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Summary: My Favorite Book
Review: This was my first Tom Robbins book. I loved it so much that I have read all of his books since, and it is by far my favorite book by him....my favorite book I've ever read by anyone! READ THIS BOOK!
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Summary: Tom Robbins is a miracle!
Review: I don't know how Tom Robbins does it every time. He takes disparaging concepts, merging the magical with the real, the mystical with the political, and somehow creates something which is indescribably glorious. In his pages nothing is sacred and nothing profane. Impossible to describe, he makes a universe out of chaos. I can recommend this book but how to explain what it is about? An artist marries her sweetheart and moves to NYC where politics threaten her personal and marital life. A spoon, a sock, a shell, and a stick on an exodus. A religious fanatic who would bring in the second coming asap. And a Jew and an Arab and a glorious dancer, skinny legs and all, seduce the reader into a roller coaster ride of ecstatic sensible nonsense.Tom Robbins is my favorite drug!
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Summary: This is my bible!
Review: I first read this book when I moved to Jerusalem (what a coincidence). Although at first slow and a little confusing (this was my first Robbins book), I rapidly became intrigued. The characters are rich, varied and three dimensional and the dialogue superb - witness Ellen Cherry's mother's response to the claim of Buddy Winkler that there would be no laying down in heaven "What, can't a poor widow woman get a bit of a rest?" However the real beauty of the story is in the way Robbins focuses on Judeo-Christian beliefs and reminds us that these are just a blip in the history of the world and in human civilization. He makes us question the way we are trained to look at life and the world and reminds us to live it well and to the fullest. Lifting the seven veil revealed a lot more than Salome. Just remember to keep your eye on the ball, even when you can't see it.
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Summary: whimsical, musical, and independent
Review: I have read several books by Tom Robbins, but this is my favorite so far. What most impresses me is the way Robbins uses language: being a writer myself, I constantly search for the right word and being a lover of alliteration, rhyme, meter, and metaphor, I am drawn to Tom Robbins' work because of the pictures he, uh, draws with words. Also, being a bit unconventional myself and never (even as a child when I was told by the rabbis at the private school I attended as well as my childhood peers the truth I was to believe) buying into what I saw as a limited representation of the Divine, I could relate to the revelations in this book. Other reviewers had stated that Ellen Cherry is unlike most women in that she truly enjoys her body, but I believe that more and more women today are shunning the media's assertion of what constitutes (and some actresses and models are doing the same!) beauty (physical and otherwise) and many of us do revel in the bodies we received at birth. I didn't see Tom Robbins reducing women to body parts until the Dance of the Seven Veils and that was intentional in revealing the seven Mysteries. A comment about the statement that Robbins ignores the fact that Gods and Goddesses reigned together in the past: I don't think Tom Robbins denies this at all (the final sculpture combines the feminine and masculine), but the masculine aspect of divinity, the God aspect, had never been killed or forgotten. He's alive and well and living in many many countries. However, the Goddess has been killed and mostly forgotten and people who worship the feminine aspect of divinity are often repudiated. Some of my friends are closet pagans because they do worship both the masculine and feminine. Robbins, I believe, recognizes this. The only part of the book that left me wanting was the very very very end of the book. I wanted a little more, experiencing a tiny part of how the new insights affected some of the participants at the I & I. Were all the participants so calm? Remember, after all, that the truths they had assumed to be true had been wiped clean by those peculiar purple veils. My husband wouldn't be quite so calm in the wake of something like that! Were all the participants able to continually evaluate their lives and connection with the Divine? Anyway, I highly recommend this book--either to reaffirm personal truth or to open the door of your mind to at least consider a different point of view.
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Summary: Unique And Sweeping
Review: It took me three times to get past the first ten pages of this book. The third time's a charm, however, this is an amazing read. Hilarious and well-informed, metaphorical and provocative. I'm not sure if I need to read any other Tom Robbins books, this one was too good.
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Summary: Robbins is SO unfair and HATES women
Review: Tom Robbins must be a total fool to create a female character who is actually satisfied with her body, knows it intimately, and isn't ashamed to pursue pleasure with it. And, geez, I can't believe he had the audacity to go on and on about goddesses without giving male gods their fair share of commentary because, as we all know, there hasn't been nearly enough talk about THEM. Seriously now...Skinny Legs and All is a wonderful book with many flawed characters whom we love just for that reason. Ellen Cherry's mama lays down the difference between being "naked" and being "nekkid". We learn why things (a.k.a. inanimate objects) are never where we left them. And if you've ever wondered which is more important: sex or football, you may find the answer here. Most importantly, if you remember ever wishing you could BE in a book, this is the book to bring that feeling back again.
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Summary: My Body is Whole
Review: There seemed to me to be two underlying problems in the entire book. The first problem being Tom Robbin's total misunderstanding of the female sexuality from a woman's perspective. Most women do not percive their bodies as individual bits, a collection of legs, breast, a vagina, etc. Rather we percive our bodies as a whole and tend to be largly comfortable with that, dispite what image problems we may have. (Yes, unlike dear Ellen Cherry, nearly every woman, no matter what size looks in the mirror and calls herself fat.) I his emphasis on the individual pieces over the working whole he comes of sounding quite vulgar. Also, he manages to quite clearly distort history. While any fool can tell you that the idea of a Goddess figure prevailed for quite some time, he happily forgets to mention the number of male gods as well. For example Cyrus the Persian conquered in the name of the god Marduk ans Zeus was the lord of the Gods on Olympus. Unfortunately, he felt the need to distort the past in order to make cloudy revelations about the present. The writing style is what makes this book worthwhile, however. The book is filled with interesting characters and wonderfully phrased metaphors, which are sadly the books only saving grace.
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Summary: Hooked
Review: This was my first Tom Robbins book, so at first I found the self-consciously clever metaphors and phrases tiresome, but after 50 pages or so I was hooked, looking forward to the next one. It's rare when a book that has me laughing out loud on the bus will also bring me close to tears and make me want to remorize and recite passages to my wife. By the last page, my only disappointment was the less-than-satisfying endings to some characters' stories. I've since read several of his other books, thinking I was now a serious Tom Robbins fan. I haven't found any of the others to hold onto me as tightly as this one, so I think I'm instead a serious Skinny Legs and All fan.
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Summary: A very thought provoking book
Review: I loved the way this book poked holes in many of the so called "universal or absolute truths" that we have come to accept by simply shining the light of history on them. For expamle, showing that before the paternal diety there was the godess usurped be paternalistic religious heirarchies. While damaging to our male egos, the comparison between male and female sexuality is probably right on. Turn around Norman exposes the myth of linear time which we live by and shows the true cyclic nature of things. The earth revolves on its axis and orbits the sun, which is a tiny part of the pinwheel of our milky way galaxy. Indeed, the entire universe is probably revolving around some unimaginable axis. Thus the whole idea off an armagedden or end of times seems ludicrous. A facinating if at times slow read.
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Summary: So entertaining and also thought provoking
Review: This book had me constantly intrigued...even when I was not reading it, I was sort of preoccupied thinking about the characters' quirks and actions. A very engrossing and thought-provoking read - he gives a very unique approach to a wide variety of ordinary ways of looking at the world. Although the tone of the book is light, the issues Robbins raises are not (religious and ethnic conflict, monogamy, art, relationships to authority) which makes the book all the more fascinating.
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