Tom Robbins: Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates

The early writers of human history were simple storytellers. A collection of thoughts and events and personal insight presents itself indirectly throughout ancient text. The language and culture of literature has evolved exponentially throughout the ages into very specialized genres and intentions. Two of the most basic divisions in writing occur between non-fiction and fictional writing. This is one example of those divisions that seems to bridge the gap between reality and not. Tom Robbins, An author of several short stories, poems and numerous books has been quoted as saying this in the Seattle Post Intelligencer among other sources: "People write memoirs because they lack the imagination to make things up." Which truly shows his own attitude towards other writers in his field.

Tom Robbins is a man that did not become a writer by mistake. He knew from the early age of 5 that he would someday become a writer. His drive and motivation to become his dream is what made that happen for him. Now looking back at the life of a writer, his life seems dull and uneventful. The pain and suffering that sometimes motivates others to write stories about the evolution of human nature or at the very least research into changing the world for the better is what T.R. lacks. There is no direct research in his writing. T.R. is entertaining and at the same time he evokes intrinsic change in his readers without pushing them one way or another based solely on his own experience and motivations.

Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates is a fictional memoir of Switters, an undercover CIA operative who is anything less than a figure of T.R. This particular book was my first experience into the world that Mr. Robbins lives in. The day Jacqueline gave me a copy of this book will alas, forever be etched in my memory. In this long winded story of an undercover CIA operative traveling in South America in order to return his grandmother's exotic parrot back to its home before death overtakes the bird. Tom Robbins presents his theory of the self as a contradiction. A dichotomy that is ever present in human nature that is neither filled with good or evil, only balance, is seen not only in his work but his own life attitudes that have been projected in his own experiences This attitude towards the lack of imagination found in some writing cannot be applied to T.R.'s own writing. It can however be expressed in his own personal life that is by far pretty unexciting and dull.

Tom Robbins started as a copy editor in Richmond, Virginia after serving in the U.S. Air Force. However he soon discovered that his aspirations differed from those who were currently working around him. He was shortly fired after publishing a photograph of Sammy Davis Jr., and his Scandinavian wife, May Britt (8 Siegel). It was then that he decided to move westward, or at least as far west away from Richmond as he could possibly achieve on his small bankroll.

Tom Robbins own personal reflection on his life cannot be edited and retain the same energy as his own words exude on his thoughts of moving to Seattle. "Even more unexpected was the human climate. In Seattle, I soon found that my radical ideas and aesthetic explorations-ideas and explorations that in Richmond, Virginia, might have gotten me stoned to death with hush puppies-were not only accepted but occasionally applauded. In retrospect, that shouldn't be so astonishing, for the most fleeting overview of neurogeography reveals that for four or five thousand years, there has been a pattern of migratory movement of consciousness from east to west. The smartest people, the strongest, bravest, most adventurous, creative, open-minded, and advanced have pressed ever westward: starting from India and China, moving to Alexandria, Constantinople, and the Middle East; on to Athens, Rome, Paris, London; crossing the Atlantic, the New England of Thoreau and the Transcendentalists, New York of course; then Chicago, which earlier in this century was a hot box of intellectual and artistic ferment; and, now, the West Coast, where LA, San Francisco, and Seattle represent the end of terrestrial migration" Robbins goes on, "Fulfilling its evolutionary destiny, our Emerald City has been populated by a significant number of migrants, mavericks, and mutants: seed people, future people, people on the edge of thought, the edge of discovery, the edge of tomorrow. To some extent, Seattle remains a frontier metropolis, a place where people can experiment with their lives, and change and grow and make things happen. My intuitive impulse to relocate here, on the flexible blade of this psychological jackknife, may have been the brightest thing I've ever done."

Tom Robbins now currently resides as an inhabitant of Laconner, Washington. Whose population checks in at a less than a thousand people, T.R. must feel right at home in that small town atmosphere. It was there in Seattle working for the Seattle Times that he discovered LSD. This experience is one that to this day, Robbins recalls as a life changing "trip," it even convinced him to flee to New York to find others who possessed the same viewpoints as himself did, unlike his child residence of North Carolina where he was born in the summer of 1936.

The far reaching influence of Tom Robbins presents itself clearly on August 16, 1977 according to Kirby, Elvis "The King" Presley passed away with "a copy of Another Roadside Attraction on the floor beside him," a 1971 book by T.R. If the book was not present at Elvis Presley's death than the intrigue of this book in relation to historical relevance has changed. Dale Kirby may not be the absolute authority on Tom Robbins but he has written down the chronology of T.R. in From Blowing Rock to Windy Cliff. The friends and family of Elvis may wish to contend with some of Kirby's facts. They claim that he was found with a book about the Shroud of Turin when he died, often cited as, "A Scientific Search For The Face Of Jesus," by Frank O. Adams. The other book that Ginger Alden and several investigators at Graceland said they saw was, "Sex and Psychic Energy." Elvis also apparently had a Book of Mormon somewhere in the room when he passed away, which is now worth several million dollars. A tentative chronology of Tom Robbin's life is a work in progress by Dale Kirby that insinuates a fanatical literary following that Tom Robbins has come to expect, especially in the Northwest.

In the interview with Linda Richards of January Magazine, Tom Robbins further explains that, "Reality is contradictory. And it's paradoxical. If there's any one word - if you had to pick one word to describe the nature of the universe - I think that word would be paradox." (June 2000) Sadly, the details into the personal lives of historical figures in American History only become well articulated years after their own demise. Leaving the estate responsible, the necessary avenue in order to conceal or glean a different perceptive into the distortion of truth that often times fails to stand the test of time. The reader must make a decision to which perception of Tom Robbins is more accurate, the one he portrays to interviewers or in all honesty what is seen throughout his writing message.

"What I try to do, among other things, is to mix fantasy and spirituality, sexuality, humor and poetry in combinations that have never quite been seen before in literature. And I guess when a reader finishes one of my books - provided the reader does finish the book - I would like for him or her to be in the state that they would be in after a Fellini film or a Grateful Dead concert. Which is to say that they've encountered the lifeforce in a large, irrepressible and unpredictable way and as a result their sense of wonder has been awakened and all of their possibilities have been expanded." -June 2000

Tom Robbins is a writer who utilizes the reality of life as a detail-building tool that is composed chiefly of his own experience and lifestyle. Tom Robbins was perhaps the first writer to ever introduce to me, the rawness of a Henri Matisse nude. T.R. was however the one who probably first motivated Jacquie to buy Henri's work after reading one of his novels, Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates. Tom says he took the title from his own translation of a line from a Rimbaud poem. "While it has quite literal significance within the context of my plot…it has wider meanings, as well. All of us who've managed to survive intense love affairs, political confrontations, or periods of personal debauchery might be said to be fierce invalids home from hot climates." A novel through which the author employs an intimate journey with his readers to locations around the world with such description as to believe that they are just down the street from us.

There are very few writers who not only have the ability to change their reader's morals and beliefs so easily yet still leaving them with a sense of renewed adventure and a certain lust for life's possibilities quite as simply as Robbins does. Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates was actually first given to me only a few hours after it was recommended. It really quite astonished me for someone to want someone else to read a book so greatly that they would almost force the responsibility of reading it into a time constraint. All in all, this book took a lot of motivation to read after the first hundred pages or so, it is after all close to 450 pages.

Tom Robbins has also been quoted as describing his intentions as differing than those of the author, John Grisham. Who according to Robbins is all about entertainment and sheer profit. Whether this be a die-hard fanatic employing such attitudes towards this author as an addition to Elvis Presley's death in order to put this T.R.'s work on the top shelf. In comparison, John Grisham only wants to entertain his readers and make money from them. The life of Tom Robbins is a patchwork of interviews, publications and lectures given throughout his writing career. His sense of identity stems from intrinsic motivations. The perpetual possibilities that he begins to allow in his writing creates a different beast of an American novel. Tom Robbins has taken a new approach to story writing that is virtually only limited by his own imagination of his delicate characters. This is a journey where anyone could enjoy the real possibility of taking oneself less serious as prescribed by Tom Robbins, the man himself.

Furthur information can be found in a study of Tom Robbins work was performed by Hoyser and Stookey that features a biographical chapter, a chapter on context and style, and individual chapters on each of his novels, Another Roadside Attraction, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, Still Life with Woodpecker, Jitterbug Perfume, skinny legs and all, and Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas. Each novel is analyzed for plot structure, characterization, and thematic elements. In addition, Hoyser and Stookey define and apply an alternative critical perspective from which to read each novel. The reading of each of Robbins' novels will be enriched by this perceptive study. "That dichotomy of personality can sometimes confound me even today."

For a moment though let us consider the methods in which Tom Robbins goes about his life. Tom Robbins says that he maintains a regular writing schedule, because "sitting around waiting for inspiration is for amateurs." He's at his desk every morning at ten o'clock, whether, as he puts it, the muse shows up or not. (Marshall). "The only success, for example, with which a writer might be meaningfully concerned, is how successfully his or her adjectives exude their flavors, his or her syntax drums out its cadence, his or her metaphors eternalize their phrases, or whether or not, when their nouns meet their verbs, the verbs yell out, "Gotcha, baby!" For the task of the writer is not to attain recognition or reward but to meditate upon our passing world and, through the working magic of language, awaken in the solitary reader a sense of wonder at that world." The overall intensity of this novel, Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates comes from the contradictions of his character's persona. The minute details that Tom Robbins employs into his well developed family relationships and personal background sketches allow a number of unbelievable occurrences to continually progress throughout his writing. The fact is he makes his writing so apparently calm that it intrigues the reader.

The basis to this paper started as a simple call to read more of Tom Robbins work. Yet as this paper went through more research it began to show so many similarities that made its progression dull. The life of Tom Robbins as seen through countless interviews is really actually kind of uneventful. The fact is that his writing is the most interesting thing about the guy. Which in all honesty should be what is clearly seen from an author's work.