Michael's review
Jitterbug Perfume
by Tom Robbins
Michael's review
Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins
Michael's review
rating:
recommended for: first time Robbins readers, spiritualist Beat punsters
This is a bit of a grudging 5 stars; as many have mentioned, any Robbins book has creepy stuff about gender roles, and his style does bend over backwards so far just to get in another tortuous metaphor that even in his very best work, like this one, you get tired sometimes.
But this book is so full of life and joy, and poignancy across a story of millennia, that here, at least, I forgive him for it. It's a comic epic, like most of Robbins' work, but here it's balanced with some real thinking about where the mystery of life goes if you don't watch yourself, and some often hilarious tweaks on spirituality/religion/etc. And when he's not just making metaphors for the hell of it, he comes out with these intense sensory descriptions that you feel viscerally, not just with your head. Reminds me a little of Ishmael Reed's weirdo Sun Ra myth-comedy "Mumbo Jumbo" (another great book) or Saul Bellow's "Henderson the Rain King", a book just as sloppy-drunk with its love of...more
But this book is so full of life and joy, and poignancy across a story of millennia, that here, at least, I forgive him for it. It's a comic epic, like most of Robbins' work, but here it's balanced with some real thinking about where the mystery of life goes if you don't watch yourself, and some often hilarious tweaks on spirituality/religion/etc. And when he's not just making metaphors for the hell of it, he comes out with these intense sensory descriptions that you feel viscerally, not just with your head. Reminds me a little of Ishmael Reed's weirdo Sun Ra myth-comedy "Mumbo Jumbo" (another great book) or Saul Bellow's "Henderson the Rain King", a book just as sloppy-drunk with its love of...more
