Another Roadside Attraction

published	2004 by No Exit Press
first published	1974
binding	Paperback
isbn	1842431293 (isbn13: 9781842431290)
pages	366
description	It's clear that when Robbins sits down to write, he has one thing on his mind: having himself some fun. I read Another Roadside Attraction, yea...more [close] It's clear that when Robbins sits down to write, he has one thing on his mind: having himself some fun. I read Another Roadside Attraction, years ago, then immediately went back to the beginning of the book and read it again. Robbins holds nothing back in this, his first novel. It's a perfect introduction to the Robbins oeuvre of oddness.
date added	12-13-06 edit book

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Phil rated it:

03/19/08

Read in March, 2008

recommended to Phil by: Michelle Jordan
recommends it for: Hippies, wanderers, clairvoyants, circus freaks

I wish Goodreads allowed half stars, because I'd give this three and a half.

Surprisingly (maybe even embarrasingly?) this was the first time I'd read any Tom Robbins. It's easy to see why he is adored by some and loathed by others--he's the kind of writer who has too many quirks and tics for a reader to react with ambivalence.

Still, I don't want to rush to judgment (good or bad) about Robbins; this was his first novel, and as such both missteps and flashes of long-stored brilliance ar...more I wish Goodreads allowed half stars, because I'd give this three and a half.

Surprisingly (maybe even embarrasingly?) this was the first time I'd read any Tom Robbins. It's easy to see why he is adored by some and loathed by others--he's the kind of writer who has too many quirks and tics for a reader to react with ambivalence.

Still, I don't want to rush to judgment (good or bad) about Robbins; this was his first novel, and as such both missteps and flashes of long-stored brilliance are in abundance. The novel lacks focus, not really seeming to understand the reason for its own existence until the final third. The argument could be made, I suppose, that this is intentional: we could attribute the meandering narrative to the personality and worldview of the protagonists, Amanda and John Paul Ziller. Robbins is surely capable of such a trick, but to me it feels like sloppiness, not calculation.

Initially, too, Robbins' penchant for extended, unconventional metaphor can be off-putting. Some metaphors immediately struck me as brilliant, others seemed clunky and cartoonish (they were intended to read as such, that I do understand). I'm not sure whether I grew more tolerant as I moved through the book or if Robbins grew more skilled; I found that the deeper I progressed, the more my reactions to his verbosity skewed positive. There is no doubt, the man is damned inventive and has an impressive command of language and imagery. And when he does get down to business, in the tightly woven third act, it's wonderfully entertaining reading.

I think had I been alive in 1971, when the book was first published, it would have been an absolute revelation. But I've been lucky enough to be exposed to a slew of other writings coming out of the decades since that draw similar conclusions about the utility of scientific taxonomy and social and political metanarratives, so the gripping excitement of fresh ideas wasn't always there. There are also numerous moments in which Robbins obviously uses his characters as puppets, vomiting ideas on the page and only occasionally offsetting them with quotation marks and attributions. That's not an entirely bad thing, but I think I'd have been less prone to notice had I been swept off my feet by the ideas in question. What I give Robbins credit for is that thirty-seven years later, his phrasing is still often beautiful enough to jolt even the young postmodern cynics in the audience.

I'll be interested to read more of his work.

(An aside: I would take issue with Robbins' ideas about paganism and mysticism. I don't think he understands that the way beyond Enlightenment compartmentalization of body, mind and spirit is NOT regression to the mythic, when these traits were all fused. The Enlightenment differentiation of these realms was good, albeit destructive in some ways; now the task is to INTEGRATE them together without losing the differentiation. This critique makes very little sense if one hasn't read Ken Wilber, since I am blatantly plagiarizing.)

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Katherine rated it:

02/11/08

Read in February, 2008

The best word for this book is choppy. It is flashes of brilliance surrounded by a multitude of metaphors that are sometimes poignant and touching, but often flat and feel as if they're there for shock value. But being that this is only Tom Robbins' first novel, you can tell how he would grow to become brilliant.
The characters are intriguing and captivating, but there were many, many times when I found myself wishing the author would stop describing their minute nuances and just get on with it...more

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Jay rated it:

11/06/07

Read in December, 2007

recommends it for: big thinkers

Perhaps as an ideological counterpoint to Ayn Rand, I suppose there's a time in life when reading Tom Robbins's writing is completely enthralling and its ideas wholly accessible and continuous.

But I guess I'm an old fart that way; a well written story becomes more important to me than the funny/boring anecdotes and philosophical tangents. These fills are thought provoking, and please don't think that they're not, but ultimately in these books, there's a story that's tied together with a s...more

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