Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates

[Dillinger]

I posted basically this same thing in the "Lit Book Club: March Poll" thread - http://www.literotica.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=70340&pagenumber=4
but thought it appropriate to give this thread... this book... a home of its own.


Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates is the latest Tom Robbins book (though it is already a couple years old). Robbins is one of my favorite authors and this is the only one of his books that I haven't yet read.

Let me propose something. I'm leaving in a few days for a business trip. Its a great opportunity to for me to catch up on some reading. I have been carrying around "Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates" in my briefcase since the day it came out but haven't read it yet (mostly, I think, because I spend too much time posting here at Lit!). So - Rubyfruit, Thomas Paine - here is your Tom Robbins Splinter group if you want it... and anyone else that's interested can join us.

In lieu of any decision yet to be made for the "Lit Book Club" I'm just going to go ahead and read "Fierce Invalids" - anyone else that's interested go ahead and get a copy and we can discuss it in a couple of weeks.

I am not backing out of my committment to the "Lit Book Club" either. If Robbins ends up winning, all the better - those of us that begin reading this one will have a head start. If Steinbeck or another book gets chosen I'll read that one too.

But... I have an opportunity here to do some reading and I'm going to get started and finally read this latest Tom Robbins.

 

[Thomas Paine]

You know I'm with you, man. I've already read "Fierce Invalids," so I'll be up for a discussion whenever you're ready....

 

[espressolover]

Tom Robbins is just about my favorite author.
Actually, I have read everything except "Fierce Invalids".
That's one that I definitely have on my "to read" list.

 

[Dillinger]

espressolover - then you will read it and join in the discussion?

Thomas Paine... glad to have you aboard.

Now where is that Rubyfruit?

And... no other Robbins fans here?

 

[espressolover]

Most definitely Dillinger.
Thank you!

 

[Rubyfruit]

Good morning Dilly, Thomas and Lover, my fellow Robbins' fans.

Yes, I'm in. I read it when it first came out and, as is my custom, passed it on to somebody else. I'll have to go get another copy. Saw it in paperback at Borders the other day.

 

[Dillinger]

Bringing this up for the evening crowd - to see who else might want to join in?

 

[Dillinger]

"I am looking for the novelists whose writing is an extension of their intellect rather than an extension of their neurosis."

I'm wondering if anyone else wants to join us in reading and discussing this book?

I've had a chance to start it this week while travelling on business... here's some teasers from the book to help persuade those of you who might be interested:

"Butterflies were delicate and gossamer, but this moth possesses strength and weight. Its heavy wings were powedered like the face of an old actress. Butterflies were presumed to be carefee, moths were slaves to a fiery obsession. Butterflies seemed innocuous, moths somehow... erotic. The dust of the moth was a sexual dust. The twitch of the moth was a sexual twitch. Suddenly Switters touched his throad and moaned. He moaned because it occurred to him how much the moth resembled a clitoris with wings."

----------

"There followed another long silence, but this time he could tell she wasn't drifting in any geriatric ozone. Her eyes simultaneously narrowed and brightened until they looked like the apertures through which Tabasco droplets enter the world, and the zing zing zing of synaptic archery was very nearly audible."

----------

"There are times when we can feel destiny close around us like a fist around a doorknob. Sure, we can resist. But a knob that won't turn, a door that sticks and never budges, is a nuisance to the gods. The gods may kick in the jamb. Worse, they may walk away in disgust, leaving us to hang dumbly from our tight hinges, deprived of any other chance in life to swing open into unnecessary risk and thus into enchantment."

 

[sunstruck]

I'm half way through it and had to put it aside for a time. this is a great reason to pick it up again (not that I ever need a reason to read Robbins). I'm in.

 

[Dillinger]

Welcome aboard, sunstruck! *smile*

So we've got:

Me
Thomas Paine
Rubyfruit
expressolover
sunstruck

Anyone else?

Tortoise - considering your sig line I can't believe you haven't posted to this.

 

[Dillinger]

Tennessee Williams once wrote, "We all live in a house on fire, no fire department to call; no way out, just the upstairs window to look out of while the fire burns the house down with us trapped, locked in it." In a certain sense, the playwright was correct. Yes, but oh! What a view from that upstairs window!

What Tennessee failed to mention was that if we look out of that window with an itchy curiosity and a passionate eye; with a generous spirit and a capacity for delight; and, yes, the language with which to support and enrich the things we see; then it DOESN'T MATTER that the house is burning down around us. It doesn't matter. Let the motherfucker blaze!

 

[sunstruck]

Tennessee Williams once wrote, "We all live in a house on fire, no fire department to call; no way out, just the upstairs window to look out of while the fire burns the house down with us trapped, locked in it." In a certain sense, the playwright was correct. Yes, but oh! What a view from that upstairs window!

What Tennessee failed to mention was that if we look out of that window with an itchy curiosity and a passionate eye; with a generous spirit and a capacity for delight; and, yes, the language with which to support and enrich the things we see; then it DOESN'T MATTER that the house is burning down around us. It doesn't matter. Let the motherfucker blaze!

Amazing isn't he? Every sentence is a fucking piece of art!

 

[Dillinger]

The sun was low but the air was still balmy, and the sea was the shade of blue that black could have been if it hadn't stepped over the line.

 

[ksmybuttons]

I thought it was the March book.

I bought it and have just started to read it, so I am in. Have a deadline for discussion?

 

[Dillinger]

I guess when we're all done... I haven't seen the rest of the crew post to this thread in a while, don't know what their status is... I should be done with the book in a week's time.

"What I was getting at a minute ago is that the real show, as usual, is taking place behind the tent, and neither the hawkers nor the ringmasters are hip to it. .. What's really happening in cyberculture is that language isn't contracting, it's expanding. Expanding. Moving outside of the body. Beyond the tongue and the larynx, beyond the occipital lobe and the hippocampus, beyond the pen and the page, beyond the screen and the printer, even. Out into the universe. Bonding with, saturating, or even usurping physical reality."

 

[Rubyfruit]

I am still happily lazing about in the land of Alobar and Kudra. *smiles*

I've started doing some work from home, so my reading time has been drastically cut back.

I will start Fierce Invalids as soon as I'm done though - should be this week.

 

[Calamity Jane]

I bought the book yesterday. I'll probably start it today during naptime if I can tear myself away from Spandau Phoenix.

What's the time table? It should only take me a few days to read it, judging by the length. A week at most.

 

[espressolover]

Well! I finally got my copy...it took long enough!
There is always something that has to be bought first, you know.

I'll start it tonight. I can't wait!

 

[sunstruck]

I guess when we're all done... I haven't seen the rest of the crew post to this thread in a while, don't know what their status is... I should be done with the book in a week's time.

I just moved so the book is packed away, but I'm half way through, so a few days should be enough for me....once I find the thing that is.

 

[PrincessSalome]

Perfect! Count me in.

I've been a big Tom Robbins fan for a long time. As far as the story goes, Fierce Invalids is my third or fourth favorite. Yeah Jitterbug Perfume! But, I have a unique perspective on Fierce Invalids after my vacation to Portugal. I visited the huge complex in Fatima on the site of the miracles (four million pilgrims visit each year). Seven services are performed every day in an outdoor chapel before a giant expanse of concrete. It was amazing to see the devoute Catholics from all over the world doing their private worshipping: a lot of crawling and walking on their knees. The smoke from the prayer candles looked like a forest fire. If you hadn't heard of Fatima before Fierce Invalids (the History Channel does a pretty good documenary) Tom Robbins definitely did not make it up or exaggerate the devoteds' fanaticism!

P.S. I'm a newbie and have never been in a book discussion here so let me know the drill. Thanks.

 

[Dillinger]

Welcome to Lit... you'll either love it here or you'll love it here. There is no inbetween.

And... there is no drill - after 2 years here I can't recall there ever being a successful book discussion thread (I'm sure there are people here who will correct me if I'm wrong). Though, on the poetry and story boards we do discuss the works of the authors who post at lit.

I've always had the feeling that Robbins researched his stuff quite well - which is how he can get away with the incredible flights of his imagination that he lays on top of our consensual reality.

This is the only Robbins book I haven't read - I should be done by the weekend - in fact, I'm probably going to log off soon and go read some more!

 

[Rubyfruit]

A Jitterbug quote - because I feel like it

"Grinning, she hovered over him. Then, like a fist closing around a doorknob, her grin closed around him. With her lips, she turned the knob first one way and then the other: left, right, open, shut; left, right, open, shut. The knob did not squeak. In fact, Wiggs was unusually quiet.

Now, falling into rhythm, she sucked the knob from its axle, sucked the axle from its door, the door from its hinges. Out onto the lawn, tempo increasing, she sucked up the flagstone walk, the rosebushes, the petunia bed, the sprinkler, the driveway, and the small Japanese car parked in the driveway: Oh, what a feeling! Toyota! Wiggs moaned as the neighborhood disappeard.

The towers of the city began to sway, and soon, the planet itself fell victim to the force, swelling at its equator, throbbing at its poles. It wobbled violently on its axis, once, twice, then exploded. The Big Bang theory, proven at last. Continuing to impersonate a black hole, she pulled in every drop and particle - she'd never had a man in such entirety - it it wasn't until the final spasm had subsided and the cosmos was at peace that she loosened her grip and, lips glistening like the Milky Way, looked up to see - the legs of a third party standing there."


Not that's a blow job!

 

[Problem Child]

After reading that, I'm in.

 

[Calamity Jane]

And it didn't even mention zuchini or piss. You're getting too easy darlin.

 

[Problem Child]

I'm just trying to fit into this little clique. I'll do anything.