Still Life With Woodpecker - Tom Robbins

1980; 277 pages. New Author? : No. Genre : Modern Lit; Humor. Overall Rating : 9½*/10.

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Leigh-Cheri, the exiled and virginal Furstenberg-Barcalona princess, heads to Maui to attend Care Fest, where she hopes to learn all about ecology, meditation, vitamins, and UFO's. Instead, she crosses paths with outlaw-bomber Bernard Mickey Wrangle, who introduces her to Love. But the question is - how do you make Love last?

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What's To Like...

There's humor on every page. The storyline is great, and the ending doesn't disappoint. At its core, Still Life With Woodpecker is a romance, yet both male and female readers will find it appealing. And it does answer the primal question - how to make Love stay.

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The pacing is nice, but Robbins also finds time to go off on a slew of tangents, discussing a wide range of topics such as the difference between an outlaw and a criminal; the lost continent of Mu; how to make bombs from everyday components (Such as a deck of cards. Eat your heart out, McGyver!); an improved plotline to The Grapes of Wrath; the cosmological contrast between the Sun and the Moon; why redheads always seem so weird; and last but not least - the many mystical messages hidden on the cover of a pack of Camel cigarettes.

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Then there are the groan-inducing similes. Some examples : "teardrops bucked out of Leigh-Cheri's eyes like bronco amoebae leaving the chutes in a biology lab rodeo". Or "his lower lip quivered like a snail that had just learned the meaning of escargot." There are dozens more.

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Kewl New Words...

Fimbrillate : having small or tiny hinges. Fecundity : fertility. Renifleur : a person turned on or gratified by certain odors. Cromlech : a prehistoric monument consisting of monoliths encircling a (burial) mound. Sidereal : relating to stars or constellations.

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Excerpts...

His wife, the Queen, once the beauty of seven capitals, was understimulated and overweight. She had attended, in America, so many second-rate society teas, charity fashion shows, and gala this and gala thats, that she'd begun to exude a kind of paté de fois gras gas, and the expulsion of this effluvium propelled her from party to ball as if she were a sausage skin inflated by Wagner. (pg 5-6)

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The Furstenberg-Barcalona homeland was now ruled by a right-wing military junta, supported by the United States government and, of course, the Roman Catholic Church. While the U.S. publicly regretted that the junta permitted so few civil liberties, it was loath to interfere in the internal affairs of a sovereign nation, particularly a nation that could be relied upon as an ally against those left-leaning nations in whose internal affairs the U.S. did regularly interfere. (pg. 7)

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That year, spring came to the Puget Sound country as it frequently does, like a bride's maid climbing a greased pole. After a gradual, precarious ascent, spring, in a triumph of frills and blooms and body heat, would seem ot have finally arrived, only to suddenly slide down into the mud again, leaving winter's wet flag flapping stiffly and singularly at the top of the seasonal staff. Then, girlish bosom heaving, spring would shinny slowly back up the pole. (pg. 148)

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"Outlaws are the can openers in the supermarket of life." (pg. 65)

Tom Robbins' style in Still Life With Woodpecker reminds me a lot of Kurt Vonnegut, with some Terry Pratchett humor added for flavor, and a dash of Charles Bukowski stirred in for spice. For me, this novel was funny, insightful, and interesting; all without taking itself too seriously. Its R-Rated portions may offend some; and others may tire of its tangents. I thought everything came together just fine.

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So if you are bummed because Vonnegut has passed on and there will never be a sequel to The Sirens of Titan, be of good cheer, and give this book a try. 9½ Stars.