Review of Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates, by Tom Robbins

So now I've come across both a Switters and a switters, a character (upper case) and a person(a) (lower case--I'll try not to put him at the beginning of a sentence--you can find him rarely here, and also more regularly on quiblit.com). Fierce Invalids is a "books for buds" selection, and one of the more obvious choices. A student of chemistry may come across the German prefix zwitter at some point, signifying the embodiment of dual and opposing characteristics. Tom Robbins and switters both embrace this concept philosophically (though surely not biologically--that's enough semantics for today, kids), finding a middle ground between light and dark, purity and prurience, id and ego, animal and divine, and at the very center, where Apollo is bitching at that slob Dionysus over the racket of the incessant waves of yin pounding at the eternal shores of yang, they discover a profound silliness. Or is it enlightenment? Are you going to tell me there's a difference?

I don't want to tell you this is anything new. It's got to predate Hegel and Freud by three thousand years, the Manicheans (who doesn't love a heretic?) and those krazy koan kats by at least a couple millennia. We've had midworlds between heavens and hells for as long as people imagined elsewheres for gods, and there's no shortage of writers who like to play in that sandbox.* The humor is a newer angle, and Robbins takes it as what separates the modern from the primitive, what divides the enlightened from the subhuman tools who take shit too seriously. There are plenty of absurdist writers these days too, but Robbins does go a little beyond jokes as a defense mechanism or a social equalizer. (Still, an omnipotent god with a sense of humor is about the only way such a divine existence can be forgivingly supposed and, I think, is the soundbite explanation of the Jewish tradition of comedy.) Robbins' dichotomy as a writer is that he acts like he's discovering all of these things for the first time, but also that he reinvents them so very well.

It helps a lot that I buy into it. This is a great theme, and fun to explore. Along with a more interesting central character, it helped raise my enjoyment level of this one relative to the other Robbins book I read. Fierce Invalids allows the sequence between them to be more linear, which gives it a more coherent feel, which is another plus in this author's case. Robbins can paint a picture, and it's lot of fun how he gets you to think, but he doesn't really excel at big plot mechanics, and if Switters is a memorable character, it's a damn good thing we have all the opportunities we do to look into his head. His joie de vivre is infectious and all, but there's a fine line between the rejection of false moralities (quite well and good) and on creepy amorality. A couple of times Robbins has to work hard to reveal his characters to be not quite over this divide.

This book (and Jitterbug Perfume too) is broken down into a multitude of sections not more than a couple pages long. Each of these is like a miniature essay or vignette or story, varying slightly in tone from one to another, and it allows the author to chuck in more than the usual variety of philosophical speculations, character sketches, drama elements, and jokes and keep it looking natural. There's another balance that Robbins must hold with his humor, keeping it enlightening but not distracting, the playfulness looking genuine and not forced, and usually he steps right. The highly subdivided structure makes it easy to reject the couple of stinkers as outlying data points. I think it's great that this works for him. I imagine him coming to the keyboard for a few hours a day and cranking one or a couple of these inspired little pieces out (it really makes for a lot of gems), inching his whole story along that way. Keeping the prose flowing over a long stretch is very difficult, and breaking it frequently is one of those things that the pros can do, but you can't.

The ending of this one was a little abrupt, and left many conflicts unresolved. I hope there is more Switters out there--and more switters--to get at the truth that lies in the humor that lies in all the inherent contradictions. Some people get it.


* Sparked by a couple shared props in The Anubis Gates, I found myself frequently comparing Robbins to the delightful Tim Powers, who occupies similar balances of metaphysics, language, erudition, and humor. I think I give the edge to Powers, who holds back a little on the disruptively goofy elements, and who also celebrates himself a little less.

Immortal Folly I: Review of Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins

I didn't realize when I picked up Jitterbug Perfume that I was getting a contemporary fantasy (I grabbed it on the basis of author recognition, from a recommendation of sorts), although it certainly made it easier to generate some paired readings. It's got some of the familiar modern fantasy themes: the nature of immortality; a humanity that's both fleeting and indomitable; and the relationship of gods, men and belief. It also has a healthy and welcome dose of irreverent humor, plenty of sex, and it's drenched in the engineering and philosophy of scent. And vegetables.

The immortality story (taking my points in order) centers on the journey of Alobar, a medieval king who experiences an awakening of individuality on the eve of his own ritual sacrifice. In an era when life is cheap, fertility is quotidian and lewd, and death is a friend, he discovers an urge to fill the human experience to its most copious brim. He's ahead of his time, and, with a little divine nudge, he's ahead of ours too.

In flight from the locals he's betrayed, Alobar encounters the Greek god, Pan. Pan represents animal lust (eats, shoots, and leaves) and the most corporeal aspect of the god is his rank, gamy odor. The god, already old in the middle ages and dying from lack of followers, represents the old animal nature of man, the old-world philosophy of death. Alobar represents a new man, a complete bridge between the old ways and the new ones, free from death, and also quite nice-smelling. The death of the god at the man's feet, and Alobar's consumption of his gamy flesh is a sort of an anti-communion. He starts like Pan, but grows to be more, a complete human being, which is better than being a god.

In addition to Alobar's thread, there's plot moving along in modern times. Three parties are racing to independently develop a perfect scent, but the lack of a "base note," an elusive aroma component that should unite the fragrance, eludes them. Meanwhile, someone keeps depositing beets on their doorsteps.

Both the modern and ancient stories are filled with sex, but Robbins leaves the animal rutting behind with the gods, and manages to relish the life-affirming parts of the act (which, you know, is nice). The scent, taken as an enabler of higher thought (when he finally summarizes the uniting philosophy, it's more than a little silly), is a metaphor for this. This perfect aroma that the characters seek is the only thing that can cover Pan's Herculean B.O. problem.

Robbins has a lot of fun throwing around metaphors and playing with the language, and while the tone is overall humorous, he scores points for honesty in there too (and shows off some real erudition as well, however breezily). In all, half seriousness is a challenging undertaking. It's best to first establish yourself as either sincere or funny, or risk failing at both. Though Robbins is better at the humor, he tries to succeed at both, and rather than making it a doubly good book, it just makes it twice as long. The bigger problem with Jitterbug Perfume, however, was one of pacing. There was a lot of thematic development and character positioning, but the events of the plot just kind of happened at the end, no longer driven by very much dramatic tension. The revelation of the base note was anticlimactic, as was the philosophical info-dump, as were the denouements of the various love stories. Which isn't to say it's not a good read for the fun of it alone, but it kept me away from a higher grade.


--
I dithered a couple of days on this review. I had considered from the outset, and then even more after Maximo's comment in the previous post, describing the story ironically, reviewing it as a sexually repressed Bible-thumper type might review it (concluding, of course, that "Jitterbug Perfume stinks"). I don't know if I really served anything by going at it straight.

Review: Inherent Vice, by Thomas Pynchon

Airport books come with their own sorts of baggage. It's not that my expectations are low going in so much as that they're negative. Unless you're lucky enough to have that big Borders store in your terminal (which will stock a fair supply of canon and cult, for irritatingly precious travelers like myself), then the selection is geared toward more saleable names (I don't know what kind of books Nicholas Sparks writes, and I don't want to know), political and economics schlock (the cover with a white background, high-contrast typeface, and either a catchy graphic or a picture of some sweat-soaked hack trying to look stern), paperback mysteries and romances (the two science fiction books are of the embossed cover variety), and recent literary fads (you can bet that they're stocking up with Jonathon Franzen as I type). Also, David Sedaris, who's entertaining enough those rare times I catch him on the radio, but I'm disinclined to read something called "when you are engulfed in flames" as I fly.

My best bet is usually to pick up the popular-but-indeterminate-genre selection (i.e., the fad) if I can find any connection to it at all. I've come across lots of people with tastes similar to mine who like Pynchon, and there's a stable of authors who can't avoid saying dropping an homage every once in a while. And Inherent Vice, unlike the doorstops he's more famous for, is nice and short, so I figure it was a good time to introduce myself to the author. It was important for the blurbs to communicate that there's an essential Pyncon represented here. It's not a good sign when the pocket reviews invoke an indescribable style to tell me why I should read the book: it's not convincing for a newbie, and it's not a good sign if the faithful need to be reassured like that. You can find a good normal-length review here of Pynchon's early book, The Crying of Lot 49, which, looking at in hindsight, comes out as a good guide for Inherent Vice as well. So let's call the style discursive, willing to take a detour for humor's sake or to showcase an entertaining character sketch (not inconsistent with the guy who broke his lifelong reclusiveness for a silly guest spot on The Simpsons), some intentional blurring of perception and reality, and a simmering critique of the social order. (See? Blurbs aren't so hard.) I am given to understand that Pynchon also likes to indulge in point-of-view experiments and shifts that are nearly Joycean (which, I must admit, could be a good deal more enjoyable to read in a contemporary author with a worldview closer to my own—same playground, lower monkeybars), but that's not so much in evidence with this novel.

Our hero in Inherent Vice is Larry "Doc" Sportello, P.I. and connoisseur of beach culture, and if his grip on reality is slipping by a claw or two, then all the weed isn't helping. I've said it before: intoxicated people are funny when they accomplish stuff, when they're successful in spite of their best efforts. Acting nonchalant in unlikely circumstances is a timeless humor device. Doc admittedly appears to be sharp at drawing connections (even the questionable ones), and the indignation and paranoia endemic to the counterculture serves him well, but he's easily distracted, by women, friends and acquaintances, unlikely food, good tunes, and kind bud. The forced and unforced detours he finds on his investigation are made up for by some certain cosmic juju imparted by (entertaining) bodily excursions and the general grooviness that gives him a needed perspective. Among the various characters of his acquaintance, Doc's admirably countered by the hyperarticulate Christian "Bigfoot" Bjornson (got him as Kevin Smith meets Jesse Ventura), a Nazi square of a cop who, when they fall into moments of honesty, occupies only a small blue shift from Sportello on the spectrum between humanity and authority.

Doc doesn't sound like the private dick type, but part of the brilliance is just how well these styles mesh. I'm not a bit mystery guy, or noir guy: I'm not, as a rule, convinced that the trip through discovery is honest in these kinds of books. In mysteries, it's always easy enough to manipulate the reader by just lying about the stuff, or failing to divulge key information. I generally like the uncovering of a theme better than I like the gradual discovery of an act, but then, I have to be careful with those sorts of statements, as everything's always in the execution anyway. I am just suspicious of mysteries, in a way that's obviously not fair. I am always reminded of seminal stuff like The Murders in the Rue Morgue, trying to outguess the reader by moving beyond reason. It was an ape, Edgar? That's fucking stupid. Or maybe I just don't really impressed by superhuman deduction when the author is always able to whisper in the protagonist's ear. In any case, when I find myself in certain kinds of mystery—and noir is one of those kinds-- I'm not willing to fatten up my own conclusions with the author's early fodder, not without a sign that such attention is worth it. I let the case wash over me as it develops, trusting the writer to guide the thing along or not. If it's a good book, it'll have made sense all along and when I look back, I will be happy. If the plotting is sloppy, at least I can hope for some interesting scenery to accompany the ride. I finally clicked on Pynchon when I realized that he's a good enough writer to be playing with those not-necessarily-rational leaps. He is cognizant enough of his style that the flood of random-looking, significant-sounding, and culturally-referential information, which may or not be connected very well, is a knowing part of the whole mystery-solving schtick. I mean, Sportello is basically following Batman logic to crack the case, but getting along through inherent brains (vice?) and a certain infumated Grace. It's a funny understanding of noir, and it's perfect for druggies, not to mention the uncertain strain of semiotics that Pynchon likes to monkey with.

From my personal perspective, I can spot another common element between the Chandler-esque mystery and the Pynchon-ified plot. In both cases, I'm more familiar with the influences than I am with the original material. Detective fiction often enough serves as an entertaining cross-genre experiment (and since I have, like, four readers, I'll note that it ain't hard to derive a common genealogy for Sportello and the likes of Tom Robbins' Switters). When it comes down to it, the combination of jokes, winking technological revisionism (I remain puzzled how ArpaNet fit into the plot, or how what we saw fit within 1960s computational capabilities), deep cultural and mythological signifiers (Lemuria, frex), and vague shadow conspiracies (a minor word about the Golden Fang in a sec) may fall better among the small handful of science fiction authors that you don't know you're missing out on--I mean, I loves me some Neal Stephenson novels--but Pynchon gets big points as an innovator, for such a strong sense of his own flavor, and he wins hands down when it comes to the zany and the madcap. He gives us surreality that is sneakily real. I don't think Joseph Heller and Hunter Thompson are young enough to be Pynchon's heirs, but that's more of the same school.

I have read that deep conspiracy is a big part of Pynchon's M.O., but it took some time for this novel to get there. If it introduced thematic elements as fast as it introduced characters, I'd have been more down with it at the beginning. The connections to the Golden Fang eventually start to bring heavy drama, and [spoilers follow, but I don't think they're the hurtful sort] I like how it culminated with some token rich old fuck shipped in as a proxy to argue for The Man ("the bums always lose..."). I don't know if Pynchon really puts so much stock in the hippie as a revolutionary; they're steeped in their local American cultures far too heavily to be very useful, and they're still consumers, part of the machine like everyone else. In fact, Sportello's intermediate life as a private investigator might be telling: here he is, half cop and half citizen. The band's corrupted by an unspecified zombie mojo, and, for one dude, by the sinister attention of the Fang. It took the whole novel to finally force a confrontation with the string-pullers, and not unusually, it was like a man screaming attention from the universe. Which is unsatisfying, solves nothing, but seems like a worthy effort just the same.

[Minor edits. I was sipping glasses of loudmouth as I wrote that up last night, and if the prose fell apart by the end of the fist draft, then that's why. I have no excuse for the second draft.]

Book Review Index

Since I bother to rate my enthusiasm for the books I review, it will be helpful to both of my readers to get a feel of my tastes. Here's the index since 2004, when I started keeping it. I omitted books that I either couldn't remember well enough or reviewed too poorly to re-grade. I also omitted most of anthologized shorts, and all of the world-events and opinion stuff I read when I am supposed to be working (and of course the technical stuff I read when I actually am working).

The grades reflect my subjective enjoyment more than any objective evaluation. (How else to explain how Conrad did so poorly? Tuan Jim just didn't have the snappy move-along plot I needed at the beach that summer.) The grades may seem to be on a curve, but I think that's less due to inflation and more to my care in choosing reading material.

Anderson, Poul Operation Chaos (B)

Bellairs, John, The Face in the Frost (B+)

Benford, Gregory Cosm (A)

Blake, Katharine The Interior Life (B)

Blish, James A Case of Conscience (A)

Bourdain, Anthony, Kitchen Confidential (B)

Brown, Dan Angels and Demons (C+)

Bujold, Lois McMaster Diplomatic Immunity (A-)

Carroll, Jonathon After Silence (A)

Carroll, Jonathon Sleeping in Flame (B+)

Chabon, Michael The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (A+)

Clarke, Arthur C. Childhood's End (B)

Clarke, Arthur C. Rendezvous with Rama (B)

Coatzee, J. M., Elizabeth Costello (A)

Conrad, Joseph Lord Jim (B)

Dahl, Roald The Roald Dahl Omnibus (B-)

Davies, Robertson, The Rebel Angels (A)

Daniel, Tony Superluminal (B+)

Dean, Pamela The Secret Country (B+)

Dean, Pamela The Hidden Land (B)

Dean, Pamela The Whim of the Dragon (B+)

DeLillo, Don Underworld (B+)

Eco, Umberto Baudolino (C)

Friesner, Esther Wishing Season (C+)

Gaiman, Neil Anansi Boys (A)

Gibson, William Idoru (B+)

Gibson, William Pattern Recognition (B+)

Gibson, William Neuromancer (B)

Goldman, Willian, The Princess Bride

Greene, Brian The Elegant Universe (B)

Greene, Graham The Power and the Glory (A)

Harris, Bob Prisoner of Trebekistan (B+)

Helprin, Mark Winter's Tale (A-)

Holman, Sheri The Dress Lodger (A-)

Juster, Norton The Phantom Tollbooth (A+)

Kay, Guy Gavriel The Last Light of the Sun (A+)

King, Stephen Wolves of the Calla (A-)

King, Stephen Song of Susannah (B+)

King, Stephen The Dark Tower (B+)

Kushner, Ellen Swordspoint (B+)

LeGuin, Ursula K. The Dispossessed (A)

LeGuin, Ursula K. The Left Hand of Darkness (A)

LeGuin, Ursula K. The Telling (A-)

Levitt, Steven and Stephen Dubner Freakonomics (B+)

Lieber, Fritz The Big Time (B+)

McCarthy, Cormac The Road (A)

McEwan, Ian Saturday (B)

Mirrlees, Hope Lud in the Mist (A-)

Morrow, JamesTowing Jehovah (B+)

Nafisi, Azar Reading Lolita in Tehran (A-)

Noon, Jeff Vurt (B+)

O'Connor, Edwin The Last Hurrah (A)

Park, Paul Celestis (B+)

Park, Paul Soldiers of Paradise (A)

Patterson, James and Andrew Gross The Jester (C)

Powers, Richard, The Echo Maker (A-)

Powers, Tim The Drawing of the Dark (B)

Powers, Tim Declare (A)

Powers, Tim Last Call (A+)

Pratchett, Terry Maskerade (B)

Pratchett, Terry Soul Music (B-)

Pratchett, Terry The Wee Free Men

Pressfield, Steven, Gates of Fire (B)

Priest, Christopher The Separation (A)

Robbins, Tom Jitterbug Perfume (B+)

Roberts, Keith Pavane (B+)

Ryman, Geoff Air (A)

Saberhagen, Fred The Berserker Throne (B)

Stephenson, Neal Zodiac (A-)

Stephenson, Neal Snow Crash (A)

Stephenson, Neal Cryptonomicon (A)

Stephenson, Neal The Diamond Age (A-)

Stewart, Jon Naked Pictures of Famous People (B)

Stewart, Sean The Night Watch (B+)

Swanwick, Michael Bones of the Earth (B)

Tolstoy, Leo War and Peace (A)

Twain, Mark Letters from the Earth (B)

Varley, John The Golden Globe (A+)

Varley, John Millenium (B-)

Vinge, Vernor Across Realtime (A-)

Vinge, Vernor Rainbows End (B+)

Vinge, Vernor Tatja Grimm's World (C+)

Vonnegut, Kurt Cat's Cradle (A-)

Vonnegut, Kurt Jailbird (A-)

Westlake, Donald E. Bad News (B+)

Westlake, Donald E. Drowned Hopes (B)

Williams, Walter Jon City on Fire (B+)

Wilson, Robert Charles Blind Lake (A)

Wilson, Robert Charles The Harvest (B+)

Wilson, Robert Charles Spin (A+)

Wolfe, Gene The Knight (A-)

Wolfe, Gene The Wizard (A)

Wolfe, Gene Nightside of the Long Sun (A)

Wolfe, Gene Lake of the Long Sun (A)

Wolfe, Gene Calde of the Long Sun (B+)

Wolfe, Gene Exodus from the Long Sun (A)

Wolfe, Gene On Blue's Waters (A)

Wolfe, Gene In Green's Jungles (B)

Wolfe, Gene Return to the Whorl (A)

Wolfe, Gene Soldier of Sidon (A)

Zelazney, Roger Changeling (D)

Zelazney, Roger Damnation Alley (C-)