Friday, March 28, 2014

Another Roadside Distraction

With as much stuff as I have going on right now, because of my South Central commute, I'm able to keep up some kind of reading schedule. Most of the time on the train I'm reading sports coverage on my phone, the trashy New York coverage that I liked so much while living there.

But the occasional book catches my attention, and right now is one of those times.


A few notes:

  • This is another Douwntown Long Beach Dollar Bookstore discovery.
  • This turned out to be Tom Robbins' first novel, and was published in 1971(!!!). I had no idea that Robbins was publishing that early--I always figured him for later that at least Gravity's Rainbow.
  • This is, maybe unlike Trout Fishing in America, an actual Sixties touchstone/icon.
  • It it pretty good; obviously from Robbins (if you know his work, like Murakami, you can tell who's writing it is); and it is nearly distracting me from my studies.
  • I painstakingly wrote this post during a break in the action on a loaned iPad.
I say "nearly" because I'm not spending time at the house reading. 

Good stuff.

I'll report back later on this summer when I finally get a chance to finish it (I know you're both waiting with baited breath).

Dan, go for it! I haven't read the draft, but I'd love to read the post!

2 comments:

  1. Great minds, right? I was determined to post something today so I logged in. Standby and set ALL machines to... AWESOME!!!!

    Including the Wayback machine... since I was awesome before I posted this...

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  2. The only thing I read by Tom Robbins was "Villa Incognito" (2003). I enjoyed the hell out of it. It's completely irreverent - the main story is about ex-American GIs who stay in Southeast Asia after the Vietnam war to supply heroin to hospices, as a kind of charitable service. There's also this very cool and offbeat story line - it's lore, actually - about Japanese raccoon dogs (tanukis - Google 'em, they're a real species) who mate with human women, and when the woman conceives, she gives birth to a girl who becomes a great teacher and sexual being. It's got erudition, cool characters, trouble with international cops, mysterious disappearances ... it's very cool and very unorthodox. Kind of like its author, seems like.

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