Still Life with Woodpecker

published	April 1st 1990 by Bantam
first published	1980
binding	Paperback
isbn	0553348973 (isbn13: 9780553348972)
pages	288
description	Still Life with Woodpecker is sort of a love story that takes place inside a pack of Camel cigarettes. It reveals the purpose of the moon, exp...more [close] Still Life with Woodpecker is sort of a love story that takes place inside a pack of Camel cigarettes. It reveals the purpose of the moon, explains the difference between criminals and outlaws, examines the conflict between social activism and romantic individualism, and paints a portrait of contemporary society that includes powerful Arabs, exiled royalty, and pregnant cheerleaders. It also deals with the problem of redheads. [close]
date added	03-09-07 edit book

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Shannon rated it:

06/27/08

bookshelves: 2007, bookclub, contemporary-fiction

Read in October, 2007

Leigh-Cherie, exiled princess of the Furstenberg-Barcalonas now living under the eye of the CIA oustide of Seattle while their homeland is fighting American interference, has given up on a lot of things in life, but she still thinks the duty of a princess is to set a royal example and be involved. The upcoming Care Fest in Hawaii gets her all excited, and with the old servant Gulietta, she flies to Maui with every intention of hearing Ralph Nader speak and learn about contraceptives - since they...more Leigh-Cherie, exiled princess of the Furstenberg-Barcalonas now living under the eye of the CIA oustide of Seattle while their homeland is fighting American interference, has given up on a lot of things in life, but she still thinks the duty of a princess is to set a royal example and be involved. The upcoming Care Fest in Hawaii gets her all excited, and with the old servant Gulietta, she flies to Maui with every intention of hearing Ralph Nader speak and learn about contraceptives - since they aren't working for her, and she should know after one abortion and one miscarriage (all this and she's just 19).

On the plane with her, heading to Maui with 20 sticks of dynamite strapped to him, is Bernard Mickey Wrangle, the "Woodpecker": escaped convict, bomber, rebel and outlaw. And, most important, a fellow redhead. Who manages to fail at blowing up the hotel where the Care Fest is being staged - mostly because he mistook the UFO convention, held the day before the main event, for his real target, and also because the damn hotel is sturdier than it looks. Gulietta, however, saw him placing the dynamite, and when she sees him on the beach the next day and tells Leigh-Cherie, the princess tries to put him under citizen's arrest.

So starts a love affair that's surprisingly sweet and genuine within a novel that's almost a farce. The blurb, if you should read it, makes absolutely no sense until after you've finished reading the book, and is very off-putting. I don't even know where to start in describing what this book is about. What I will say is that it has a very, very rocky start. I didn't get into it - I wasn't at all interested - until the Woodpecker is introduced. This character is surprisingly enigmatic (surprising because the initial description of him is not very flattering), and while I don't agree with everything he spouts - and, having been raised by a philosopher, he has lots to say about everything - he does have a pretty trippy brain.

I want to hate this book. I want to hate it because Tom Robbins pisses me off so much (and this is one of those books that can't be separated from its author - if you want one you have to take the other). I read Even Cowgirls Get the Blues when I was a teenager and while I liked his Douglas Adams' style humour, I didn't care for his handling of women or the fact that he doesn't shut up. Literally. It's the same here. Let's face it: Tom Robbins loves the sound of his own voice. He even quotes himself! All tongue-in-cheek, of course, but that's no excuse. He can be funny, but not ironic. He's not subtle enough for irony. And while a lot of his concepts are quite abstract and often surreal, it's in the characters and their relationships with each other that Robbins finds his anchor, and make the book really interesting - see, it's in the simple things. I loved Leigh-Cherie and Bernard, I wanted things to work out with them. So I don't hate this book. Not at all. But unless you already like Robbins' style, or you love Douglas Adams but always wished he would prattle on about things that don't interest you, I won't recommend this.

The only other thing I want to say about why this book bugged me, is that Robbins cries Wolf constantly. Either let everything be made up, or nothing. I like to learn things from the books I read, but to do that I need to know the author is reliable. Robbins is far from it. Half the time I think he's hoping I will believe him, and then make a fool of myself by passing off one of his silly "facts" as, well, a fact. For example, while Lord Sandwich has been credited with the invention of the sandwich, popcorn was not invented by the Earl of Popcorn. Nice try.

This is a very quotable book, but the quotable parts are also very pat. What I mean is, they are too quotable. If you read them again, and once more again, you notice that it sounds great, but doesn't always hold up to closer scrutiny. Or is too dismissive. While this book is set in the 80s (how else would someone manage to repeatedly get on a plane with dynamite strapped to them?), it's surprisingly relevant. It reminds me that, really, not a whole lot has changed in the last several decades - or longer - and we really aren't all that original as a species. No matter how many theories we can come up with about the origins of redheads and what a pyramid signifies.

That said, I like the idea of escaping into the world inside a pack of Camel cigarettes.
...less

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Matt rated it:

07/24/08

Read in July, 2008

Ok, Jesus, I fell off the face of the earth for a while. But now I'm back! With a review, no less.

Tom Robbins is one of those writers, along with folks like Hunter S. Thompson, Thomas Pynchon, Georges Perec, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Richard Ford, and a few others that I not only "get," but that I would love to share a drink with and shoot the shit. Many reviews I've read about Tom Robbins are split down the middle, the whole love him/hate him dichotomy. I fall into the former category....more Ok, Jesus, I fell off the face of the earth for a while. But now I'm back! With a review, no less.

Tom Robbins is one of those writers, along with folks like Hunter S. Thompson, Thomas Pynchon, Georges Perec, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Richard Ford, and a few others that I not only "get," but that I would love to share a drink with and shoot the shit. Many reviews I've read about Tom Robbins are split down the middle, the whole love him/hate him dichotomy. I fall into the former category. Having read two books of his now, I see that he follows a certain blueprint and his humor falls into a sort of shtick (one review called it something like "stoner cowboy hippie humor"), but I hummed along to his tune.

Robbins was first recommended to me in college by a good friend named Tony. As a matter of fact, he joined this website, rated all the Tom Robbins books (4 and 5 stars, as I recall), and hasn't been heard from on here since. Tony majored in philosophy, and also enjoyed ganja and hippiedom. I lay somewhere in the middle, but I digress. The point is there is apt philosophizing going on in the world of Robbins, but more crucial to me is the brilliant social satire Robbins conjures up. He pokes fun of the people that take things just a little bit too seriously. Other writers do that, sure, but not only can Robbins split your sides with his anecdotes and metaphors, but you find yourself nodding your head, saying, "Ain't that the damn truth."

I'm generalizing here, so a bit more pertaining to this book particularly. I think Robbins writes abnormally strong female characters. Not, like, physically strong like bull strong, but fleshed out in a way the suggests intelligence, legitimate sexuality, and a feminist gear for taking no shit from anyone for having a pair of breasts. I don't know what's the story with his other novels, but in the two I've read, this and Skinny Legs and All have featured women as the main protagonist. In Skinny Legs, her name was Ellen Cherry Charles. In this, she's Princess Leigh-Cheri. Are cherries an ongoing thing with this guy? Please, tell me. I want to know. Each of these characters were so engaging I wanted to scream, "Why can't I find these people in real life!"

The Princess writes her lover (The Woodpecker, a red-headed anarchist with a penchant for making things to boom) a letter, saying, "I'm not quite twenty, but thanks to you, I've learned something that many women these days never learn: Prince Charming really is a toad. And the Beautiful Princess has halitosis. The bottom line is that (a) people are never perfect, but love can be, (b) that is the one and only way that the mediocre and vile can be transformed, (c) doing that makes it that. Loving makes love. Loving makes itself. We waste time looking for the perfect lover instead of creating the perfect love. Wouldn't that be the way to make love stay?"

The woodpecker responds, and it's of equal importance, and more akin to my thoughts on the matter, but I'd prefer it if you guys read this book and found out what that is. It's a worthwhile cause. Robbins is ahead of the curve.

And he gets brownie points for mentioning the man-made "pyramids" in Collinsville, Illinois, which is where I happened to go to high school. Sweet....less

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Julia rated it:

(review of isbn 184243022X)

12/28/07

Read in December, 2007

recommended to Julia by: Don
recommends it for: people who really like tom robbins...?

I'd heard this book wasn't as bad as some of the later Tom Robbins, where I think even he was getting tired of his schtick, but... Not by me. So far the decline in my liking of Robbins books had been related to my reading the later ones later (proved by the exceptions), but not in this case. Maybe I'm just overall tired of Robbins, or maybe this one just wasn't for me. Of course, compared to the great mass of uselessness out there, anything Robbins is still going to be pretty interesting. Bu...more I'd heard this book wasn't as bad as some of the later Tom Robbins, where I think even he was getting tired of his schtick, but... Not by me. So far the decline in my liking of Robbins books had been related to my reading the later ones later (proved by the exceptions), but not in this case. Maybe I'm just overall tired of Robbins, or maybe this one just wasn't for me. Of course, compared to the great mass of uselessness out there, anything Robbins is still going to be pretty interesting. But this review is going to pick at the negatives, because everybody knows what's cool about Tom Robbins... (Or if they don't, plenty of other reviews will tell them.)

The odd analogies in particular just didn't seem as cool as they used to; maybe they were more clumsily integrated (really they often just seem there to be there rather than to be of any use), or maybe I'm just over it. A lot of the specifics were like that; I guess I'll have to reread a Robbins I liked to see what I think of it now. Some of _Woodpecker_ did just seem clumsy, though, in a not-experienced-or-not-great-author kind of way. A lot of author intrusion, which may seem like a funny thing to say about a book where a lot of the innovative form-twisting funniness is in things like the author breaking in to talk about his relationship with the typewriter that's putting out the manuscript, but I'm talking plain old point-of-view slippage and that sort of thing (using 'seemingly' of a character whose POV we were in in the previous paragraph and will be back in in the next, that sort of thing). Sometimes breaking the Rules comes off as interesting and experimental, and sometimes it comes off as just bad writing,* and different components can come off differently to different people. So maybe some people would think the intrusive 'seemingly's brilliantly new, and some people would think the bits about the typewriter just bad writing, but that's the way I slice it, anyway. (And of course it has the usual sexist bullshit, though maybe it was advanced for its time? Hard for me to say.)

Overall... As with anything so full of philosophical BSing, there were a few aha moments, and a bunch of moments where I think it's full of crap. (Robbins does polyphony, in his own unique fashion (interestingly so), but some messages are clear, like Artists Are Superior Beings, which may well be true but I don't buy his reasoning.) And the content? Eh, anyone can write a review about content. :) The supporting characters were much better done than the main characters, in my opinion. King Max and Queen Tilli were quite fetching.

Tom Robbins does not exactly write character-driven novels most of the time, so what are they? Form-driven? Sounds awful, but it's a good enough form to mostly carry it most of the time. (They're certainly not plot-driven nor setting-driven...) I think the books I've liked best of his have been the closest to being really character-driven, but that's typical for me.

And finally, a comment from my housemate Bao-Tran: "How could you not find that book used? Every single person in Berkeley owns a copy of that book! I think even I own a copy of it!"

* One of my editorial postulates: Experimental form sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from bad writing. Not sure whether that applies here, or whether Robbins was just being lazy....less

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Angie rated it:

(review of isbn 184243022X)

02/19/08

Read in February, 2008

recommends it for: redheads, people who used to meditate religiously but now feel kind of sheepish about that

Tom Robbins is Tom Robbins is Tom Robbins, and you like him or you don't; I do. There is something about the stoner-cowboy vernacular of the thirty-something 1970s-era male that I find endlessly endearing. It is this vernacular that I am holding responsible for this book's tendency to remind me, constantly and throughout my entire reading of it, of The Executioner's Song. I thought that maybe it was the fact that the main characters of the two stories shared a lot of similar traits, like ...more

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Jploof rated it:

(review of isbn 184243022X)

10/01/07

Read in January, 2005

recommends it for: people who love each other

"The most important thing is love," said Leigh-Cheri. "I know that now. There's no point in saving the world if it means losing the moon."
Leigh-Cheri sent that message to Bernard through his attorney. The message continued, "I'm not quite 20, but, thanks to you, I've learned something that many women these days never learn: Prince Charming really is a toad. And the Beautiful Princess has halitosis. The bottom line is that (a) people are never perfect, but love can ...more

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Jessie rated it:

(review of isbn 184243022X)

09/07/07

I really enjoyed myself. Some of my favorite moments...

Once, Princess Leigh-Cheri used a papal candlestick for the purpose of self-gratification. She had hoped that at the appropriate moment she might be visited by either the Lamb or the Beast, but, as usual, only Ralph Nader attended her.

Behavioral traits such as curiosity about the world, flexibility of response, and playfulness are common in practically all young mammals but are usually rapidly lost with the onset of maturity in all...more

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Dale rated it:

(review of isbn 184243022X)

10/03/07

Read in August, 2007

The ninth book I read on my commute in 2007. I read this right after Ulysses, as kind of a palate-cleanser, since Tom Robbins is pretty far from James Joyce. But I kept thinking as I read this one about how both it and Ulysses were so very much products of their respective times - Ulysses of Ireland in the 1930s, and Still Life with Woodpecker of the U.S. in the 1970s.

The example that amused me the most is that, in SLWW, a certain famous figure is held up with great reverence and love ... ...more

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Leo added it

04/21/08

As my lack of stars indicate, this book is ok. However, the Best thing about the book is the following quote - one of the most influential in my life:

"How can one person be more real than any other? Well, some people do hide and others seek. Maybe those who are in hiding--escaping encounters, avoiding surprises, protecting their property, ignoring their fantasies, restricting their feelings, sitting out the Pan pipe hootchy-kootch of experience--maybe those people, people who won't tal...more

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Zach rated it:

(review of isbn 184243022X)

07/03/08

Read in July, 2008

short review: not enough show, WAAAAAYYYYYYY too much tell. i thought this was written by Tom Robbins, not Tony Robbins.

other thoughts: self-deprecation (i.e., the interludes, epilogue, and the handwritten note) does not cover up the thinness of the narrative. the jokey similes, while funny several times, got really really old after about 50 pages-- the book should've come with a drumkit for all the rimshots these jokey similes inspire.

i cannot stand the ideal of love as rebellious, &...more

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Christen rated it:

(review of isbn 184243022X)

02/18/08

Read in February, 2008

recommends it for: horny teenagers

It's rare that a single scene or line from a book that rubs me the wrong way can completely take me out of it. In fact, without precedent. But a male lead character who starts dictating his (far-too-young-for-him) female partner's birth control method, without so much as asking politely, goes from Entertaining and Wacky Guy Who Just Burst On the Scene to That Icky, I-Know-What-Yooooou-Need, Seems-Insightful-But-Is-Really-Just-Manipulative-and-Psychotic Guy That I Dated Way Too Many Times When I ...more

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Rapunzel210 rated it:

(review of isbn 184243022X)

04/30/08

bookshelves: books-that-changed-my-life

Read in July, 1981

I first read this book in 1981 or thereabouts when I was married to my first husband. I had three children and felt completely trapped in a dangerously toxic, dead-end relationship that I saw no way out of.

Still Life with Woodpecker, more than anything else, is about CHOICE. About using it, about the freedom it offers, and about being willing to accept the consequences for exerting it. Sometimes I would be reading and have to close the book up suddenly because I couldn't handle the implicat...more

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Joseph rated it:

(review of isbn 184243022X)

05/18/08

Read in May, 2008

eBook

A little disappointing, in that it felt like a pretty close reproduction of the other Tom Robbins books that I've read, but I guess I shouldn't give the guy too much crap for being able to do one thing, and do it well.

This was another enjoyable read, with memorable characters and unusual plot twists, managing to serve as a showcase for Robbins' demonstrable love of hearing himself talk as well as his very apparent, yet somewhat mystifying, issues with women. I still can't decide if...more

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Cloudhidden rated it:

(review of isbn 184243022X)

11/27/07

Read in February, 1997

recommends it for: everyone

Tom Robbins is one of those authors that can truly change your life and make you believe in everything that is hip, fun and wild in this world.

When I first read this book I was a junior in college. After finishing it, I think I gave the book as a gift every chance I got for the next few years.

Like many authors, your first one you read by them becomes your favorite and the others just don't live up to it. That is the way it seems with Robbins.

"Still Life With Woodpecker&quo...more

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M. rated it:

(review of isbn 184243022X)

01/27/08

Read in January, 2008

recommends it for: philosphers & historians

I liked this a lot. It speaks to me. I love the idea of the Outlaw being in love with Love and life, and damn everything else. Couple problems though: One with Robbins' writing; One with his philosophy. Writng first--too many similies that just stopped me. They make no sense. They don't help me to see, or set a mood, or understand. They're just plain dumb--too cute comes to mind. His philosophy--if society has no consequence, which is what he implies, then why be an Outlaw? He asserts society an...more

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Mike G. rated it:

(review of isbn 184243022X)

09/01/07

bookshelves: fireandforget

Read in January, 2004

recommends it for: Silly girls with tattoos that express their "life philosophy" and are "spiritual but not religious"

UFOs? Pyramid Power? I hate the New Age. I hate anyone close to my age that admires ex-hippy Baby Boomers for all that they "accomplished". I hate Tom Robbins because he probably has a thousand or more college-age groupie girls that will jump into bed with him whenever his hand comes within three feet of a keyboard or typewriter. I hate personality cults and Ayn Rand and L. Ron and any jagoff that claims a book, especially a novel written by an inept lout such as Robbins, has changed t...more

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Moody rated it:

(review of isbn 184243022X)

06/09/08

Read in June, 2008

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Billie rated it:

(review of isbn 184243022X)

07/23/08

Tom Robbins zany adventure starring a environmentally-minded princess and a bomber, which answers such questions as "what is the purpose of the moon?" and "who knows how to make love stay?" (which Robbins says is the most important question) Robbins is a great philosopher and this book is full of memorable quotes. It's a bit out there but I love it. Inevitably it ends up being a useful little handbook on life and love, especially the differences between men and women.
...more

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Simone rated it:

(review of isbn 184243022X)

05/03/08

bookshelves: favorites, fiction, own, you-need-to-read-these

I read this book at least once a year. It is my all-time, numero uno top dog. A few of my favorite moments...

Kidnapped by French champagne was more like it. The champagne had hold of them both, and not a ransom note in sight.
"I'm peeing stars!" the princess squealed.
Bernard produced a pack of Camels from his shirt pocket. He put it through toy UFO maneuvers while making bleeping noises of the third kind.
Leigh-Cheri returned. "I got stars on my shoes," she compla...more

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Rowena rated it:

07/24/08

What a nutty read. Definitely one of the stranger love stories I've ever come across. In essence, this novel tells the story of how a couple strives to make love stay. It also explains the existence of redheads and what the purpose of the moon is...sort of.

Robbins' writing reminds me a lot of Neal Stephenson's. They tell the story but every once in awhile, they find it appropriate to stop and rant and rave about something that really doesn't have that much to do with the plot. It's highly e...more

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Emily rated it:

(review of isbn 184243022X)

09/24/07

Who knows how to make love stay? (#1 is a Valentine's Day tradition for my parents.)

1. Tell love you are going to Junior’s Deli on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn to pick up a cheesecake, and if love stays, it can have half. It will stay.

2. Tell love you want a momento of it and obtain a lock of its hair. Burn the hair in a dime-store incense burner with yin/yang symbols on three sides. Face southwest. Talk fast over the burning hair in a convincingly exotic language. Remove the ashes of t...more

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