Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates

Rating:
Summary: Losing his touch?
Review: This was a good book and I read it in two sittings. However, it falls short of a few of my favorites from Tom Robbins. He is my all time favorite author and has written several good books, but this one is a little weird even for Tom Robbins. The ending is good though and he definately keeps you interested throughout the book.

Rating:
Summary: Switters on Firearms
Review: Reading Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates, I was so taken with the freewheeling fictional character, Switters, that I couldn't resist quoting him in my own book, Gun Control and Gun Rights. In the chapter, "Political and Public Voices on Gun Control", nestled cozily with the likes of John Ashcroft, Janet Reno and Charlton Heston, you'll find our boy Switters waxing eloquent about firearms in America. (Page 25.) Thank you Mr. Robbins.
Constance Emerson Crooker
Author: Gun Control and Gun Rights

Rating:
Summary: frank incest and mirth
Review: This one was good!
Truth be told, I've never really been disappointed by any of Tom's books, except one(I'm looking at you in those Frog Pajamas) and even that one wasn't too terribly...[amiss, bum, crappy, dissatisfactory, poor[punk, rotten, unsatisfactory, up, wrong].
But this one was good.

Rating:
Summary: you can lie to God but not to the Devil
Review: Wahoo!
Frank incest and mirth
killer B's
hallways to always

The best Tom Robbins to date!

Rating:
Summary: Doesn't live up to my robbins expectations
Review: I would say that I'm a big Tom Robbins fan.
And a huge part of my adoration of him comes from his amazing female charecters. So when I picked up this one and realized the main character was a guy, I was kind of dissapointment.
The dissapointment followed me throughout the entire book, which still has the tangly and outlandish plot of a classic Robbins, but I just couldn't fall in love with Switters and therefore didn't fall in love with this book either. Switters is no Sissy Hankshaw or Ellen Cherry.

Rating:
Summary: It didn't live up to my expectations.
Review: All around me, people seemed enthralled with Tom Robbins, so I decided that maybe I should read something of his. This was the only one at the used book store, so I picked it out, (I'm beginning to think this was a mistake). First impressions never die, and I'll have to say it's unlikely that I'll read another Tom Robbins book, even if you promise me they're all better.

"Switters is a contradiction for all seasons ..." says the back of the book. I find his contradictions no more unusual than the average person, (by this I mean the average real person, not the average book character, who is much more predictable). Fortunately, these contradictions just make him more human and less stereotypically book-like. Now whether Tom meant for that or not is a different matter ....

Tom's writing style depends so strictly on vocabulary. He's surpassed elegant and flowery and gone right on to complicated. For the narrator, this style is fine ... some people use giant words to spice up their syntax. But Tom has done this for ALL of his characters, (with the exception of Suzy). Though each character does have a few of their own sayings, (such Domino's "Ooo-la-la"'s and Bobby's very Texan expressions), they can all begin to sound very much the same. Tom Robbins, Swittes, Maestra, Potney, and Dromio, (despite her "struggles" with English), all use the same complicated, verbose style.

Also, Tom seems to rely so heavily on his vocabulary that without his eleven letter long words, his style would be nearly nothing.

As for the story itself, it was interesting, untill he popped out of the jungle. After this the plot seems to degenerate and nothing he does has any direction: it'll drag on a bit. But I find it disheartening that Tom always has to resort to sex to keep the reader interested, (yeah, "vivid" is the right word). From his erotic moth on page two, to continued obessions on page 415, he is always resorting to sex ... it's as if this provocative theme is the only thing keeping the sixteen year old boy reading it from putting it down. Anything with sex sells.

But I did chuckle a few times, and I love Maestra, and there were a number of thoughts, (as the narrator ranted), that I had to underline. There are some points to make you think, and Switter's adventures in South America are page-turning-adventure. Sadly though, I don't think it's worth all the praise it's gotten. I know people who own all his books, and when Tom Robbins came to town the blocked off the road a mile around the bookstore ... this book didn't really show me why.

Rating:
Summary: A Work of Genius
Review: Tom Robbins' imagination is wild. He offers a story containing events both ordinary and profound, combined to create an awesome adventure worthy of being shared. CIA agent Switters overflows with vivacity and charisma, offering a glimpse into the world of the 'living', in the truest sense of the word. Just another delectable read brought to us by The Master!

Rating:
Summary: 4.5 stars, a very bizarre book but very interesting
Review: Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates is a very bizarre and odd story about a weird CIA agent, and Robbins said that he was inspired by a page in a CIA member's journal entry. Switters, the main character, is very interesting, since he must never set foot on the ground or it will lead it his death, and he goeson interesting missions, including finding out the secrets of the Fantima prophecy in Asia, and sexual experiences. This was my 1st Tom Robbins novel, and Fierece Invalids is a good place to start if you want to read his work.

Rating:
Summary: Just imagine!
Review: Imagine a cloister of nuns living in the Iraqi desert, then imagine them sitting around a table listening to Frank Zappa!
Only Tom Robbins can pull this one off and leave you breathlessly turning the pages and begging for more. If there are more nuns like that out there, I'm off to the convent.

Rating:
Summary: Legless Hero in Two-Inch Wonder!
Review: Only his exquisite agility with metaphor, alongside the accessibility of cultural idiosyncrasy innate in his writing allows Tom Robbins' , to fly with readers previous enlightened by his work. Much like his other novels, is remarkably insightful and rich in the 'pop mythology' he pens so well. But of all the novels in the Robbins litter, in terms of manifest compostional prowess, is, unfortunately for Robbins' die-hards, the runt.
Switters, irresponsible C.I.A. agent-on-probation and main character, is not especially endearing, although I found myself cherishing his 'slicker-than-slick' pretenses and his slightly desperate, continually thwarted attempts to seduce his young stepsister. Switters is inescapably narcissistic, an ego with legs, but therein lies the irony; due to a curse placed on him by a Peruvian shaman with a pyramid-shaped head, Switters lacks the use of them throughout most of the plot.
This curse, and his belief in it, builds a great deal of the story; Switters discovers what the world looks like from two inches up, either in a wheelchair, or on stilts when in Syria, naturally. He is, if not exactly torn, slightly stretched by his desire for both the stepsister and a middle-aged nun, obsessed with a Picasso, and does his best to meet the Pope.
Although unsurprisingly Robbins-esque and fun for light-hearted fans, this is not a novel I would recommend for first time readers of this author, simply because of its busy-ness. For readers who desire a similar style of narrative but a change of scenery from Robbins' often overwhelming landscapes, Richard Grant's is an easy and enjoyable read.
and his other novels are, in their eloquence, excessively blasé and shamelessly entertaining, and Tom Robbins knows it. The main dictum his stories seem to follow is a paradox of wisdom and ignorance; positioned at the acme of world comprehension as we are in his narratives, we have the freedom to realise that we know nothing, and to acknowledge that, perhaps, finding the 'truth' isn't what matters after all.