From Publishers Weekly
Donald Barthelme once said, "Those who never attempt the absurd never achieve the impossible." Robbins (Still Life with Woodpecker; Jitterbug Perfume; etc.) has made a career of attempting and achieving both, and in this, his eighth novel, he pulls it off again. Here we have weirdness personified, a quirky, outrageous concoction that is a joy to the imagination. The novel begins with the story of Tanuki, a badgerlike Asian creature with a reputation as a changeling and trickster and a fondness for sake. Also part of the cast is a beautiful young woman who may or may not have Tanuki's blood in her veins (but definitely does have a chrysanthemum seed embedded in the roof of her mouth), and three American MIAs who have chosen to remain in Laos long after the Vietnam War. Events are set in motion when one of the MIAs, dressed as a priest, is arrested with a cache of heroin taped to his body. In vintage Robbins style, the plot whirls every which way, as the author, writing with unrestrained glee, takes potshots at societal pillars: the military, big business and religions of all ilks. The language is eccentric, electrifying and true to the mark. A few examples: "The afternoon passed more slowly than a walnut-sized kidney stone"; "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." While the ending is a bit of a letdown, this is delectable farce, full of tantalizing secrets and bizarre disguises.Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From AudioFile
Once upon a time, a satyr-like Japanese badger-spirit seduced and impregnated a mortal. Many generations later (two or so years into the present century), an infant descendent arrives in the U.S., promising a more joyful, mystical, nature-loving future for all Americans. This is the story of how the child/creature got here with the unwitting help of three Vietnam-era Army deserters living in the title Laotian villa, where they traffic illegally in medicinal heroin. These nefarious smart-asses are heroes, according to our author, who invests them and his narrative with mischievous, sexy, and subversive humor. Crisp-toned Barrett Whitener totally buys into the romp, unintimidated by the overrich vocabulary and mystical esoterica. He does an astonishing job impersonating the Asian characters. When the text runs out of steam near the end, he perks it up. Thanks to Whitener, staying tuned through the end is a pleasure. Y.R. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine
From Booklist
Robbins opens with a folkloric tale, set in Japan, of a tanuki--a raccoonlike wild dog with enormous testicles and a thirst for sake--who marries a woman and sires a daughter before angry gods break up the union. Jumping to the present, the arrest of a drug-smuggling priest in Guam--actually an MIA American who disappeared on a bombing run over Vietnam--threatens to blow the cover of his flight crew, who chose to remain incognito in Laos after the war had ended. The two stories are linked by a circus performer who may be the descendant of the original interspecies romance. While the flyers are featured players, the supporting cast includes an earthy military intelligence officer, a cold-blooded CIA spook, and a woman with a sexual attraction to clowns. The largest theme centers on the nature of identity, but there's a lot swirling around the kitchen sink, including a fleeting incorporation of the events of 9/11. It's a fun read, although the things about Robbins that his fans love--clever wordplay, nudging asides, and political and philosophical digressions--are the same things that infuriate the nonbelievers, and for them, this short work may seem slow. He remains something of a poor man's Vonnegut, lacking the careful measure necessary to bake his notions into a cake that won't fall. Keir Graff
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
"Robbins...is to words what Uri Geller is to spoons: He bends sentences into playful escapades....Bottom line: Another bedside attraction."--People
"Brilliantly offbeat satire."
--The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
"A delectable farce, full of tantalizing secrets and bizarre disguises."
--Publishers Weekly (starred review)?
Review
"Robbins...is to words what Uri Geller is to spoons: He bends sentences into playful escapades....Bottom line: Another bedside attraction."--People
"Brilliantly offbeat satire."
--The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
"A delectable farce, full of tantalizing secrets and bizarre disguises."
--Publishers Weekly (starred review)?
Villa Incognito FROM THE PUBLISHER
Imagine that there are American MIAs who chose to remain missing after the Vietnam War.
Imagine that there is a family in which four generations of strong, alluring women have shared a mysterious connection to an outlandish figure from Japanese folklore.
Imagine just those things (don’t even try to imagine the love story) and you’ll have a foretaste of Tom Robbins’s eighth and perhaps most beautifully crafted novel--a work as timeless as myth yet as topical as the latest international threat.
On one level, this is a book about identity, masquerade and disguise--about “the false mustache of the world”--but neither the mists of Laos nor the smog of Bangkok, neither the overcast of Seattle nor the fog of San Francisco, neither the murk of the intelligence community nor the mummery of the circus can obscure the linguistic phosphor that illuminates the pages of Villa Incognito.
A female fan once wrote to Tom Robbins:
“Your books make me think, they make me laugh, they make me horny and they make me aware of the wonder of everything in life.”
Villa Incognito will surely arouse a similar response in many readers, for in its lusty, amusing way it both celebrates existence and challenges our ideas about it.
To say much more about a novel as fresh and surprising as Villa Incognito would run the risk of diluting the sheer fun of reading it. As his dedicated readers worldwide know full well, it’s best to climb aboard the Tom Robbins tilt-a-whirl, kiss preconceptions and sacred cows goodbye and simply enjoy the ride.
From the Hardcover edition.
Author Biography: Tom Robbins, maverick author of eight juicy, daring and sagacious novels, is one of those rare writers who approach rock-star status, attracting SRO crowds at his personal appearances in Europe and Australia as well as in the United States. He lives primarily in the Seattle area.
From the Hardcover edition.
FROM THE CRITICS
USA Today
Villa Incognito is vintage Tom Robbins. It's all there: the oddball fantasy, social criticism and bizarre circumstances, marinated in Western dropout culture and Eastern philosophy. — Jackie Pray
Publishers Weekly
Donald Barthelme once said, "Those who never attempt the absurd never achieve the impossible." Robbins (Still Life with Woodpecker; Jitterbug Perfume; etc.) has made a career of attempting and achieving both, and in this, his eighth novel, he pulls it off again. Here we have weirdness personified, a quirky, outrageous concoction that is a joy to the imagination. The novel begins with the story of Tanuki, a badgerlike Asian creature with a reputation as a changeling and trickster and a fondness for sake. Also part of the cast is a beautiful young woman who may or may not have Tanuki's blood in her veins (but definitely does have a chrysanthemum seed embedded in the roof of her mouth), and three American MIAs who have chosen to remain in Laos long after the Vietnam War. Events are set in motion when one of the MIAs, dressed as a priest, is arrested with a cache of heroin taped to his body. In vintage Robbins style, the plot whirls every which way, as the author, writing with unrestrained glee, takes potshots at societal pillars: the military, big business and religions of all ilks. The language is eccentric, electrifying and true to the mark. A few examples: "The afternoon passed more slowly than a walnut-sized kidney stone"; "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." While the ending is a bit of a letdown, this is delectable farce, full of tantalizing secrets and bizarre disguises. Author tour. (May 6) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
Eccentric American fliers Mars Stubblefield, Dickie Goldwire, and Dern Foley are shot down in Laos in the waning days of the Vietnam War. Officially missing in action, they opt to stay missing when the war ends, fashioning a comfortable existence in a remote mountain village by selling opiates to Asian hospices. When Dern is arrested on Guam with a load of heroin, those in the outside world, from the CIA to his spinster sisters in Seattle, suddenly become aware of the trio's existence, with highly disturbing consequences. Intertwined with this story is that of the trickster Tanuki, a badgerlike creature from Japanese folklore, who impregnates a young girl. Her great-granddaughter, Lisa Ko, who carries a mysterious chrysanthemum seed embedded in the roof of her mouth, eventually makes her way to the fliers' mountaintop hideaway and builds a circus act around real-life tanukis. As outlandishly imaginative as ever, Robbins has nevertheless written a rather short book by his recent standards, with the brevity resulting less from concision than a lack of development. Still, given Robbins's avid readership, public libraries will want this. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 12/02.]-Lawrence Rungren, Merrimack Valley Lib. Consortium, Andover, MA Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
Magic-drawing-pad paragraphs from psychotropic child genius Robbins (Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates, 2000, etc.). What can a poor reviewer do when attempting to skimble-skamble through that celebrated cerebellum in search of storyline when each page fades immediately? Might Robbins not review himself and quote heavily from a hairy bonfire of half-naked similes, the kind that leave a girl mellowed out, disrobed, lustful, and movie-going on the living-room rug? And yet, something serious, a playfulness and sense of fun, deep-surging in the lingual circuits, rises from the verbal infinitudes whispering from Robbinsﾽs midbrain, a heroic antitoxin to the electronic wasteland of sitcoms and feel-good flicks. Using his outsized scrotum as a parachute, Tanuki, a potbellied, nearly tailless East Asian wild dog that walks on its hind legs, falls to earth from the Other World. After much success with country girls, Tanuki fails to seduce cosmopolite femmes and so spends a winter shape-shifting into human form. Now incognito, thieving Tanuki enters Kyoto—and so begin Candide-like adventures in counter-Zen philosophy: Tanukiﾽs philosophical duels with Kitsune the fox, his marriage to Miho, and his fathering of daughter Kazu. Centuries later, Tanukiﾽs descendants turn up in Seattle. Then, too, we meet American MIAs who prefer Asia to the States; Miss Ginger Sweetie, a Bangkok whore studying comparative literature; the guitar-playing Dickie Goldwire; godawful Elvis impersonator Elvisuit, who sometimes sings at Patpongﾽs Cherry Bomb Club; and Madame Ko and her tumbling tanukis in the Southeast Asian circus. All leads to an autumnal farewell: "All across the clearing, the dying grass and sunwere practically the same shade of yellow. Last-minute shoppers crowded the pollen parlors, and every other flower-head drooped from bee-weight . . . Already rubbed red by nights of foreplay, boughs, each leaf alert, awaited the transformative ejaculation of frost." Soulful on a subliminal seafloor. Agent: Phoebe Larmore
Art & Photography
Book Info
