Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
the mosaic of life, 13 Oct 2002
I bought a second copy of this book so I could go to work underlining and dog-ear-ing the pages in an attempt to recall, for future use, the hundred or more glittering concepts I discovered here.Our Hero, Switters, is a walking, talking, breathing, lusting, meditating symbol for the tesserae that make up the mosaic of the sort of life we all either embrace or deny in every moment. He is a pacifist CIA agent, a pragmatic mystic, a part-time adventurer and full-time romantic, and though captivated by the idea of innocence and purity, he lusts after his teenaged stepsister and ultimately finds her affection returned in the most delightful manner imaginable. In one particularly memorable conversation, he tells her, "The more advertising I see, the less I want to buy..." Sounds simple, but taken in context of the moment, it unfolds like a rose, with just as many layers of beauty. The freedom of parrots, a pyramid-shaped head on a South American shaman, Matisse's Blue Nude revealed, Finnegan's Wake, government intelligence policies, the art of stilt walking, renegade nuns and the price we fear we must pay for enlightenment...all these seemingly disparate concepts are not only brought together as a whole, but seamlessly dovetailed to offer an enchanting glimpse of one individual celebrating who-he-really-is by realising that the only price to pay for joy is letting go of fear.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fierce ride, limp ending, 25 Feb 2001
By A Customer
Some years ago, stuck in a village just north of the Kalahari Desert, I wandered into a school library and chanced upon Tom Robbin's 'Jitterbug Perfume'. I devoured this book by candlelight, in my mud hut (temporary dwellings), in no more than three nights - thus began my lusty affection for his books. I have now read all his books, each filled with: dangerous ideas, delicious insights into theology, sexual playfulness, colourful vocabulary, page-turning plots and more. To read Tom Robbins is to enter a world where you are constantly dazzled, charmed and at times dismayed. You drink deep from the fountain of knowledge - bubbling, frothy, heady gulps. You may not agree with his views, indeed, he can be downright outrageous but once hooked forever smitten. Switters is the man at the centre of 'Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates'. He is a CIA operative, or as he refers to himself, 'an errand boy'. He moves between the Amazon, Seattle, the Middle East, and Italy, later, only with the aid of a wheelchair or stilts! He has a fixation on his teenage step-sister which is liquified somewhat by an entanglement with a virgin nun in the Syrian desert. Those who he briefly comes into contact with include: a similarly cursed British anthropologist, a medicine man with a head the shape of a pyramid, a group of art students with whom he races home-made miniature boats in the gutters of a market, and, oh, a gal in a night club who wants him to, er, '...her up the ass' (he doesn't). However much I relish reading Tom Robbins I must, however, air my grudging disappointments with 'Fierce Invalids'. Like the preceding, 'Half Asleep in Frog Pyjamas', the ending was a smidgen abrupt and easy, like he had constructed a fascinating build- up to a joke only to deflate your excitement with a feeble murmur of a punch-line. Also, some of his minor characters are left at a blurry distance - they are interesting and, I thought, merited more exposition. And lastly, the whole affair may have been too convoluted. Nevertheless, if you're a fan you'll forgive him and love all his usual offerings of wit and insight. If you are new to Tom Robbins I urge you to read this immediately, it may be a bumpy ride but at numerous points along the way you will feel 'wowed'.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Tom Robbins in top form, 16 Nov 2002
Tom Robbins in top form. A former CIA agent travels from the US to the Amazon rainforest where he is the subject of a curse that confines him to a wheelchair. Via a sojourn in a Syrian convent with renegade nuns our former agent gets caught up in the history of two religions whilst grappling with his sexuality. All this amidst the literary gymnastics and wit of Robbins prose. Outstanding.
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