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Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates

Tom Robbins

4.03 · Rating details · 25,554 ratings · 1,218 reviews

"As clever and witty a novel as anyone has written in a long time . . . Robbins takes readers on a wild, delightful ride. . . . A delight from beginning to end."--Buffalo News

Switters is a contradiction for all seasons: an anarchist who works for the government; a pacifist who carries a gun; a vegetarian who sops up ham gravy; a cyberwhiz who hates computers; a man who, though obseend."--Buffalo ...more

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Paperback, 445 pages

Published May 29th 2001 by Bantam (first published September 5th 2000)

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Aug 05, 2007 Tim Darnell rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Any Humans; missing links need not apply.

Shelves: favorites

This book is by no small margin my favorite novel of all time.

First off, Switters is the greatest single character to emerge from modern literature pure and simple. Not only is he hilarious and a great role model for any law enforcement employee, but his personal philosophies (not discounting his desire to plow his step-sister,) are intriguing and captivating. "Rather than eschewing his contradictory nature, as is typical Western practice, Switters embraces it. He's a CIA agent who hates the go ...more

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May 15, 2007 Leslie Gal rated it did not like it

Some people love this shit and find it oh so witty and creative, but to me the perfect phrase to describe this book (and all Tom Robbins) is "verbal masturbation." If you value the simple beauty of good prose, you will feel dirty after ol Robbins spews gratuitous, barely cogent metaphors willy-nilly all over your literary face line after nauseating line. Robbins is clearly getting off on his own cleverness; it's just too bad he didn't stop to think about your needs.

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Mar 27, 2011 Danger rated it it was amazing

Recommended to Danger by: drag queens, Frankenstein, human beings and other assorted fauna

Everytime I don't know what to buy people for Christmas or their birthday, I just get them a copy of this book. I give them two months and then ask what they thought of it. If they say they loved it, we continue to be friends. If they didn't like it, I challenge them to a gladiator-style death match. As you could surmise by the fact that I'm writing this right now, I've never lost a death match. That's how much I love this book.

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Feb 14, 2008 Will C rated it it was amazing

Probably my favorite Tom Robbins novel, one of the few with a male protagonist (some of his books focus on female leads, and a few have couples, but the narration generally focuses on the woman). Switters, the nymphet-chasing secret agent and self described "acquired taste," finds himself confined to a wheelchair. A shaman's curse (the price of a psychedelic revelation) condemns him to death if his feet ever touch the ground. He starts the novel in love with his underage step sister, working for Probably my favorite Tom Robbins novel, one of the few with a male protagonist (some of his books focus on female leads, and a few have couples, but the narration generally focuses on the woman). Switters, the nymphet-chasing secret agent and self described "acquired taste," finds himself confined to a wheelchair. A shaman's curse (the price of a psychedelic revelation) condemns him to death if his feet ever touch the ground. He starts the novel in love with his underage step sister, working for the CIA, and fully ambulatory. His adventures take him around the world and through theological intrigue, but the main feature of this book is really Switters as a character. The plot, although clever and fun to follow, is mostly a way of putting him in various situations where he can discourse on the meaning of life, language, and pleasure. A friend of mine who also loves this author told me that Switters seemed to her to be the Tom Robbin's character who is the most like Tom Robbins, and this seems intuitively true. For one thing, the content of Switters' monologues, both inner and outer, echo themes that resonate throughout his other novels, and seem in this novel to be gathered in one voice. Also, the form of Switters' speeches echoes the author's style of wording and imagery. The greatest joy of reading Tom Robbins is the way he plays with language as something oral, something that we hear with our ears and make with our mouths. He does things with writing that can only be done in writing, but he never lets the reader forget that language is something sensual, and he invokes the sounds of words, the music of sentences, and even descriptions that vividly sexualize the mechanics of a character (female or male, but usually female) actually pronouncing a certain word.
Except for Nabokov, who Robbins seems to be pretty obviously paying homage to (and perhaps lovingly mocking) with parallels and allusions to "Lolita," no other novelist I've read has captured the sensuality of language on this level. Languages, accents, and even speech impediments seem to be elevated to the highest objects of aesthetic appreciation in Robbins novels. Robbins can write a conversation, or a thought about a conversation, or even a thought about a word with as much guilty, indulgent enjoyment and libidinal gravity as anyone else can write a sex scene. An employee at an independent bookstore (Liftbridge books, Brockport NY, highly recommended) that Robbins is one of a few specific authors who they regularly argue over putting in "fiction" or "literature," and his work does have the same guilty-pleasure value of trashy novels, and always seems to end happily. Despite that, as someone who appreciates language as something that is at once abstract and intimately connected to us as bodies, I find great intellectual value in his work. ...more

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Jan 28, 2009 E rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: The pure of heart

Top 5.
Switters is my hero. An absurd and rollicking good time. If you enjoy philosophy, drugs, booze, sex and laughing...you should be into this.

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Aug 07, 2007 Lindsay rated it it was amazing

i've well acquainted with the pantheon of tom robbins (except for wild ducks flying backward- saving that for a rainy day), but i have to count myself among the many who consider this a favorite of the bunch. well written, fast, and full of shamanic/monastic greatness. i would even say a tour de force if that wasn't the shittiest, most hackneyed phrase in book reviewdom.

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Dec 30, 2008 Sarah rated it it was amazing

Likely my favorite book of all time. Former CIA agent Switters treks through the Amazon searching for shaman named "The End of Time/ Today IS Tomorrow," accompanied only by his parrot who lives by the motto "Peeple of zee wurl, relax!" I spit every time I hear the name "John Foster Dulles." Ingenious.

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Aug 24, 2016 Tim rated it it was amazing

Shelves: humor, fiction

I am embarassed to admit that this is the first thing I have read by Robbins! Of course, I heard of him long ago, and saw the movie version of "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues" (which may have turned me off), but why has it taken me so long to sit down and spend some time with him? I plan to correct that error. Robbins is one heckofa writer! His stuff is loony, thought-provoking, hysterically funny, highly creative, lively, impertinent, stylized - I could go on for a while here - all at the same tim I am embarassed to admit that this is the first thing I have read by Robbins! Of course, I heard of him long ago, and saw the movie version of "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues" (which may have turned me off), but why has it taken me so long to sit down and spend some time with him? I plan to correct that error. Robbins is one heckofa writer! His stuff is loony, thought-provoking, hysterically funny, highly creative, lively, impertinent, stylized - I could go on for a while here - all at the same time. Whatever you want to call it, it is not subtle or stupid or dull. This is one of the most enjoyable and entertaining novels I have ever read. (I listened to an audiobook of this, btw, very well performed by Keith Szarabajka).

Robbins's genius is that he borrows techniques from poetry and literary fiction and employs them in his goofy, satirical stories. There are soaring similes and brilliant descriptions aplenty here, but they are applied to everyday or wacky situations. This is not everyday humor though. Included are elements of mysticism, social and political comedy, sex and romance, and international intrigue.

The zany, picaresque story follows a character named Switters, a CIA agent who lusts after stepsister and spends time with his grand dame grandma, a lady known as Maestra. He is sent to rural Peru on some mission or other, where a native shaman with a pyramid-shaped head (due to some old head shaping techniques used on infants) places a curse on him - his feet can never touch the ground again or he will immediately die. So he spends the rest of the novel, first in a wheelchair, and eventually on a pair of stilts. After getting discharged from the CIA (portrayed here as a network of rogues with no particular political goals), he ends up trying to fulfill his infatuation with his teenaged stepsister. (Don't worry, none of this is meant to be taken seriously). From there he is on his way to Iraq and Syria to engage in some sort of espionage, and ends up under the protection of a small convent of radical Christian nuns, who are sitting on a secret prophecy that the Catholic Church is trying to suppress.

The framework provides an excuse for Switters to deal with a bunch of kooky characters (like his CIA buddy Bobby, a macho Texas good ol' boy, and Domino, the abbess of the convent), and for him to get trashed and throw around zingers and cockeyed comments. It is all in good fun, but Robbins can surprise by throwing in the occasional serious observation or thoughtful aside, such as critical comments on consumer culture. His discussion of the Hermetic tradition got me researching it online - there is nothing like a little wisdom mixed in with some fun. To use the cliche, it was hard to put this one down - I wanted the laughs and clever writing to go on and on. It has been a while since I have fallen this hard for a writer, but this book hit the sweet spot for me. ...more

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Feb 17, 2018 Natalie Thomas rated it really liked it

Shelves: humor, comedy, dark-comedy

What to call my favorite scene... let's call it: in the bathroom on hands and knees eating salad. Probably the funniest laugh-out-loud scene I have ever read.

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Dec 21, 2009 Stephen rated it liked it

HEADLINE: I do not care much for John Foster Dulles either.

Tim Robbins makes my smile muscles hurt. The man's work in the form of this novel is completely over the top. The protagonist is Switters, a CIA operative. CIA operatives from Switters's own point of view come in two flavors, cowboys and angels. Switters of course sees himself in the latter category.

The plot is of the wildly improbable sort. It takes Switters from Seattle, to Peru, into a wheelchair, to Central Syria and Damascu HEADLINE: I do not care much for John Foster Dulles either.

Tim Robbins makes my smile muscles hurt. The man's work in the form of this novel is completely over the top. The protagonist is Switters, a CIA operative. CIA operatives from Switters's own point of view come in two flavors, cowboys and angels. Switters of course sees himself in the latter category.

The plot is of the wildly improbable sort. It takes Switters from Seattle, to Peru, into a wheelchair, to Central Syria and Damascus, onto stilts, then to the Vatican, off the stilts and out of the wheelchair. However, the plot is not the point. The plot is merely a pretext for Switters's pontifications on subjects ranging from sex to philosophy to politics to popular culture. And Switters never met a metaphor or simile that he did not like.

I had a serious problem with Switters's carrying his Beretta in his waistband and his drawing down on his antagonist with the intention of shooting the pistol out of that antagonist's hand. But nobody is perfect, and if there was ever a less than perfect hero, Switters is it. He is a seriously comprised hero with a penchant for illegally young girls, the vintner's product to excess, the odd mind-altering substance here and there, anal sex with nuns, and Finnegan's Wake. Yet it never crosses our mind—at least it never crossed my mind that he must be forgiven for anything. He is a man child with access to adult pleasures.

Perhaps I have too much of an affinity with his opinions. When I first encountered his phrase “South too-goddamn-vivid America,” for the first time very early in this novel, I was with him. I am living in Central pretty-goddamn-vivid America myself right now. And with material like this, I stayed with him:

Exactement! Marketing. Merchandising. Increasingly sophisticated, increasingly seductive. And sure, it's just a flashy modern version of the age-old bread-and-circuses brand of bondage—except today the bakery's a multinational and the circus follows us home. Well, culture has always been driven to some degree by the marketplace. Always. It's just that nowadays the marketplace, having invaded every nook and cranny of our private lives, is completely supplanting culture, the marketplace has become our culture. Nevertheless. . .

The villain of the novel is John Foster Dulles, and you cannot do much better than that for a villain. Switters spits after every mention of the man's name. Consider this exchange found toward the end of this novel with a copyright of 2000:

”What is wrong with your great country?” Toufic lamented. “Why must it do these terrible things?”

Switters held a cloud of candied smoke in his lungs. “Because the cowboys wiped out the buffalo,” Switters said.

“Everywhere a buffalo fell,” said Switters, “a monster sprang up in its place.”

Switters was going to list some of the monsters, but his mouth was dry, and he feared he couldn't expectorate.

“There's a direct link between the buffalo hunts and Vietnam,” said Switters.

Straining to comprehend, Toufic sighed with his eyes.

“When Lee surrendered at Appomattox,” said Switters, “it sealed once and for all Wall Street's power over the American people.”

Switters said, “There's a direct link between Appomattox and genuine imitation leather.”

“But,” Toufic lamented, “your country has so much.”

“Well,” said Switters, “it has bounce. It has snap. It has flux”

“Americans are generous and funny, the ones I have met,” Toufic lamented, “but I am compelled to oppose them.”

“It's only natural,” said Switters, “American foreign policy invites opposition. It invites terrorism.”

Switters said, “Terrorism is the only imaginable logical response to America's foreign policy, just as street crime is the only imaginable logical response to American's drug policy.”

Whatever one thinks of that, one has to admire the courage of Switters's smoke-fueled convictions.

...more

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Nov 09, 2009 Robin rated it it was ok

Sometimes you find a book at the wrong time in your life, and you think how much you would have liked it if you had read it 10 years ago. This is one of those books for me.

I kept reading anyways, probably because there are enough funny/interesting parts to propel you through the annoying parts.

Someone recommended it to me when I was a college freshman, but I only recently got around to reading it. He told me something along the lines of "you're sex positive, so you would Sometimes you find a book at the wrong time in your life, and you think how much you would have liked it if you had read it 10 years ago. This is one of those books for me.

I kept reading anyways, probably because there are enough funny/interesting parts to propel you through the annoying parts.

Someone recommended it to me when I was a college freshman, but I only recently got around to reading it. He told me something along the lines of "you're sex positive, so you would enjoy this sexy romp of a book." I don't remember exactly how he described it, but something like that. I probably would have like it back then as an eighteen year old, because it is raunchy and seemingly philosophical. I say seemingly, because if you let yourself be whipped around by Robbins' wordplay, it seems clever, but if you really pay attention, it's fairly routine sort of philosophizing. And a lot of trying waaaaay too hard to point out some truth or theory about humanity. WAAAAAY too hard. I kept thinking, "Um, is that it? Am I suposed to be in suspense?" Nope.

But really why this book is wrong for the 28 year old me is the disappointing extent to which women are discussed and portrayed. The unbelievably standard view of teenage virgins as the ultimate in sexiness is presented as a risky taboo in the book. Oh! The shocking desires of the main character! (/sarcasm) Is there any sexual desire LESS predictable??? I think not. Not to mention all the descriptions of sex scenes that are so not what get women all hot and bothered--even though he implies that aaaaall the women in the book want it, and they want it from Switters soooo bad. I don't know why so many guys think that girls love it when you twist and pinch our nipples, but we don't. Really. We don't. Stop that.

I'm pretty sure this book is who the author wishes he was--super clever CIA agent that all the girls are after, having crazy adventures and saying any random thing he thinks, all of which come out sounding clever and deep. Good for you, Robbins, I'm glad you have dreams. ...more

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Nov 17, 2012 Adam rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: usa

This is the third novel by Tom Robbins that I have read, and by far the most enjoyable.

Switters, a CIA agent, is about to be sent on assignment in South America. Hearing that, his elderly computer-hacking grandmother in Seattle asks, or rather orders, him to take her aged pet parrot back to the Peruvian jungle so that it could spend its dotage with fellow parrots rather than in a cage. Switters meets a shaman in the jungle. This fellow meets Switters and takes an interest in the parrot's un ...more

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Jul 29, 2011 Lisa rated it did not like it

Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates
Current mood: disappointed

"Could you pull off there? " she immediately asked, pointing ... to a gas station. "I really have to use the bathroom."

"Say toilet, would you darling. I don't believe bathing is one of the services Texaco provides."

"Whatever."

"No, it's not unimportant. Intelligent speech is under pressure in our fair land and needs all the support it can get."

above is my favorite part ...more

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Apr 26, 2017 Scott rated it really liked it

4.5 STARS

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Jul 12, 2012 Rachel Moore rated it it was ok

I was told to read this book by a friend who is absolutely nuts over this author. Tom Robbins is obviously a very smart man and has extremely creative stories.

He has massive vocabulary and I found myself looking up words throughout this novel. In the end I was extremely unsatisfied. Tom Robbins tends to ramble for pages upon pages within this book which is like trying to concentrate on listening to someone talking to you on acid.

It can be boring, long and will relate to absolutely nothing in t ...more

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Feb 15, 2014 Sarah rated it it was ok

This was the only book I had to hand to read while I sat by my father's bedside for a few days this year. It was ghastly.

I found this book disturbing and boring. (Strike that - it wasn't interesting enough to be disturbing). As mentioned previously the main protagonist and his male friend are paedophiles, and the author made out this was a bit of a joke. Which it isn't.

He also seemed to love the sound of his own (narrative) voice, and, frankly, was tedious. He put flowery sentences ...more

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Jan 03, 2015 Nick Iuppa rated it it was amazing

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Fiercely Funny and Profound

In Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates, Tom Robbins once again expounds on the meaning of life, death, religion, politics, and humanity, but this time he also goes on about sub-atomic particles, pyramids, Matisse, the CIA, John Foster Dulles, the Amazon, Syria, Sacramento, Seattle’s Pike Place Market, Finnegan’s Wake, Broadway Show Tunes, parrots, anacondas, the relative value of wheelchairs and stilts, sexual experiences perverse or otherwise, the human Fiercely Funny and Profound

In Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates, Tom Robbins once again expounds on the meaning of life, death, religion, politics, and humanity, but this time he also goes on about sub-atomic particles, pyramids, Matisse, the CIA, John Foster Dulles, the Amazon, Syria, Sacramento, Seattle’s Pike Place Market, Finnegan’s Wake, Broadway Show Tunes, parrots, anacondas, the relative value of wheelchairs and stilts, sexual experiences perverse or otherwise, the humanizing power of a good sense of humor, and... Our Lady of Fatima. Who else but Robbins could run an extended, mind-bending commentary on all of this while telling a very funny story? Her’s the plotline.

Erstwhile CIA agent Switters lusts after his 16-year-old stepsister, Suzy. Against his better judgment, Switters helps the young lady research and then write a very conventional term paper on Our Lady of Fatima and the three prophecies she was supposed to have made during her last appearance in 1917. But before the paper is finished, and after botching a carefully-planned tryst with Suzy, Switters heads off on another assignment taking with him his grandmother’s parrot named Sailor Boy and promising to set the bird free in the wild Amazon jungle.

While in the Amazon, Switters encounters a pyramid-headed shaman who believes that a sense of humor may be the talent most separating humans from the other animals. He thinks it may actually be the key to humanity’s salvation. But then the guy eats Sailor Boy and puts a curse on Switters saying that the CIA agent will die if his feet ever touch the ground again. Cleverly, Switters takes to a wheelchair and is so unencumbered that he agrees to another dangerous but humanitarian CIA mission. He manages the task swimmingly, but on his way home he stops at an oasis in the desert of Syria, and there falls in with a group of aging feminist nuns, who are outspoken advocates of birth control, and in possession – it turns out – of the 3rd never-revealed prophecy made by Our Lady of Fatima in 1917. It’s all about the future of the world and of the church.

Eventually the nuns are excommunicated for their stand against overpopulation and soon openly encourage Switters into the bed of their youngest and horniest member, Sister Fannie. The next morning, for whatever reason, Fannie leaves the convent and heads out to tell selected authorities about the existence of the prophecy document, which the church believes it has destroyed. Just as Switters begins to fall in love with a sweet, older, but very sexy French nun name Domino Theory, the Vatican demands that the defrocked sisterhood turn over the document.

The abbess, who calls herself Masked Beauty, refuses to give in to the demands of the church. In her youth she posed nude for Matisse, and the resultant painting had hung for years in Switters’s grandmother’s living room; in fact Switters has lusted after it for most of his life, unaware that some day he would come face to face with the model who posed for it.

Switters and Domino help Masked Beauty negotiate an advantageous exchange of the third Fatima prediction for papal reinstatement of their order of nuns. Still, there’s trickery afoot, and when Switters enters a papal garden with Domino to deliver the document and decides that the woman he has fallen in love with is about to be shot, he stands, steps away from his wheelchair to save her, and in the process invokes the curse.

What happens next? Read FIHFHC to find out. It’s brilliant, insightful, and a whole lot of fun... for many reasons including the fact that Switters is an irreverent philosopher, a fighter, but also a lover. And as the author continuously reminds us, “Women simply love those fierce invalids home from hot climates.”
...more

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Jul 04, 2014 Jonathan Kent rated it it was ok

I devoured Tom Robbins in my twenties. When I sat down to write my first novel I revisited two writers - Armistead Maupin for his command of dialogue and his ability to drive the plot forward through conversations that never burst the bubble of belief, Tom Robbins for his wildly joyous use and abuse of language, both of them for their ability to embrace the bizarre in a way that most writers fight shy of. People say truth is stranger than fiction because most writers of fiction are too timid and I devoured Tom Robbins in my twenties. When I sat down to write my first novel I revisited two writers - Armistead Maupin for his command of dialogue and his ability to drive the plot forward through conversations that never burst the bubble of belief, Tom Robbins for his wildly joyous use and abuse of language, both of them for their ability to embrace the bizarre in a way that most writers fight shy of. People say truth is stranger than fiction because most writers of fiction are too timid and veer towards gritty 'realism' at the expense of the extraordinary.
Fierce Invalids is the first of Robbins books I've read in fifteen years. I can't pretend I wasn't disappointed. I'm now wary of revisiting my favourites; Half Asleep..., Still Life... and above all Jitterbug Perfume, for fear that I'll find they haven't withstood two decades of my growing though reading and writing.
So why was it a disappointment? Well it seemed to fail on all counts. Robbins' wonderful use of language, those car crash similies, those extended riffs on crazy thoughts seemed to have become almost formulaic. It's as though he stopped to think 'what is it that Tom Robbins does?' and rolled it out again rather than oit coming from a place of divine craziness as I felt it diid when I first read him. It's a little like sitcom producers who, finding they have an unexpected smash on their hands, set out to analyse what made it successful and then attempt to replicate it.
Then there was the story; too long and the central conceit was too weak. There's iconoclastic and there's grubby. This was just slightly grubby. Anal-sex with a nun? Lusting after his 16 year old step sister? Fine but neither really quite worked - either there needs to be soul searching or it needs to be played for high comedy and this fell somewhere between the two.
Lastly there's Switters. One reviewer on Goodreads reckoned Switters was the greatest literary invention he'd some across. Well yes... I'm glad he pleased someone. I found him daft. The notion of the rebel CIA guy, the countercultural infiltrator into the great security machine is a head-shop fantasy. I found him thoroughly two dimensional and slightly repellent.
But there was one definite plus - having read Fierce Invalids it reminded me that I like writing about the absurd and gave me the feeling I could do better... well maybe I can and maybe I can't but if it persuades me to have a go that's not a dead loss, right? ...more

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Aug 26, 2010 Elizabeth rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I'll start off by saying that I think I would have enjoyed this book more if I had read it a couple of years later. My dad recommended the author to me after I finished Cat's Cradle and said "that was crazy." He said "You think Vonnegut is nuts? Try Robbins." Robbins' books should be put in the literary asylum. But this is a really good book, full of nonstop energy and hilarity, but it's definitely adult humor. The main character is a CIA "errand boy" who doesn't like to play by the rules. He prefers ...more

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Dec 10, 2009 Mark rated it liked it

This book was listed recently in EW as one of Johnny Dep's favorite. Dep seems the kind of fella that's off the deep end in taste so I thought I would read it and see why he liked it so much.
It is kind if hard to appreciate a protagonist who is a pedophile and who engages in anal sex with a nun. Perhaps this gives us... insight as to Dep's relationship with Roman Polanski!
Robbins uses wonderful flowery, flowing language, however he bleeds this over into his characters speech. Althoug ...more

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Mar 15, 2008 Jeanette "Astute Crabbist" rated it it was ok

Shelves: all-fiction

Some of Tom Robbins's more recent novels are just too bizarre to enjoy as a whole, but he always makes statements that ring true about certain parts of society. Often he says things no one else has the guts to say. This book was no exception in that regard, although I didn't like the plot or main characters.

"It is tough to say who's a greater thread to the world--an ambitious CEO with a big ad budget, or a crafty cleric with an obsolete Bible verse."

The Bible: "The honey that's dipp ...more

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Jun 03, 2017 Macon Fessenden rated it liked it

"What the hell is he doing evaluating her mouth?" Yeah, bro, I'm wondering that too. This is like a parody the male-narrated, female body obsessed book. Sabbath's theater without the tongue in cheek.
A libertarian, Reddit-user male fantasy where the bad-ass CIA agent is constantly surrounded by women and mansplaining to them his views on religion, climate change, politics, sex, alcohol, birth control, art, literature, beauty.... etc., ad nauseam. Sone of the floweriest language I've ever read, f ...more

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Nov 19, 2009 Jaisette rated it really liked it

Shelves: a-boy-told-me-to-read-this

I always knew that men loved to hear themselves speak.
That they believe themselves to be the final word on all things.

Switters is pompous, lustful, erratic and highly intelligent. This novel takes all kinds of jumps and twist all the while you get caught up in the insane yet coherent ramblings of a man. Conspiracy, humor, sex and religion.

Tom Robbins has issues....good thing he wrote them down. This book is entertainment.

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Dec 17, 2015 Samuel Berney rated it really liked it

(Maybe one day I will bump this to five stars, if the book sticks in my mind.)

I want to say that I wanted to dislike this book from the get-go, but that's not true. What is actually true is that I had a rocky start with this book, and after only making it through a few pages in six weeks, (and with four days left before a bookclub meeting), I realized I had to knuckle down and plow through this bad boy.

To help myself wade through what I initially labelled as complete crap (Maybe one day I will bump this to five stars, if the book sticks in my mind.)

I want to say that I wanted to dislike this book from the get-go, but that's not true. What is actually true is that I had a rocky start with this book, and after only making it through a few pages in six weeks, (and with four days left before a bookclub meeting), I realized I had to knuckle down and plow through this bad boy.

To help myself wade through what I initially labelled as complete crap, I compulsively rewrote the first twenty pages. And edited "kosher chicken" out of the opening line (try "plucked, dressed, and copacetic chicken"). My impression during this phase was that the author was writing exploratorily, getting good-writing writer's block, tenuously connecting the disjointed leads of the narrative; and looking back at his work to try to make it more natural and comprehensible, and completely failing to do so. I seemed not to understand a sentence until I read the one after it.

After that, I managed to read about 100 pages a day. I didn't properly enjoy myself until Smithe began telling the story of his meeting with the Kandakandero Shaman. But from then on, I found myself enjoying the book more and more. The wry, witty humor: I soon, bitterly, began comparing it to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and then to Candide.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, I was surprised to find out, is not everybody's favorite book. I love it for its philosophy, because while everything in the universe is absurd and unexpected, nothing is out of place. The way in which the characters consciously or unconsciously follow through with their ineffective, wishful habits no matter anything allows the nature of the human condition to be illustrated again and again. And Douglas Adam's take on the human condition is at once hopeless and impossible, and very (pretty), (and) very (friendly) (and) loving and beautiful and uplifting.

Fierce Invalids flourishes a larger vocabulary than the Guide, is set in a much more mundane and believable locale, and has a slightly more woo-woo bent. Switters is influenced by zazen and modern conscientiousness. He speaks constantly of the fluidity and non-essentialness of things such as concepts. He encounters nuns and otherwise devout characters, speaking unfazed in their terms.

Five things fazed me: It is hard to relate to a pedophile. Switters claims psychic remote viewing works. Grandma "punched offline", which means absolutely nothing (try, closed her browser? Ripped out her extension cord?). The dialogue between Switters and Maestra in their first scene is extremely stilted. I did not like the viscous flow of adjectives Robbins used in the opening scene (it was, I grudgingly admit, too damn vivid).

Most things did not faze me. That means this list is going to be pretty weak sounding: Finnegan's Wake is spoken of in the terms I view it: incomprehensible and existentially funny. Switters dreams of foreign lands and strange situations. He has cool gizmos. He admires an arms-runner. He doesn't dwell for a moment on money. Switters is completely convinced he is hot stuff. Switters is completely convinced that he can't set foot on the ground because a Shaman in the Amazon rainforest told him he must do so never again. Ever after, he jokes about seeing things from "two inches off the ground", which is how a knowledgable monk described enlightenment to somebody up the grapevine.

This book is stream of consciousness, but in a nice way, not at all like Ulysses. Since the story is Switters' experience, it might be completely unreliable. That is part of the beauty of this book. Life is an unreliable narrative. It is chaotic, and it is a canvas for your ideas. These absurd events are a canvas for Robbins' ideas, which is how this book is similar to Candide (I much prefer this to Candide). Life is an unreliable narrative, which is why I like this book.

I found myself at times not-exceedingly-infrequently reading non-linearly over the span of 5-10 pages, because I can't stand suspense. Is Switters permanently disabled? (I had my reservations until the end.) How do those scenes in the beginning connect? (Connecting all those scenes will take you all the way through the book.) I found that this book reads best on a very large monitor.

I can imagine this book not being a person's cup of tea. Especially if you particularly identify with any of the non-Switters characters: their arguments are typically not given any consideration. Sometimes, you might think that they are temporarily filled with straw. The first 100 pages for me drew scathing comparison to Eoin Colfer's philosophically vacant and attention span insulting 'And Another Thing'. And Robbins' god damned first sentence was just too damn inaccessible. But I already said that, and another four other things.

Switters' occupation (airheaded CIA agent) is incidental, providing an absurd dose to otherwise less strange situations. The real story is his fierce determination to fit his own beliefs onto whatever backdrop has been placed before him, and a certain brazen confidence which keeps him from taking most of himself and pretty much all of everyone else too seriously.

I felt good during and after reading this book. ...more

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Jun 23, 2018 Deirdre Straughan added it

I wrote a review of this on my website in 2001: http://www.beginningwithi.com/2001/07...

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Jul 22, 2013 John rated it it was ok

A 2.5

For the first third of this book I alternated thinking it was brilliant and banal. Then it mostly bored me. Switters annoyed me. I kept thinking how aggravating he would be in real life. His pompous shenanigans did not strike me as half as witty as the character (and the author) seemed to think they were. I tired of him.

I also did not understand the author’s choice to mostly tell the story through Switters, but then at times step out and play narrator, even a few times address A 2.5

For the first third of this book I alternated thinking it was brilliant and banal. Then it mostly bored me. Switters annoyed me. I kept thinking how aggravating he would be in real life. His pompous shenanigans did not strike me as half as witty as the character (and the author) seemed to think they were. I tired of him.

I also did not understand the author’s choice to mostly tell the story through Switters, but then at times step out and play narrator, even a few times addressing the reader directly. It did not work for me. The change in voice was awkward and broke the tempo of the book. Robbins also used way too many over the top similes, metaphors and descriptions. Although occasionally creative and enjoyable, more often they were taxing. It added to the pompous nature of the book that turned me off.

I enjoyed the overall themes of the book: religion, modernity, women’s issues, spirituality. Robbins raises some interesting ideas and makes some poignant observations about modern western culture. I also appreciated the grand scheme of the plot. Convoluted as it might be, it worked.

Although Maestra was a memorable character, she seemed too much of an anomaly to me. Her spy knowledge and tech expertise seemed very out of place, and devoid of explanation. Her skills seemed to exist solely to give the author an authority to keep Switters in check.

Spoilers ahead:

There were a few other items that did not make the grade. Twice Switters unloads his pistol and people laugh it off, once into the boat, and a second time at the lock in compound. The first one is the biggie. You mean to tell me that if I owned a medium sized boat and someone shot into it a number of times, I would not mind? Also, if Maestra, Suzi and others thought something was legitimately wrong with his legs, why did they not question the fact that Switters was still driving? Finally, I realize the curse is arbitrary, but why would stilts be ok, but shoes not ok? If his feet could not touch the ground, wouldn’t shoes do the trick? These are not major plot holes, but annoyed me none the less.

I don’t think I will be reading any more books by Robbins. He does not seem to be my cup of tea.
...more

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Jul 16, 2018 Linus rated it it was ok

I never walked away from this book, but I never came to like it either, and we struggled for a long time. It's meant to be a wacky blast of whimsy, and Robbins has said that it's about contradiction (I take that as an index entry: "contradiction, embracing of"). It's supposed to be ribald, I think, but recent erosions of exploiting ground leave it more pointlessly horny than erotically charged.

You know how sometimes you'll have a friend who is a rude sexist boor with a shameful mouth ...more

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Nov 11, 2012 Kevin Rubin rated it it was amazing

"Too damned vivid!" is Switters' repeated phrase through the whole book.

Can you go wrong with a book in which the main character's claim to fame among his coworkers is knowing the word for female genitalia in over 70 languages?

Switters begins the story as a CIA field agent, until on a mission in South America he and a British traveller meet a shaman who might be real. The shaman curses both of them, but neither really believes it, till the British guy talks Switters into ...more

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Jul 26, 2010 Rowland Pasaribu rated it it was ok

Robbins could write his way into the panties of any grammar compulsive, vocabulary obsessed school marm and somehow make it seem as if it were her idea. This book is a romp of words and spuriously decorative suggestion, at once a curious mix of cartoon and spiritual incisive wisdom.

As with anything Robbinesque it requires suspension of belief while simultaneously challenging and championing belief. Tongue in cheek with Robbins requires opening your interpretation of that colloquialis ...more

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Nov 12, 2012 Slavo Ingilizov rated it really liked it

I first started reading "Villa Incognito" a couple of years back, but made the mistake of reading the Bulgarian translation and not the original. I didn't like it, and consequently laughed at all my friends who recommended Tom Robbins.

Well, it turns out he's so great. "Fierce Invalids" is proof. He's not great because of twists in the plot, or a narrative which doesn't let you leave the book. Today people reading mediocre mystery and criminal novels have come to expect those, but Tom ...more

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About Tom Robbins

Tom Robbins

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Thomas Eugene Robbins (born July 22, 1936 in Blowing Rock, North Carolina) is an American author. His novels are complex, often wild stories with strong social undercurrents, a satirical bent, and obscure details. His novel Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1976) was made into a movie in 1993 directed by Gus Van Sant.

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“All depression has its roots in self-pity, and all self-pity is rooted in people taking themselves too seriously.”

At the time Switters had disputed her assertion. Even at seventeen, he was aware that depression could have chemical causes.

“The key word here is roots,” Maestra had countered. “The roots of depression. For most people, self-awareness and self-pity blossom simultaneously in early adolescence. It's about that time that we start viewing the world as something other than a whoop-de-doo playground, we start to experience personally how threatening it can be, how cruel and unjust. At the very moment when we become, for the first time, both introspective and socially conscientious, we receive the bad news that the world, by and large, doesn't give a rat's ass. Even an old tomato like me can recall how painful, scary, and disillusioning that realization was. So, there's a tendency, then, to slip into rage and self-pity, which if indulged, can fester into bouts of depression.”

“Yeah but Maestra—”

“Don't interrupt. Now, unless someone stronger and wiser—a friend, a parent, a novelist, filmmaker, teacher, or musician—can josh us out of it, can elevate us and show us how petty and pompous and monumentally useless it is to take ourselves so seriously, then depression can become a habit, which, in tern, can produce a neurological imprint. Are you with me? Gradually, our brain chemistry becomes conditioned to react to negative stimuli in a particular, predictable way. One thing'll go wrong and it'll automatically switch on its blender and mix us that black cocktail, the ol’ doomsday daiquiri, and before we know it, we’re soused to the gills from the inside out. Once depression has become electrochemically integrated, it can be extremely difficult to philosophically or psychologically override it; by then it's playing by physical rules, a whole different ball game. That's why, Switters my dearest, every time you've shown signs of feeling sorry for yourself, I've played my blues records really loud or read to you from The Horse’s Mouth. And that’s why when you’ve exhibited the slightest tendency toward self-importance, I’ve reminded you that you and me— you and I: excuse me—may be every bit as important as the President or the pope or the biggest prime-time icon in Hollywood, but none of us is much more than a pimple on the ass-end of creation, so let’s not get carried away with ourselves. Preventive medicine, boy. It’s preventive medicine.”

“But what about self-esteem?”

“Heh! Self-esteem is for sissies. Accept that you’re a pimple and try to keep a lively sense of humor about it. That way lies grace—and maybe even glory.” — 345 likes

“My faith is whatever makes me feel good about being alive. If your religion doesn't make you feel good to be alive, what the hell is the point of it?” — 276 likes

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