Tom Robbins
As part of my holiday travels in nostalgia, I’ve begun rereading Tom Robbins for the first time in many, many years. I don’t recall when or how I initially discovered him. I don’t remember a person handing me a book of his, or even telling me about him. I don’t remember that magical mystical moment of discovery in a bookstore. It’s more like these works have always been with me, been a part of me. It is revelatory to me to see just how much of my core belief system is reflected in this body of work. Maybe these words literally shaped me, handing me parts and tools softly from the sidelines. His books showed me freedom and my own potential, the potential of life, the world, the universe and beyond; the permission to glimpse and claim the ‘other’ – other paths, other options, other lives and other ways of writing, of reading.
There are infinite concepts and amazing ideas here that I still find myself exploring, pondering. And I am eternally grateful for the words, the magic, the possibility, the permission, the fun, and the ecstasy – the ride. For the soul that exists, that created all this, that filled me, filled so much – lighted an infinite chain explosion that is still going off today. These books helped inform and build that platform from which I can stand on tippy-toes and glimpse it all; the goofy, wonderful, miracle of life, of just being a being, and also the glimpse beyond, an open mind the only cost of the ride. So vitally, critically essential, that vision, those options.
His books are audacious exploits both in content and execution. I didn’t even consciously notice his use of point of view. Somebody recently
mentioned to me in passing his utilization of second person point of view, and it really took me aback. Really? I ran home and pulled them open, and sure enough – there it was in Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas, full frontal second person point of view. I had registered his wonderfully personal style of addressing the reader directly (me personally!) but other machinations are done so naturally, so smoothly, so artistically – it never even registered. It just worked. Revered or ridiculed, second person is daring, but it either works or it doesn’t. Tom Robbins is one of the rare writers that can successfully pull it off with seeming ease.
mentioned to me in passing his utilization of second person point of view, and it really took me aback. Really? I ran home and pulled them open, and sure enough – there it was in Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas, full frontal second person point of view. I had registered his wonderfully personal style of addressing the reader directly (me personally!) but other machinations are done so naturally, so smoothly, so artistically – it never even registered. It just worked. Revered or ridiculed, second person is daring, but it either works or it doesn’t. Tom Robbins is one of the rare writers that can successfully pull it off with seeming ease.
I’ve found myself wanting to meet him in person and I struggle with ‘why?’ I’m not a ‘groupie’ type of person. I live in California, I’ve seen “celebrities.” I don’t get it. I think, “So what?” There’s the larger than life action hero, macho character, tough as nails bad ass. And here he is on the street, a tiny, short, old man with a brigade of burly bodyguards, scurrying back to his artificial world, an existence inside a rarified vacuum. So what? But authors – ah, authors. I have gone to book signings, went through a pretty serious cartoonist phase, and had some really cool conversations, interludes. But I do know enough to know that the writing is not the author. The writing emanates then exists on its own. The author is just a person. It’s a horrid phenomenon to see the real person and discover he’s a rude arrogant asshole, she’s a snob of a bitch and ignorant. The words they created are then tainted. So I don’t care – I insist upon letting the wondrous work, the creation, stand alone. But yes, there exists an amount of reverence for the author, the creator; how often I still stare into the eyes on the back flap. They created something, something magical that touched me, is now a part of me, part of who I am. But I don’t have any urge to meet them. Who they actually are as a person is irrelevant. I don’t really want to know.
But – Tom Robbins – I have the desire to meet. And so I’ve pondered ‘why?’ Why would I want to do that? Yes, his creations are a part of me, have informed and helped form me. That is no small thing. In loneliness those books were there and are there still. In alienation these lives and worlds and possibilities gave me hope, validation. The words, the creations gave me a glimpse, my first glimpse perhaps, behind the magical curtain, lighting the way to other worlds, other ways beyond mine, if only I were brave enough, strong enough, had enough wisdom and humor. They showed me I wasn’t alone. I held them and I rode them wildly. I stood on them when I needed strength and hid within them when I needed refuge and solace. Somebody somewhere had “weird” thoughts too, and actually put them to paper, creating lives and possibility. Somebody somewhere spoke to me. Somebody somewhere said that I was ok to be so different, so ‘weird’, that not fitting in was actually a good thing, a treasured gift to fiercely defend.
And that was enough. Enough to create a lifeboat for myself to live within, hold on to all these years; always there to fall back into when I slipped or wildly leapt. This is what they did for me, how I took the creations and built what I needed from them, through all my own idiosyncratic filters. This too is no small thing. And a man did create this, so bravely, so brilliantly. I don’t want to know “why” or “how.” I don’t want to ask what his “process” is, where he gets his ideas from, what he eats for breakfast, who his favorite Doctor Who is.
But I do now know why I want to meet this man. May my words here meet those words out there in that ether for this purpose. I want to say ‘thank you.’ Thank you for your words, your magic. Thank you for your bravery. Thank you for having the courage to release your words, to allow them to leave you and be offered up as sacrificial objects to hoards of unknowns who will use them selfishly for their own purpose, as I have done.
Thank you, from my lightened soul.
Thank you, from my lightened soul.
I will begin with a book that resonated with me until I heard a pitch fork humming every time I read it. It brought the self-help standard fare of the ever nebulous, arty-farty, inner child, pabulum crap, sharply into the real world. The world I happen to actually inhabit. The one we all do. The one of flesh and blood, physiology, brain workings and biology.
Around the Writer’s Block, by Rosanne Bane
Baneofyourresistance.com
I have never felt so … normalized, as when reading this book. All the quirks, the “failings”, those inexplicable behaviors and sabotage I just couldn’t get through, all explained here with brain science in simple, insanely normalizing language. Avoiding writing? Nonsense – you are simply in the incubating stage. Necessary, essential. Doodling instead of writing? Good! You’re allowing creativity – more parts of the entire brain, not just the survival or logic systems, to speak. Experiencing “writer’s block?” Nah, you’re just in the middle of a limbic system takeover because that primitive system can’t distinguish between a wooly mammoth and modern day anxiety and stressors – like a dreaded blank screen or page.
Rosanne Bane starts by explaining flat out exactly what’s going on up there in all that grey matter, why we have what she terms as “resistance” to writing to begin with. The validation from this section alone is worth any price of admission. What I’ve been doing and haven’t understood all my life – no, flagellated myself with – is normal?! Others have this? I am not alone. Profound. From the limbic system takeovers to brain basics to the new frontier of the plastic brain – it’s served up in easy to read and understand language for the hungry, lost, and self-defeated soul like I was.
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It’s amazing to me that as writers, we have understood very little what the process of “writing” actually is – from a scientific, behavioral perspective. All of the ‘how to’ writing books I’ve read valiantly try to explain this mystery, each using their own particular language to do so. And I do believe in each and every one of them. Why? I make it uncomplicated for my poor ol’ brain. I simply believe that they are all really saying the same thing. It’s just marketing – a different label for your particular bent. It becomes a matter of finding the language that speaks to you. But we do mystify the process, the art, as if it really is a magical, unexplainable process. Maybe we even believe that. The “voices”, the stories, they just come from somewhere. We can’t really explain how. Until now. Around the Writer’s Block actually enlightens us to what is really going on, and doesn’t just couch it in some metaphysical, magical concept. And this language just so happens to work best for me. It makes perfect sense. I can hear it clicking into place. Ahhh. Nothing like a perfect fit – that one thing that just fits, makes sense, makes the rest of the world make sense.
Probably the most profound epiphany I took from this book is the assertion (with proof!) that writing isn’t just the actual ‘writing’ part, the putting pen to paper and producing words one after another in magical sublime order the first go-round. Writing is in fact, according to my newest hero, a series of fluid stages and each are equally and essentially vital to the process. This book expanded the whole concept of writing for me. I firmly believed if I wasn’t physically writing, putting that pen to paper, fingers to keys with words showing up, then I wasn’t writing. Well, that’s just not so. There are critical components, essential processes, that we paradoxically try to repress so we can ‘write’! Do you ever feel guilty for staring out the window “daydreaming” as we call it? Did you ever get in trouble at school for daydreaming, doodling, not “paying attention”? Information gets stored in many, many different ways in the brain, and is accessed by just as many. Understanding what it actually is that we do, normalizing that process and harnessing it, instead of feeling guilty about it and building cottage industries to “cure” writer’s block, is revolutionary to me.
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Ms. Bane even offers coaching and has set up a whole network of support systems, and ways to form your own groups over the internet. It’s one of those experiences, like ‘why the hell isn’t this taught in grade school through college as required learning? We’re taught theoretical concepts, important information surely, but when it comes to understanding our own systems, our own brains, it’s left a mystery. The brain really is so basic. And it is wonderfully amazing and convoluted – it means well I think! The fund of knowledge is growing every day, and that just gets me giddy.
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Book Reviews Introduction
My first instinct when planning this page was “What gives me the right to write about the masters?” How presumptuous of me. It would be like a first year art student writing a critique about the Mona Lisa. But then I thought, ‘why the hell not?”
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I’m pretending I hear a resounding ‘hell yeah Runaway!’ in response here - occupational hazard I suppose. Let’s do it …. First up …………
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