Anyone here who read that one ? What do you think of it ?
Istn’t Priscilla one of the most boring characters that American Literature ever invented ?
I mean she is considered to be a brilliant waitress who tries to get the money for her lab-researches with serving food and drinks in some Taco-bars – uhm, okay. For unknown reasons she is in search of the perfect Taco (why does Robbins refers so often to such an unimportant thing ?!) and when she starts a liaison with another waitress, things get really stupid.
I just couldn’t stand to read about her every couple of chapters. Unfortunately she is one of the main-characters.
Same thing goes for her mother, living in New Orleans, with her younger assistant, V’lu Jackson, who could compete with the above mentioned Priscilla for the title of the Novels worst character – fortunately she is just kind of a sidecharacter, so this title undoubtely goes to Priscilla. (Did it appear to you too, that the only sense V’lu has in that novel is to make the connection between LeFever and NewOrleans/Priscilla ?!)
So if it wasn’t for the accurate and lively descriptions of the old city and the South itself, I would have skipped these chapters until my man Alobar would have appeared again.
Talking about that dude, isn’t he one of the most dopest characters American Literature ever invented ?
An ancient king of some barbarian-tribe who succeeds in fighting the process of getting older and from that point on begins his travel through the world-history, ending in the today.
I liked the connection with him and Pan, the ancient god, very much, was really innovative and worked out very good. Same thing goes for the French years with the references to Descartes and the beginning of the age of reason. Harmonized good with the novels many philosophical aspects and gave the whole thing some depth.
The last character Marcel LeFever seems kind of mediocre to me. Reminded me sometimes of PatricSüßkinds antagonist in “Parfüm” because of his capability of smelling all those things and his world-absence.
But no matter of this dudes transparency, the constant battle with his brother, that battle between art and profit, was very entertaining and made him worth to be one of the main characters.
So those two guys plus the superior language (how dope are this guys metaphors ?!) made the book very readable to me. Thanks for that one, Sativo !
.. and please let me know what you think of the points I mentioned. Yes Green, you too !
i have to say that i was not as critical as you were with regards to the other main characters. i guess i was just too into the story to really get bored with priscilla, v’lu, or marcel.
although i do have to say that reading robbins must be coupled with a grain of salt. it seems to me that you take everything a little bit too seriously (i’m referring to the perfect taco).
i think its very cool for you to draw parallels between “Parfüme” and jitterbug and I’m sure you are correct on calling the sample source. all good art is hiphop innit?
i must say that you were on point. glad to hear your thoughts on one of my favourite books.
alobar is the motherfucking man. and yeah, robbins is “ill with the wordplay” – if i may quote a certain blogophobic mc. keep these posts coming tapeking… i’m maad down.
i fell in love with alobar when i read this, and his wife for that matter. i see what you mean about the rest of the characters being somewhat superfluous, i have to admit i read those parts a little faster to get back to pan’s adventures. But, I love Tom Robbins’ books, they make me laugh, out loud, and that is a huge achievement when words are your only tool.
Tom Robbins is like a light holiday read for people who like to think of themselves as smart. Sure, he can’t be compared to tolstoy, but the man has a way with words and creates images that are so wonderfully wild.
A couple of months ago I read another one of his books, ‘fierce invalids home from hot climates’. My dad is the ultimate book snob…when we see each other i have to give the mandatory report on what i’ve been reading. when i told him i was reading this book he crinkled his nose and told me to ‘get off the american bullshit’.
So yes, this might just be more american bullshit, but on that scale it excels. Every line is a punch line, every adjective is on point, and the story is beautifully obscure. I wouldn’t mind being able to entertain people so easily with a pen and paper…
Good to see that at least two people are down with talking about books.
Really miss such things amongst my circle of friends, seems to be a rare thing today ..
Sativo:
“too seriously”, haha. Yeah, that may be. I think it’s just the way I look at books which is more from the technical than from the story-side.
But thanks for admitting that I were on point, I already feared that I may have been too critical.
ak47:
It was my first TimRobbins-book and I for sure will look out for others of him (maybe “‘Fierce invalids home from hot climates”, because I would already know one person to talk about it).
What really impressed me about his way of writing was his use of the language, his superb Metaphors (even though I may have missed a few for I am not a native-speaker).
“the american bullshit”, hehe. Which author would your dad recommend ?
yeah, i’m lucky to live with someone who likes discussing books..
we should make this a regular thing.
my dad would tell you to read Ulysses, and then to read it in three other languages. but, it’s still a duty i have yet to fulfill. i will let you know how it goes when i finally get my gear together to climb that mountain.
he’s given me a lot of books over the years though…the magus by john fowles, graham greene, umberto eco, william boyd, ‘the master and margerita’…he gave me c.s. lewis and ‘a little history of the world’ when i was a kid.
i could go on.
just one more thing. if you haven’t read dune by frank herbert, read it!
working in a 2nd hand bookshop for a few months got me into some real crazy conversations, one crazy came around asking for “books that take him away from the concrete chasms of london” so after realising people become their own wizards in the strangest of places I showed him an freshly shelved Italo Calvino book that I had been peeking into. while staring with suspision at my remark as it got comfortable among the other volumes he stopped at a random page and read
‘It is not the voice that commands the story: it is the ear.’
reawaking the days he had seen in the sunshine he clasped the book and put some of those static, metallic portals on the counter on his way out and said he’d be back.
I wonder if MoonDog, the viking of the avenue, would have left a similar impression.
ak47:
Hehe yeah, the weekly book-discussion on ASM-blog .. dope !
If your dad has read “Ulysses” in four languages, then he definitely is THE man. Damn, I still got the ModernLibrary-Edition standing around here but never dared to start it. I will have to do that someday.
I never read “Dune” but I will put it on my reading list. Greene and Eco are two authors with which I’m mad down, too.
“The hour of the Comedians”, “The Power and the Glory” and “The Quiet American” would all deserve a blog post, same goes for “Baudolino” or “The name of the rose”.
sebasio:
“the concrete chasms of london”, loving that line, haha. Seemed to be a really crazy guy.
I just finished this book and although its was the mash potatoes on the gray the ending left me feeling unfinished
Who was the weigher in the wharf? was it Wren? Did she write the message “lighten up” and somehow it transcended all of time to appear in the shop when alobar was there?
And who was the man who muttered the perfect taco? I think it was a sexual innuendo for the hairy ax wound eh?
And i didnt understand the indigo part/? Yes the pupil can be greater than the master but what does that tie into with?
And wtf happened to Ricki and Pris?
Finished reading the book, and I think I encountered one of Tapeking’s problems: When something grabs my attention, I expect it to matter. The Perfume, the Bees, the Dance, the Taco, the Whale Mask, I was expecting all of it to combine in a huge explosive ending. Compared to what I was hoping for, that ending just fizzled. It was like hearing the story of Jesus and then ending it before the Resurrection, before the Crucifixion, even before the Last Supper where he sows suspense with “One of you will betray me”.
I was especially disappointed that, for all his buildup as possible prophet or messiah, Alobar essentially became a guy who gives a perfume formula. Of course, that may be the meaning of ‘erleichda’. Who cares for meaning of life? Just sit back and enjoy the ride.
Except… I didn’t.
Alobar kept me the most interested, but even then just casually. Mostly kept in suspense as to whether Kudra really was Wren or whether the Perfume would turn out much more magical. And maybe I missed a paragraph, but I couldn’t admire any of the figurative language people seem to adore from Robbins. Any metaphors I really took in felt like rejected lines from ‘Blackadder’. My favorite language bit was one pun, “sadder Budweiser”.
And if this is the best I can say about the only Tom Robbins book I ever finished, then maybe I’ll never get it.
Just finished this book last night. I agree with those who were disappointed by the ending. The way Tom was building up all the separate story lines, it seemed like he should have had a more climactic finishing. I was especially disappointed by the way he ended the Alobar/Kudra/Pan story line. All the other story lines were very much on the back burner throughout the entire novel. It seemed weird for Robbins to sort of ignore Alobar/Kudra during the final 20% of the book. It was kind of heart breaking the way he separated Kudra and Alobar and never really reunited them until the last sentence of the last chapter. Even then, their reuniting wasn’t what I hoped it would be.
To me, it seemed like Robbins got tired of writing this book halfway through. He appeared to give up on his main story in favor of a more playful and nonsensical conclusion to the novel.
A lot of questions went unanswered and a lot of events occured during the ending of the book that made little to no sense to anyone other than Robbins.
I hate it when authors expect you to read hundreds of pages of their story but never give you the answers you’re looking for in the end. It’s maddening for an author not to let you know what exactly happens to their characters.
[...] on in the post I once did after having read Tom Robbins’ “Jitterbug Perfume”? Check it out. This could give one the notion that this whole blog-thing is not that [...]