Villa Incognito
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 Cover of first edition (hardcover) |
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| Author | Tom Robbins |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Novel |
| Publisher | Bantam Books |
| Released | 2003 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover & Paperback) |
| Pages | 241 pp |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-553-80332-8 |
Bantam Doubleday Dell (US) and Random House (Australia) published Villa Incognito in April and June of 2003, respectively. One of the most commonly quoted lines from the book is the very first, setting the tone for this Tom Robbins adventure: "It has been reported that Tanuki fell from the sky using his scrotum as a parachute."
Contents |
[edit] Plot Introduction
Villa Incognito begins with the story of Tanuki, a raccoon-like Asian creature with a reputation as a shapeshifter and trickster with a lust for sake and women. It should be noted that Tanuki is a tanuki; a member of the species named for him. The cast also includes a beautiful young woman who has unconfirmed Tanuki-blood in her veins (but definitely has a chrysanthemum seed embedded in the roof of her mouth), and three American MIAs who have chosen to be "lost" in Laos, long after U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War ended. Typical Robbins-esque debacles ensue when one of these aforementioend MIA is arrested with heroin taped to his body, while dressed as a priest. Meanwhile, two sisters of one of the missing American soldiers are still searching for their lost relative, unfolding bizarre plot twists that paint a clever caricature of life in a Post-9/11 America.
[edit] Writing Style
Robbins' unique style is clearly visible in this offering. The author expresses his ideals by punching holes into pillars of society, including the military, big business and religions of all ilks. Likewise, such commonly accepted ideas as sexual congress are also lacerated by his prose regarding the copulation of a grown man and a 17 year-old girl:
"For them not to have fucked then and there would have required such a reversal of the laws of nature as to cause Newton to spin in his coffin and NASA to discontinue the space program."
He decorates his work with a flow of creative metaphors and similies that are par for the course in a Tom Robbins book, filling his pages with phrases like these: "He crooned the way a can of cheap dog food might croon if a can of cheap dog food had a voice"; "Dickie's heart felt suddenly like an iron piano with barbwire strings and scorpions for keys."
[edit] Interpreting the Author's Meaning
Treatises like the above selections, as well as others of which Villa is absolutely bursting, are meant to display interaction in a way that people don't see on their own (a common theme among Robbins' contemporaries). The approach might be vulgar, disgusting, absurd, or even offensive to the reader, but it is decidedly intentional. The desired effect is a disturbance just large enough to make the reader see it his way, allowing the readers to enjoy a perspective normally unavailable to them.
[edit] Sexual Themes
Tom Robbins appears to have a prediliction with genitalia in all things he writes, but his books are never about sex. More often they show sex as a strange, unnatural force that sweeps up the Human beings (and in this case, demi-gods and woodland beings) mentioned in his novels. Villa Incognito is like Robbins' other works in that it has multiple important plot threads woven together in diverse and seemingly unrelated ways. The reader is often unaware of the perspective they possess, until the inherent qualities of that weaving shed light on the world as seen through pages of Mr. Robbins' literary loom.
The author understands that before his reader can truly appreciate the message he wants to deliver, he must align their perceptions, even if only slightly, to that of his characters. Using sex, a common taboo in western cultures, is one way he draws a line of relationship between his fictional characters and his readers. This tactic has been used liberally throughout history by professional authors, the Scriptor tantalized the minds of his readers in his depictions of the excesses of ancient Rome, while more recently Nathaniel Hawthorne similarly shocked his readers with sexual themes in his work The Scarlet Letter. Robbins is putting his own spin on a time-honored practice.
[edit] The Importance of Tanuki
Topping out at 256 pages, Villa Incognito is a self-confessed hedonistic romp, with the author himself referring to the central character Tanuki as an "Asian combination of, say, Falstaff and Zorba the Greek." Perhaps the best explanation of the nature of Villa Incognito is in another prime example of the gregarious writing, found in this description of Tanuki's music:
"... the drumming sound, one intuits, that the heart used to make before the heart was domesticated and yoked; the thump of pure appetite, (so pure it is almost holy); the pounding pulse of some sweet and terrible unnamed joy. Pla-bonga pla-bonga pla-bonga."
A sense of unbridled freedom of movement and being is embodied within the furry confines of the immoral Tanuki, and this pure (and yet lusty) celebration of life and living is what Villa Incognito is about. His characters are aware of their station in life, they understand their circumstances and accept them. Most importantly, they provide for themselves the most agreeable situation possible, using a Darwinian approach to facilitate their adequate survival with the tools at their disposal. This is arguably applicable to all of Robbins' books.
- For further understanding, Wikipedia has a lengthy article discussing the being known as Tanuki (or tanuki) in both fact and fiction.
[edit] External links
- AFTRlife - A Tom Robbins playground (fansite)
- How to Write Like Tom Robbins - by Michael Dare
- A 1984 interview with Tom Robbins
- From Blowing Rock to Windy Cliff: A Tentative Chronology
- A biographical essay
- Basking Robbins Interview
| The works of Tom Robbins |
| Another Roadside Attraction (1971) | Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1976) | Still Life with Woodpecker (1980) |
| Jitterbug Perfume (1984) | Skinny Legs and All (1990) | Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas (1994) |
| Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates (2000) | Villa Incognito (2003) | Wild Ducks Flying Backward (2005) |
