same age as Robbins was when this was published, about 62, while the ambitious, morally suspect stockbroker Gwendolyn Mati portrayed in present tense second person, is barely in her mid-twenties. When they connect, the physical details, and Diamond's stomach-turning, misogynist, patronizing pet names for her, are just freakin' gross.

30 years ago I probably would have found Diamond's b.s. fascinating, his psilocybin-based crackpot alien conspiracies rooted very much in Robbins' friend Terence McKenna's b.s. But now it's just boring, making much of the book a slog. And wasn't Robbins funnier than this before? I'm afraid to re-read his earlier books to find out. I had planned to also read Fierce Invalids and Villa Incognito, but now I'm not so sure.

Writing style is unique and enchanting.

If only the ideas expressed weren’t so awful.

The tired tale of a woman being “taught” by a man through sex to become an ayn rand-ian style asshole was too much for me.

The paeans to hallucinogens and the hope that they are connecting you to a better understanding of reality is 70s silly; I don’t mind it but it’s not illuminating anything about the world.

However, the incoherent ranting against both a) capitalism and b) people who fail to succeed in a capitalist system (because he despises people who think it matters to succeed materialistically AND despises people who do not succeed materialistically),combined with endless ridiculous stereotypes instead of characters (my best friend is an indian who lives in an indoor tipi who provides me Oklahoma greens to shove up my ass!), the weird fetishizing of “traditional” medicine and disdain for actual science -

All that made me regret reading this book. Great style, terrible substance.

They don't have a 'my feelings about this book changed as I became more aware of the effects of the patriarchy on my brain' star... but they should!

Who the hell writes in the 2nd person?

As always Tom Robbins is a wonderfully inventive and joyful writer, but goddamn he writes women so strangely! Every single book of his (that I’ve read) pairs a beautiful, smart young woman with a man that is on-page described as old, ugly, and creepy! And this weirdness also extends to people of color, fat people, unhoused people, and autistic people in this book.
I am certainly privileged and perhaps morally bankrupt to be able to notice (not that they’re subtextual) these lapses in political correctness and still be able to enjoy the books—but the fact of the matter is that I do enjoy the books. I like the monkey in this one.
Although it is written in second-person and Robbins writes a passage where I come because the leering old man with stringy clumps of hair bites my clit—and that alone should bar him from ever writing even a female side character ever again.

I’ve now read every single Tom Robbins novel (at least once). I don’t know what to do with myself anymore!

This solidly fell around the middle of the Robbins collection. It did not have quite the impactful wisdom and engaging narrative of Even Cowgirls Get the Blues or Another Roadside Attraction, but spared the world the sex crimes and incomprehensible rambling of Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates. The second person narrative was interesting too, I WAS Gwendolyn Mati.

It was interesting and entertaining overall, but 2 things made me rate it as 'it was ok' versus 'I liked it':
1. I've read his Still Life with Woodpecker, which was about an uptight self-involved girl from Seattle who meets a quirky guy who opens her eyes to the possibility of mystical/unexplainable things while falling in love (complete with quirky descriptions of their physical encounters). This description exactly fits Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas as well.

2. I like oddball stories. But Robbins's descriptions are a bit too screwball and random for me at times. For screwball writing I prefer Vonnegut.

It had a monkey in it and that is always great!