Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Women love these fierce invalids home from hot Climates

Inspiration of the Day:
Tom Robbins, Author


If you were to see me holding one of my Tom Robbins novels you would probably question why it looked like I had it in a passionate embrace. Sometimes you love a piece of writing so much, that you just want to be as physically close to every word as possible. He writes such explosive dreams of adventure and people and meaning. Mixing thoughts of religion with dirty humor. One of the things I have always most been incredibly pleased with is his treatment of women in his novels. It is so refreshing to read a male author who treats his written females as whole human beings capable of self discovery and strength within themselves, so much so that his male protagonists treat them as romantic, sexual, spiritual equals.


My current favourite quote:

" To deny that young girls were throbbing hives of sexual honey was to be both sexist and ageist. On the other hand, to steal samples of that honey or dupe them out of it, or to view them as only hives or even as primarily hives was an equal or perhaps greater wrong."

- Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates, page 137


I'm currently taking a course on Women's Literature and though it focuses on female writers writing the female body, it has none the less changed the way I view representation of women in all literature. There are hidden narratives in all tales.


I wish to say Kudos to Mr. Robbins and thank you for not making us into the virgin or whore, controlled heroine or madwoman but just metaphorically standing beside us, holding our hand and watching the destruction of the world together.


L to the ins

2 comments:

Unknown said...

This probably explains why all the biggest Robbins fans I know are female...

Anonymous said...

One could apply a different logic. It takes a few characteristics to tease out the full meaning in a Robbins description. It's a larger skill set than write equally