Still Life with Woodpecker: A Novel

This book is a rite of age at some colleges in Washington and with the author's recent sad death, it's worth a reread. It not only holds up, it's more relevant than ever!

I amglqd that there arembooksmthat are clever and make you laugh. Too much lately has been drivel packed with expletives.

I was joyously entertained by the author's words and twists of this story. Such imagery he is capable of evoking as well as being amusingly outrageous. This book is also very informative about a lot of topics, and telling of the era in which it was written. I was moved to try to read this book several years ago when I learned it was the inspiration for Dan Folgelberg's song Make Love Stay. But I did not know Tom Robbins as an author, and after reading the first paragraph, I had no idea what to expect. I made a few more unsuccessful attempts, each time placing it back onto the small pile of books to consider for the used book store or library, precarious of being relegated to such a fate before I had the fortunate chance of discovering it's magic . Part of the problem is this reader in that I found him difficult to follow during the first half of the book; I think that it takes a certain amount of energy to fully enjoy this book. :=) I only gave the book four stars because I thought the plot was very weak, IMHO. But I do highly recommend it to anyone who is in need of some brilliant entertainment. For more information about the content, I recommend reading some of the other good reviews.

There is romance, intrigue, mystery, fairy tale, suspense, humor and a bit of nonsense. Just read it. You won’t regret it.

As Described

Book was in good condition. It’s old so there was some yellowing but I think it added to the feel of the book. Loved reading it. Definitely not for everyone I’m sure my fellow book club members didn’t appreciate it the way I did, considering no one read it all the way through and only three of about twenty women showed to discuss it. Oh well, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Especially the honest discussions of things like outlaw-ism and group think which are woven into an intereting modern love story of sorts. It was entertaining and thought provoking. The kind of read that made me think about who I am and who I’d like to be and what I stand for and how I get things done in this world to help relieve its issues. Read it and if you hate it, so what? Move on with your life. Don’t fear losing out on time. We all have more than we realize when we cut out the unnecessary.

This was the first Tom Robbins book I have read and maybe I would have liked it more if I prepared myself for his style prior to starting the book. It was an interesting book, but I just don't really find the weirdness and humor all that entertaining. It got very slow about three fourths of the way through and the ending just seemed to far fetched to me (but I guess the whole book was that way).

At least once a year I buy someone a copy of one of Robbins' books as a gift and wait to see if my friend (reads it and) "gets it." Kind of a litmus test.... The "it" of which I speak is the wisdom hidden within Robbins' absurd plots and served up with the author's unique, zany, and wry brand of humor. Often one must piece "it" together like a puzzle spilled on an unswept kitchen floor, sorting the pieces from odd chunks of dog food--and spaghettios--but that's the beauty of it. The fun is in the sorting. I was only slightly disappointed with this particular book, which I'd anticipated given it was his first. Even geniuses recognize they have room to improve and sometimes do, as has this one. Compared with my favorite--Jitterbug Perfume--Still Life has weaker character development and comparably lower plot tension. Yet it contains similar zany twists, incongruous pairings, entertaining flights of fancy through inner and outer space, and takes us back in time to expose the most specious aspects of 1970s American culture. In the end, entering Robbins' world provides readers with something mystics would claim only for meditation--renewal of one's mind--not through stillness but through the mental gymnastics found only in novels like Robbins' Still Life with Woodpecker.