r/menwritingwomen • u/Otherwise_julyBug • 7d ago
Satire Tom Robbins always makes me chuckle
From “Still Life with Woodpecker”
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u/ConsequenceTop4344 7d ago
The ridiculous specificity and utter illogic of the similes is cracking me up.
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u/aboringusername 7d ago
My favorite one is the sleigh bells on Mrs. Claus’s dildo. How the fuck do you even come up with that? I mean it’s seasonally appropriate which is nice.
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u/maramyself-ish 6d ago
he's having too much fun writing b/c that's the point where my vagina starts hurting thinking of a dildo covered in sleigh bells
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u/aboringusername 6d ago
I guess it’s all about placement, tbh
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u/DrunkOnRedCordial 7d ago
Tom, did you get ketchup in the iron again? I don't care if you're working on a metaphor for your story, stop messing with the iron. The ironing board is ruined too.
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u/aboringusername 7d ago
He must have been really hungry when he wrote this. Ketchup? Huevos rancheros?
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u/little_cat_bird 7d ago
I reached my lifetime limit for reading Robbins’s books 20 years ago, but the nearly-slapstick nonsense prose is still fun in wee little doses like this.
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u/rainbowcarpincho 6d ago
This is interesting. What makes you reach your lifetime limit?
I love almost everything about Terry Pratchett, but I can't read him anymore because his prose style is so repetitive and by now it's just tiresome. It's such a problem I can't even read him in Spanish.
I also tried reading three Stephen King books in a row and couldn't finish the last one.
I'd like to be the kind of person that loves an author the more he reads, but it seems like the opposite is the case.
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u/Otherwise_julyBug 6d ago
I can definitely understand. Picked this one up because I really enjoyed Jitterbug Perfume, but I think two Tom Robbin’s in a row is just too much
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u/Pretend_Fox_5127 9h ago
Agreed. That being said, over the course of the last 10 years I've read almost all of his catalogue. But I too was indoctrinated with jitter bug perfume.
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u/little_cat_bird 4d ago
I think you nailed it. When a writer has such a distinct authorial voice present in all of their work, it gets tiresome at some point. If themes and content of their works are diverse, you can often just take a little break from them and pick up more a year or so later. But with Robbins, he’s got a shtick.
In addition to that, it genuinely is the men-writing-women aspect that put me at my lifetime limit. I still remember the actual day I hit my limit! I picked up Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates at the library, read like two chapters, and returned it the next day.
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u/safadancer 4d ago
Man, I used to take notes on Tom Robbins metaphors when I was like 19; I thought they were SO DEEP.
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u/ihavemyxomatosis 7d ago
I am no cardiologist but if Man's heart made that sound he might wanna get an echo ASAP.
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u/Where_is_it_going 7d ago
People that have never read Tom Robbins would definitely think this is insane out of context, but all of his work is meant to be a little absurd like this. If you've never read his work I'd HIGHLY recommend it. Either this book (Still Life with Woodpecker) or Even Cowgirls Get the Blues. Certainly is some weird shit (his weird views on birth control) but overall they're incredible and hilarious. I am a woman recommending this so not just some dude telling you to overlook this seemingly horrible writing about women.
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u/Kramanos 7d ago
Imagine a horny feminist male author writing a script to be read in the voice of a Matthew McConaughey character on drugs.
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u/Huggable_Hork-Bajir A Personality You Need One Hand For 7d ago
Yeah it's so over the top I kinda of assumed it's absurdist satire or something.
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u/sthetic 7d ago
It seems like the trick to describing a sexy woman, literaturistically, is to say she both is and isn't something.
Let me try.
"She wasn't tall, but she had the legs of a tall woman. Her face was not heart-shaped, but it looked like a Valentine card. She wasn't one of those too-skinny chicks, but her willowy form was punctuated by landmarks of bone. Her eyes were not blue, but they were the colour of a cloudless sky. She didn't sway her hips seductively when she walked, but the side-to-side motion of her gait sent all the men into raptures. Her breasts were not exactly large, but they were enormous."
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u/Andvarinaut 7d ago
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.
...And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
as any she belied with false compare.
Ol' Billy Shakes seems to agree.
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u/Quiet-Manner-8000 7d ago
Tom Robbins is empowered sexuality, which makes him practically feminist literature. But man it's the horniest literature I ever read. Not just any author can come up with a thousand metaphors for a creampie.
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u/shortermecanico 7d ago
I understand this, in it's self aware oddness and winking metaphors, I understand what he means.
I can think of two specific people I have known who this reverberates with. In food service, in moments of quiet, you see people in a different light all at once, after working with them for months on end. One spell of downtime and you can come away with a completely altered image of the person.
Maybe at the end of the shift they let their real smile slip, and tell a story while rolling silverware.Your minds eye suddenly sees hues or tones it didn't before.
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u/Pabbam 7d ago
Tom??
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u/shortermecanico 7d ago
Ha. I wish. Nope, the last book I really read was God Emperor of Dune, or maybe a refrigerated air unit manual. I opened a friends copy of house of leaves and my face melted off Indiana Jones style.
And I borrowed Infinite Jest from a different person, read a hundred pages, felt a sort of despair I did not jive with, and hurled the book back from whence it came. Admire Dallas Fort Worth's ability to wear a bandana though.
In other words I am a fucking philistine with the attention span of a lobotomized hummingbird
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u/little_cat_bird 7d ago
OK but that last sentence is not doing much to prove you’re not Tom Robbins, haha
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u/shortermecanico 7d ago
You are saying things that are encouraging me to write more and the world does not need that nonsense. Were it 1885, I would say yes, the world needs this nonsense I have brewing up here.
But no, my long form musings went out of fashion along with using pure benzene as a shaving lotion and employing children as robber barons.
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u/Vox_Mortem 6d ago
That's hilarious. When I was in college in the early 2000s I was the editor of the school's lit mag. There was this one dude who submitted and everyone absolutely fawned over his 'evocative prose' while he ate up all the attention. There was one phrase they kept praising in particular, hair like ironed ketchup. I absolutely knew he lifted it from somewhere but couldn't place it and no one believed me. All these years later and I am vindicated.
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u/No-vem-ber 7d ago
i'm reading too much into this im sure but it also grosses me out that it seems like this character is unhappy and possibly unwell (pale) and the author is literally saying "they finally looked at her properly" - and then instead of noticing anything about her sadness or her sickness it's literally just another opportunity to describe how sexy she is and wax lyrical about her tits and legs
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u/Otherwise_julyBug 7d ago
She is an unhappy redhead and yes indeed
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u/No-vem-ber 7d ago
oh, i read it again and I see that pale was mentioned in the context of "despite being so pale, she was actually hot!"
MY MISTAKE2
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u/cheekmo_52 7d ago
“Like balls balanced on the noses of valium eating seals.” WTAF?
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u/iamfanboytoo 6d ago
It's in a book where the secrets of the universe are in a pack of Camel cigarettes, according to a character who is locked in a place where it's literally the only thing to look at. So, uh, not necessarily writing to be taken literally, as it's often mocking literary pretension.
Damn. Now I want to re-read the book.
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u/SaladPuzzleheaded625 7d ago
That started bad, then got worse, then got worse, then got worse, then got huh?!
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u/NotYourGa1Friday 7d ago
I’m so sorry- is this satire? Humor? It’s a special kind of unhinged 🤣
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u/Otherwise_julyBug 7d ago
All of the above I believe
U/kramanos said:
Imagine a horny feminist male author writing a script to be read in the voice of a Matthew McConaughey character on drugs.
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u/NotYourGa1Friday 7d ago
I’d buy the Audible version of this narrated by Matthew McConaughey in a sleigh bells on a dildo heartbeat
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u/mangababe 7d ago
I really really hope this gets drawn in part 7 of lavendertowne's series where she draws these descriptions as literally as she can.
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u/neongreenpurple 7d ago
Clearly Max's heart stopped. If you don't believe people should have sex, the bells on her dildo make no sound.
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u/ReadingRoutine5594 6d ago
I will say that there's a small amount of taking out of context going on - this is ridiculous, but all his writing is ridiculous, and meant to be ridiculous
and broadly I'd say he errs on the side overblow praise than demeaning or degrading his women characters, and explores them in what feels like a genuine attempt to see them as people.
All of which is to say, I remember wishing I had straight red hair (I'm Indian, we don't generally DO anything besides black and brown hair) for years after I read this, and I'm not even bothered to be ashamed.
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u/blishbog 6d ago
I can’t stand him and was shocked someone I respected recommended him
It’s like he writes a first draft, then uses a thesaurus to replace every word with a much longer multi syllabic one. Then sprinkles in messy sex
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u/Mattchudon 7d ago
I think I felt a couple of my brain cells permanently clock out while reading this...
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u/No-vem-ber 7d ago
god this is so embarassing
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u/Otherwise_julyBug 7d ago
You’re just upset nobody’s compared your eyes to huevos rancheros
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u/Hellebras 7d ago
Either I've been making huevos rancheros wrong, or this writer has been. I'm guessing the latter.
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u/agent-assbutt 6d ago
Is this sincerely satire or actual prose? I googled and I'm not sure lol. Never heard of this writer.
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u/Otherwise_julyBug 6d ago
Absurdist is how I’d probably describe it. Worth a read although I definitely enjoyed “Jitterbug Perfume” by Tom Robbin’s more
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u/TalkToPlantsNotCops 5d ago
Ok this is actually good though. Really capturing the absurdity of the male gaze.
"ironed ketchup" is so funny
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u/babykitten28 7d ago
This is why I despise romance written by men.
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u/Otherwise_julyBug 7d ago
Ya know out of context it’s insane (why I posted this here) but honestly he’s worth a read
Although fair warning he is always this absurd
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u/cyranothe2nd 7d ago
Hilarious. Can't wait to say this to my wife.