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General Categories => Occupy My Mind! => Books => Topic started by: Alice on September 28, 2005, 09:04:25 AM

Title: Tom Robbins
Post by: Alice on September 28, 2005, 09:04:25 AM
I started reading my first book by him last night. 

He is irritating the hell out of me.  He won't stop using similes and metaphors - I mean, they're great literary tools and all but KNOCK IT THE FUCK OFF.  Why does he need 4 similes in every paragraph?  Does he get any better?  Is his plot and character development worth wading through his masturbatory style?
Title: Re: Tom Robbins
Post by: Beefy on September 28, 2005, 09:06:24 AM
Which are you reading?
Title: Re: Tom Robbins
Post by: SockmonkeyHolocaust on September 28, 2005, 09:08:02 AM
Quote from: AliceLiddell on September 28, 2005, 09:04:25 AM
I started reading my first book by him last night. 

He is irritating the hell out of me.  He won't stop using similes and metaphors - I mean, they're great literary tools and all but KNOCK IT THE FUCK OFF.  Why does he need 4 similes in every paragraph?  Does he get any better?  Is his plot and character development worth wading through his masturbatory style?

I really, really like you.

I can't stand his writing style. It makes me wish that I could cut his heart out with a wooden spoon.
Title: Re: Tom Robbins
Post by: Alice on September 28, 2005, 09:09:53 AM
Quote from: Beef on September 28, 2005, 09:06:24 AM
Which are you reading?

Still Life With Woodpecker.
Title: Re: Tom Robbins
Post by: Beefy on September 28, 2005, 09:11:21 AM
Quote from: AliceLiddell on September 28, 2005, 09:09:53 AM
Quote from: Beef on September 28, 2005, 09:06:24 AM
Which are you reading?

Still Life With Woodpecker.

Stop reading now.  Your frustration will just grow.
Title: Re: Tom Robbins
Post by: Alice on September 28, 2005, 09:12:32 AM
Quote from: Beef on September 28, 2005, 09:11:21 AM
Quote from: AliceLiddell on September 28, 2005, 09:09:53 AM
Quote from: Beef on September 28, 2005, 09:06:24 AM
Which are you reading?

Still Life With Woodpecker.

Stop reading now.  Your frustration will just grow.
Okay - thank you.

I will toss it on the shelf and start reading one of the other many books I got at the Great American Yard Sale for $.25.  ;D
Title: Re: Tom Robbins
Post by: Alice on September 28, 2005, 09:13:23 AM
Quote from: Sockmonkeyholocaust on September 28, 2005, 09:08:02 AM
Quote from: AliceLiddell on September 28, 2005, 09:04:25 AM
I started reading my first book by him last night. 

He is irritating the hell out of me.  He won't stop using similes and metaphors - I mean, they're great literary tools and all but KNOCK IT THE FUCK OFF.  Why does he need 4 similes in every paragraph?  Does he get any better?  Is his plot and character development worth wading through his masturbatory style?

I really, really like you.

I can't stand his writing style. It makes me wish that I could cut his heart out with a wooden spoon.
Lets go find out where he lives.
Title: Re: Tom Robbins
Post by: SockmonkeyHolocaust on September 28, 2005, 09:14:04 AM
I tried to read 'Jitterbug Perfume' and had to give up when he used the line "cum-slicked lips"
Title: Re: Tom Robbins
Post by: Beefy on September 28, 2005, 09:14:44 AM
Quote from: Sockmonkeyholocaust on September 28, 2005, 09:14:04 AM
I tried to read 'Jitterbug Perfume' and had to give up when he used the line "cum-slicked lips"

Too close to home?   ;)
Title: Re: Tom Robbins
Post by: Alice on September 28, 2005, 09:15:01 AM
Quote from: Sockmonkeyholocaust on September 28, 2005, 09:14:04 AM
I tried to read 'Jitterbug Perfume' and had to give up when he used the line "cum-slicked lips"
I put it down last night when he said that some guys pace-maker sounded like the sleighbells on Mrs. Claus' dildo.
Title: Re: Tom Robbins
Post by: SockmonkeyHolocaust on September 28, 2005, 09:15:15 AM
I think he also did another one that was a super-secret spy who was suave, self-confident AND a computer whiz.

Got ten pages in and was like, "Well now...that was certainly tacked on."
Title: Re: Tom Robbins
Post by: SockmonkeyHolocaust on September 28, 2005, 09:16:33 AM
It's like the man's writing is the Siegfried Line of bad prose.
Title: Re: Tom Robbins
Post by: Listener on September 28, 2005, 10:54:05 AM
Stuff like this generally happens when a writer has a passable plot that the editor thinks will sell, and it goes back to the writer with a note akin to "flesh it out some more".  Extra descriptions get tacked on.  Either that, or the writer adds a subplot that really means nothing to the story and only obliquely ties in at the end, like in Ilsa J Bick's "Well of Souls".
Title: Re: Tom Robbins
Post by: SockmonkeyHolocaust on September 28, 2005, 11:20:46 AM
Quote from: Listener on September 28, 2005, 10:54:05 AM
Stuff like this generally happens when a writer has a passable plot that the editor thinks will sell, and it goes back to the writer with a note akin to "flesh it out some more".  Extra descriptions get tacked on.  Either that, or the writer adds a subplot that really means nothing to the story and only obliquely ties in at the end, like in Ilsa J Bick's "Well of Souls".

I could swallow that if I hadn't read other books by him and realized that he isn't a very good writer. Dickens used to get paid by the word and he wasn't as horribly verbose.
Title: Re: Tom Robbins
Post by: Jessie on September 28, 2005, 11:21:33 AM
He's a writer?

(http://www.pathguy.com/robbins.jpg)