The above is via RAW Semantics on Bluesky, Brian writes, "Letter from Tom Robbins printed on the feedback page of RAW's Trajectories #2 newsletter (Autumn 1988),"
There was a time, decades ago, when it seemed like everyone in the U.S. was reading Tom Robbins, I asked Brian if Robbins was popular in Britain, too, he wrote, "Not very well known, Tom, AFAIK. He's another that I first heard of from RAW."
Then again, I think Brian may be young, at least compared to me (I'm 67) and I suspect the people who remember when Robbins was popular in the U.S. tend to be pretty old.
3 comments:
Oh man, I LOVE Tom Robbins' books. I've read them all at least once. I found him before I found RAW, and there was a time, in my early 20s, when he was my absolute favorite writer.
I picked up my love of cumbersome vocabulary from Bill Watterson, but it was Tom Robbins that nurtured and stretched it into a hyperspatial pretzel! It does seem like he would have been a hit in the UK, similar to how they loved Bill Hicks, but also TR's books do seem quintessentially American. (Complementary) Kinda the literary equivalent of listening to a baseball game on the radio while eating a fried peanut butter and banana sandwich.
Legend has it he would write his books completely linearly. He would write one perfect sentence, and then another, and another, and so forth until he had enough that he could call it a book.
Skinny Legs and All is my fav. The premise of the Dome of the Rock as the Axis Mundi of monotheism w/ conflicting mythological necessities creating a chain reaction of instability really captured my imagination during the "war on terror." The idea that, maybe, in some sense, at the root of these very real conflicts exists essentially a story problem, makes for a very tempting target for an arrogant young artist :))) (See Agnosis! for my best shot at it.)
I think the Tom Robbins blurb that adorned many of the first RAW books I encountered played a big role in my embrace of this world, a big honkin' breadcrumb on the path...
Bobby, I haven't read your favorite. Pretty sure I read 2-3 of the ones RAW mentions. It's been decades.
I also love all of Robbins' books and am a huge fan. I remember being unable to put down Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates when it came out. A brilliant, enlightened writer with an excellent humorous way of expressing philosophical and esoteric thoughts and insights. And just plain FUN!
E.J. Gold paid him a high compliment. Gold told me once, something to the effect that he, Robbins, and Frank Herbert had been given access to the same information, or data. From that common pool of knowledge, Gold wrote The American Book of the Dead, Robbins wrote Another Roadside Attraction and Frank Herbert wrote Dune. I would call Another Roadside Attraction an important, esoteric classic. In fact, I think I'll put it on the list to read it again. It's been years.
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