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Dec 16, 2009

Gus rated it:

Nothing against the man himself, but if Tom Robbins' writing and I were locked in a room together, and I was ankle-chained to the wall with my only means of escape to saw through my own leg, I would do so, then use the severed limb to happily beat to death Tom Robbins' writing before I dragged my ass out of there.

42 comments like (21 people liked it)

Jun 17, 2011

Rebecca rated it:

Who knows how to make love stay?
1. Tell love you are going to the 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 memento 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 the burnt hair and use them to paint a mustache o More...

0 comments like (10 people liked it)

Dec 29, 2011

Nathan rated it:

Robbins has one of the most unique narratives I've encountered. He's genuinely funny, witty, and shares a penchant for the absurd and punny. He's a wordsmith and throughout his writing one can't help but feel that he's full-force funneling a rabid faucet of clever and meaningless musings constantly streaming through his hyper-associative mind.

Woodpecker is, at heart, a take on a classic fairytale story disguised in an absurd set of characters and an abnormal setting. Robbins leads o More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Aug 18, 2008

Colinski rated it:

Let me first tell you that I dislike modern jazz. You know the type: the free-form kind that only musicians can appreciate. I dislike it because it abandons all the structural qualities that I find appealing about old-fashioned jazz and is all about technical skill. What does this have to do with this book? The comparison came to me early on in reading this book which I begrudgingly forced myself to finish: I liken modern jazz to watching a performer masturbate musically on stage, getting off on More...

0 comments like (6 people liked it)

Oct 01, 2007

Jploof rated it:

"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 More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Dale rated it:

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 l More...

1 comment like (6 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Logan rated it:

Oh my goodness, how is that I always forget how much I love Tom Robbins? The man knows how to turn a phrase that is without equal in modern literature. If my funny bone could write love songs they would sound like him.

I find it hilarious that he writes constant asides about the typewriter that he's using, the Remington SL3. I can't tell if this is because the asides are actually funny or if it's because I have a long and storied history with that same beast of a machine. When I was y More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

May 24, 2007

carri rated it:

this was the first robbins i ever read. i loved this book. the story is ridiculously wonderful. his writing style is light and fast. this is easy and fun stuff.

i do love how i was introduced to this book (and to the author). the summer before i moved to dc i was living in oklahoma city, living with my best friend and working for an environmental group going door to door collecting money and signatures. we usually traveled from okc to tulsa which also meant a meal on the road. More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Giambus rated it:

I learned that if you have red hair you can write a crappy book and people will love it. I could have written this book in college.

The jokes were forced, the premise was too ridiculous to take seriously, and the payoff was weak, weak, weak. It was little more than a sophmoric creative writing assignment taken, like, way too far.

Plus if you can't write female characters to be anything more then complex sexual fantasies you should just not even try. I got the sense that More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Apr 15, 2007

Julz rated it:

A relative who rarely reads fiction recommended this author, so I knew he had to be good. I'll definitely read him again. Robbins manages to skewer just about every facet of American society all while developing a colorful cast of characters who manage to become compelling in spite of being beyond cartoonish.

It's one of those books that makes you wonder what the author was smoking, so you have to be in the mood for the absurd when you read it. If you're never in that mood, beware, be More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Feb 20, 2009

Chris rated it:

When my brother gave me this book for Christmas, he told me to "drink in the writing." Or something to that effect. Whatever it was, he heaped praise on Robbins' use of language. Several people in my family had read this, or some other Tom Robbins book, and they all enthusiastically agreed that reading him was a pleasure unto itself, above and beyond the enjoyment one gets from reading the actual story. I was promised an actual Reading Experience, and that promise was fulfilled in More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Aug 30, 2008

Mariah rated it:

My favorite book of all time. I used a quote from this book in my wedding vows. It is funny, silly, and romantic.

3 comments like (7 people liked it)

Jun 23, 2008

Kendra rated it:

It has been a long time since I read this, but I do know is that I loved it.

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Feb 04, 2009

Adrian rated it:

There is, however, a similarity between juggling and composing on the typewriter. The trick is, when you spill something, make it look like part of the act. pgix

"Neoteny" is "remaining young," and it may be ironic that it is so little known, because human evolution has been dominated by it. Humans have evolved to their relatively high state by retaining the immature characteristics of their ancestors. Humans are the most advanced mammals--although a case could be More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 27, 2008

Meika rated it:

I've been trying to think of how to review this book, but the only things that come to mind are metaphors for other senses... it's hue saturation is high, and it's gritty, bluesey and edgy the way Led Zeppelin is Metal.

The plot tends towards the absurd, which allows the story to perform some philosophical acrobatics without giving into the pedantic or pretentious. Robbins tends to express these sorts of things in dichotomy: outlaws as opposed to criminals, activism as opposed to id More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 30, 2008

Rapunzel210 rated it:

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 More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Apr 21, 2008

Leo added it

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 w More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Feb 19, 2008

Angie rated it:

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 bad tee More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 06, 2009

Taylor rated it:

I'm not one of those people who hates or loves Tom Robbins, which I guess puts me in the minority.

I'm a redhead, thus why I chose this Robbins novel to start with. There, I admitted it.

The "plot," to put it broadly, is about a well-intentioned albeit naive redheaded "princess" who meets a redheaded self-obsessed "outlaw."

Reading Robbins reads a lot like talking to someone with ADD or on some kind of mind-altering substance. It's e More...

1 comment like (4 people liked it)

Dec 28, 2007

Julia rated it:

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...

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

Sep 07, 2007

Jessie rated it:

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 More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 06, 2007

Bridget rated it:

I was debating between putting this at at 3 or a 2 1/2. I really wish that I had someone to discuss this book with. It is my first read of a Tom Robbins book and I don't know much about the author, but I cannot decide if I think he is brilliant or completely pretentious. The story was entertaining, but the writing style unlike anything that I have read. It was such a strange storyline but in the same sense strangely enjoyable. The philosophy behind the book was interesting to contemplate, b More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Sep 24, 2007

Emily rated it:

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 More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Kasia rated it:

I read this book as a teenager and I loved it. I loved the style and the language and the story, the irreverent rebelliousness. Then I read it again after college and, while I still enjoyed it, a lot of things bothered me. I don't like his sexual objectification of his female characters. Many of his books seem to be wishful thinking sexual fantasies on the part of the author. And gratuitous descriptions of breasts and bodily fluids do not exactly constitute character development. Now More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 05, 2011

Brian rated it:

9/24/2006 - 6/10

Still Life with Woodpecker is a pretty strange book. It uses off the wall snippets in short chapters to tell a somewhat disjoint but humorous narrative. It reminded me of Kurt Vonnegut's writing style. Robbins uses some vivid descriptions, ideas and conjectures. They are a bit hit or miss though as some go into boring rat-holes. The story itself has a fairy tale-ish feel to it. It's also a bit juvenile with over the top and shallow romance and sex scenes. The plot is not at all More...

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Mar 09, 2009

Justine rated it:

I eagerly picked up this book after Megan told me it was her favorite book as a high school senior-- and remains her favorite book today. Further investigation with friends taught me that Tom Robbins is an author best read high and with a deep cult following.

Robbins' writing style took a while to get used to. Like other writers whose voice is unlike anything else I've ever read, I had the delicious pleasure of being forced to slow down and consider for the first few chapters. His lang More...

0 comments like

Feb 25, 2009

Mary rated it:

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

1 comment like

Jan 28, 2009

Kristina rated it:

Still Life With Woodpecker by Tom Robbins is "A sort of a love story."

There is a love story, and that is what holds all the randomness, such as redheads, Red Beards, miscarriages, cheerleaders, $20 million pyramids, sex, isolation, bombs, cocaine, Ralph Nader, and royalty together.

Did I mention Ralph Nader? If nothing else, I suggest one read this book because the protagonist has a thing for Ralph Nader. And by thing, I mean she both adores his ideas and wants t More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 01, 2011

Mark rated it:

I'll admit that I was a Tom Robbins virgin prior to this, and I hope this was an appropriate introduction. I like a writer who can write about sex without relying on the florid or metaphoric. One like Robbins, who can treat the subject on the same level as a dynamite-wielding terrorist and the fiery temper of redheads (as it so deserves) is someone worth paying attention to.

I'll also admit that it took me a while to get through the book. It's not that it didn't grab me, but at times it More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 06, 2011

Debbie rated it:

The kind of intriguing storyline, humor, playful words and images, strange characters, and thinking themes that I absolutely needed as my first free-read out from my school program :) Some quotes that I marked to remember:
"Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been sober, responsible, and cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious, and immature."
"Actually, the rain has many uses. It prevents the blood and the sea from becoming too More...

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