Be Specific About Out Of Books Skinny Legs and All
Title | : | Skinny Legs and All |
Author | : | Tom Robbins |
Book Format | : | Paperback |
Book Edition | : | Anniversary Edition |
Pages | : | Pages: 422 pages |
Published | : | March 10th 2002 by No Exit Press (first published 1990) |
Categories | : | Fiction. Humor. Literature. Novels. Magical Realism. Contemporary. Fantasy |
Tom Robbins
Paperback | Pages: 422 pages Rating: 4.05 | 39623 Users | 1359 Reviews
Rendition Supposing Books Skinny Legs and All
I can't think of any other book I've read very recently that left my mind as thoroughly blown as Skinny Legs and All. I'd only read one other Tom Robbins book -- Still Life With Woodpecker -- so I was prepared for his playfulness, humor, intricate (but goofy) language, and overall trippy feel that all come with just about everything he rights.But I was not prepared for Skinny Legs. This book is so dense with literary magnificence that you could chew it like you had a whole mouth full of sticky bubble gum. I dog-eared more pages and marked more passages in this book than any other I've ever read by a long shot.
Skinny Legs deals with so many topics, many of which are classical in nature: love, sex, family, art, compassion, work, religion. But it all revolves around a more specific point of the conflicts in the Middle East, primarily between Jews and Arabs. There's lots of history, spirituality, and ridiculousness all spun together -- about the Middle East especially but also about everything else surrounding it (both geographically and more abstractly). Were I a teacher of Middle East studies or any subject that dealt with the Judaism/Islam conflict specifically, this book would be required reading if for no other reason than to lighten the tension -- but hopefully also to open some minds and spark a more creative and intelligent dialogue built not on dogma but on critical thinking and compassion.
The book says great things about all the topics it touches on, but to the topic of the Middle East specifically it is blazingly relevant and even prophetic in its own right. Even now, with the book being 18 years old, it hasn't lost a lick of power or shown its age. Nothing in the writing itself ever gave me the impression that the book was written any earlier than yesterday.
Anyway, I'm mostly just spitting out tidbits -- let me try to formulate something more concrete. It was very, very good. Long and complex, but good. Robbins is a master of language and imagery. He gives the impression of writing with very reckless abandon. It's like he scribbled down every single thing that came to his mind while writing the story, omitting nothing and not even considering apologizing for such craziness. And yet, it works. The madness all comes together without ever seeming structured hardly at all. As if there's not a method to the madness, but that the method IS the madness.
In fact I wish my review of the book could be half as perfectly cohesive as the novel itself managed to be in the end. I could rant and ramble about this fantastic book for hours on end (and probably will to my poor unfortunate friends and acquaintances), but I'll just start wrapping up and say that this one is indeed highly recommended. It's not the quickest read in the world because you have to use your brain, sense of humor, and imagination rather extensively and mostly constantly -- but it's very, very worth it.
I'm not normally quite this scatterbrained in my reviewing of a book, but it really was that good!
Identify Books To Skinny Legs and All
Original Title: | Skinny Legs and All |
ISBN: | 1842430343 (ISBN13: 9781842430347) |
Edition Language: | English |
Rating Out Of Books Skinny Legs and All
Ratings: 4.05 From 39623 Users | 1359 ReviewsAssessment Out Of Books Skinny Legs and All
A passage:"You are an artist. You know that big picture at the museum midtown, that picture by that fellow Rousseau, it is called The Sleeping Gypsy?""Yeah. Sure. That's a very famous painting.""It ought to be called The Sleeping Arab, that picture. An Arab lies in the desert, sleeping under the crazy-faced moon. A lion sniffs at the Arab, the Arab is unafraid..."See the painting...I find this to be one of Robbins' better works. By "better" here I mean "more mature" and "fully realized". WhichThis tainted slab of ham turned out to be a massive milestone in my life of reading stuff. It marked the moment when I decided that a book DID NOT need to be finished once it was started. A wildly masturbatory author, Robbins lays metaphors on everything in triplicate and quadruplicate, spilling similes all over the place like a chimp splatters semen, like a bubbling fountain of tangy fondue cheese, like hand cream pumped from a bellows, like an elephant stomping on a sack of silly putty...It
I've heard about how good Tom Robbins is for quite a long time, and finally picked up one of his novels at the insistence of a friend. I'm so glad I did. Skinny Legs and All is now officially making it onto my "best reads of '09" list (yes, I do actually keep lists).I'm not sure where to begin with this one... the book is funny, controversial, and relevant. It can be confusing, but it's the sort of thing the reader has to let slide. I speak from experience when I say that if you accept the
Even though I grew a bit tired of this towards the last 100 pages, the fact that half of the main characters were objects like a spoon, a sock, a can of beans, a vibrator, and a stick, and it didnt annoy the shit out of me = 3.5 rounded up.
I am a Tom Robbins fan, but I was a little disappointed in this book. Fierce Invalids is still my all-time favorite, closely followed by Jitterbug Perfume. Both are MUST-reads.My whole theory on how Tom Robbins writes a book:--step 1: find some random unlikely stuff to be associated-- people, places, things, or topics.--step 2: weave them together using witty humour, a renegade main character, some sort of historical or theological revelation tied into all random people places or things.I'm used
I read this a long time ago but it still plays with my head now. After that I got caught up in Robbins' books. Then, well, other books came in and I lost my way. Must get back and read more. Maybe Can of Soup, Stick, Spoon, and Dirty Sock will welcome me back. How I miss them!
I want an eighth veil -- revealing the illusion that the dropping of veils of illusion leads to "enlightenment."
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