Still Life with Woodpecker: A Novel
Still Life with Woodpecker: A Novel book cover

Still Life with Woodpecker: A Novel

Paperback – April 1, 1990

by
Price
$12.99
Format
Paperback
Pages
277
Publisher
Bantam
Publication Date
ISBN-13
978-0553348972
Dimensions
5.16 x 0.63 x 8.2 inches
Weight
7.6 ounces

Description

“Robbins’s comic philosophical musings reveal a flamboyant genius.” — People From the Inside Flap Life with Woodpecker is sort of a love story that takes place inside a pack of Camel cigarettes.xa0xa0It reveals the purpose of the moon, explains the difference between criminals and outlaws, examines the conflict between social activism and romantic individualism, and paints a portrait of contemporary society that includes powerful Arabs, exiled royalty, and pregnant cheerleaders.xa0xa0It also deals with the problem of redheads. "Still Life with Woodpecker is sort of a love story that takes place inside a pack of Camel cigarettes. It reveals the purpose of the moon, explains the difference between criminals and outlaws, examines the conflict between social activism and romantic individualism, and paints a portrait of contemporary society that includes powerful Arabs, exiled royalty, and pregnant cheerleaders. It also deals with the problem of redheads. Tom Robbins has been called “a vital natural resource” by The Oregonian , “one of the wildest and most entertaining novelists in the world” by the Financial Times of London, and “the most dangerous writer in the world today” by Fernanda Pivano of Italy’s Corriere della Sera. A Southerner by birth, Robbins has lived in and around Seattle since 1962. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. If this typewriter can't do it, then f*** it, it can't be done. This is the all-new Remington SL3, the machine that answers the question, "Which is harder, trying to read The Brothers Karamazov while listening to Stevie Wonder records or hunting for Easter eggs on a typewriter keyboard?"xa0xa0This is the cherry on top of the cowgirl.xa0xa0The burger served by the genius waitress.xa0xa0The Empress card. I sense that the novel of my dreams is in the Remington SL3--although it writes much faster than I can spell.xa0xa0And no matter that my typing finger was pinched last week by a giant land crab.xa0xa0This baby speaks electric Shakespeare at the slightest provocation and will rap out a page and a half if you just look at it hard. "What are you looking for in a typewriter?" the salesman asked. "Something more than words, " I replied.xa0xa0"Crystals.xa0xa0I want to send my reader armloads of crystals, some of which are the colors of orchids and peonies, some of which pick up radio signals from a secret city that is half Paris and half Coney Island." He recommended the Remington SL3. My old typewriter was named Olivetti.xa0xa0I know an extraordinary juggler named Olivetti.xa0xa0No relation.xa0xa0There is, however, a similarity between juggling and composing on my typewriter.xa0xa0The trick is, when you spill something, make it look like part of the act. I have in my cupboard, under lock and key, the last bottle of Anais Nin (green label) to be smuggled out of Punta del Visionario before the revolution.xa0xa0Tonight, I'll pull the cork.xa0xa0I'll inject 10 cc. into a ripe lime, the way natives do.xa0xa0I'll suck.xa0xa0And begin-- If this typewriter can't do it, I'll swear it can't be done. Read more

Features & Highlights

  • “Robbins’s comic philosophical musings reveal a flamboyant genius.”—
  • People
  • Still Life with Woodpecker
  • is a sort of a love story that takes place inside a pack of Camel cigarettes. It reveals the purpose of the moon, explains the difference between criminals and outlaws, examines the conflict between social activism and romantic individualism, and paints a portrait of contemporary society that includes powerful Arabs, exiled royalty, and pregnant cheerleaders. It also deals with the problem of redheads.

Customer Reviews

Rating Breakdown

★★★★★
60%
(1.1K)
★★★★
25%
(456)
★★★
15%
(273)
★★
7%
(128)
★
-7%
(-128)

Most Helpful Reviews

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For use in emergencies

A friend of mine gave me this book years ago (it seems to be one of those books that friends give to people) and while it didn't exactly change my life there and then, it cheered me up no end. I've tried and failed to read some of Robbins' other books - perhaps this once is unusually tight and brilliant, although it's still (as somebody says below) a "ride to the moon on a winebottle". The bomb recipes and the analysis of the iconography of the Camel packet are almost as good as the sex scenes, and Robbins writes extremely well about how good sex can be. (Glad to see that women seem to agree about this.) It was out of print in the UK for a long time, and whenever I found a secondhand copy I'd buy it and give to people I thought needed it. I haven't read it in a long time, but I'd recommend it as a perfect gift for a maiden aunt, a depressed teenager or anybody whose talent for happiness hasn't been exercised lately. There are books out there that exercise the higher centres of the brain more than this one, but fewer books are so mollifying to the glands.
166 people found this helpful
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"Still Life" crammed with amazing insight on human relations

Initially a fan of such classics as "Anna Karenina" and "Brothers Karamazov" I expanded my literary horizon to unthinkable boundaries after Tom Robbins' "Still Life With Woodpecker" fell into my hands. Robbins' insight on human behavior on both a social and intimate level along with satyrical humor and an outrageous plot make for a perfect blend. Robbins tells the story of a red-haired princess who falls for a rebelious bomber and their effort of "making love stay." The story line ranges from bizzare Argon aliens vacationing in Hawaii to Emirate sheiks building commercialist pyramids. Robbins' vivid imagination and outrageous similes paint a classic love tale in a crazy psychedelic picture. His original diction, and odd "interludes" create a truly authentic book, which makes for an enjoyable read and a crazy ride into a hyperbole of our time.
49 people found this helpful
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One of the best writers of our time

Tom Robbins is a genius. I have read all of his novels. This is definetly one of my favorites. Still Life With Woodpecker explores everyones need for love. It defines how we see ourselves and each other. It dares to tell us, in an off the wall story line, how we love one another and always for the wrong reasons. The plot to this book is unpredictable to say it best, although Tom Robbins writes in a very unique way. You will either love his style or not be able to read twenty pages without remembering high school "literary works of art". I personally read this book in about 5 hours. I picked it up and the world ceased to exist. This is one of those books you can get lost in, and you begin to realize why you love to read, which to me is to escape the boring reality of the real world. In books people are who they are and do what they say. I also recommend Jitterbug Perfume, by Tom Robbins. This is my favorite out of all of them. If you are looking for an author similar to Robbins, the closest I have found is Richard Grant, I recommend Tex and Molly in the Afterlife. Enjoy Tom Robbins, you'll never quite read anything like him ever again.
43 people found this helpful
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The Unified Field Theory of Love in small doses.

A friend of mine who knows I am a big Tom Robbins fan asked me to appear before her Reading Group to discuss another Robbins novel and I was asked to describe Robbins body of work. I said that Robbins collected works were sort of like a family of 12 where all the kids had one parent, say the mother, in common but all of whom had different fathers, and all of whom were raised in different religions. In a sense everybody's all together yet they are all over the place.
Robbins reminds me of Jonathan Lethem--a world-class author with a visionary imagination, a densely intellectual approach to writing, and a skewed worldview of epic proportions. Still Life is in reality pretty much an "average" Robbins novel, but that is in fact sort of like saying that the Hope Diamond is your "average" 80-carat diamond.
What sets Still Life apart for me is that, though written many years ago, it's totally contemporary. Ralph Nader is a major minor character--and what you see here about him is as relevant as it was when the book was written. The Woodpecker is essentially a professional bomber--but is he merely a criminal (terrorist?)or an outlaw (freedom fighter?)? There are Arabs as major characters--all in a state of internecine hostility. And the symbolic hooey--and there's plenty of it here--is as New Age as New Age gets, even though it predates New Age by an eon.
I'd read the book years ago and recently reread it and found it as engaging, thought provoking and quirkily amusing as ever. It's not many novels that can be a contemporary masterpiece of different decades. So, though there are better Robbins books out there, I definitely think Still Life with Woodpecker is a "must read" even today.
41 people found this helpful
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A Study of Redheads

This is a light and entertaining book from a word-play genius. What is amazing is the way he weaves so many stories into a tidy, compact little package - almost the size of a pack of cigarettes, as a matter of fact.
This is a story about a tarnished princess, an outlaw bomber with bad teeth, a scene stealing if somewhat undomesticated loyal servant, toads - both real and plastic, an exiled King and his "Oh-Oh, spaghetti-o" Queen, a CIA not-so-secret agent, an outraged Middle Eastern playboy, blackberries, Camels, Ralph Nader, pyramids and aliens from Argon.
What more could you possibly want in a book?
Tom Robbins has a genuine talent for words and puns, and those with active funny bones will be tickled throughout. His casual use of words like "slishy" and phrases like "I have a black belt in haiku" abound, to be discovered with unbridled delight.
This is a book to be enjoyed within one lunar cycle without fear of repercussions.
37 people found this helpful
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I read this book to placate a girl...

It is quite obvious that Tom Robbins thinks he is a very amusing and witty sort. However, his informal style of 'conversational narrative' gets aggravating after the second sentence. I agreed to read this book to impress a girl...and by page 128, I decided that the girl wasn't worth it. She told me that "Robbins writes women perfectly". She must have been referring to his silly obsession with the 'peachfish' and his idioticv obsession with the romantic motion of the moon; the former being a silly treatment of his smugly goofy ideas on sexuality, and the latter a result of his obvious and willing ignorance of anything remotely based in the world of rationality. "It was a moon that could stir wild passions in a moo cow." That's about as intelligent of a statement as you're going to eke out of the witty Mr. Robbins and his trusty Remmington SL3. If you have a head full of fluffy thoughts and no patience for things like plot, characterization, pace, intelligence, reason, or logic, then grab this book up. As for me, I'll stick to good, smart storytelling.
32 people found this helpful
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Thin stuff...

It would appear that Robbins set out to create an instant cult classic when he released Still Life with Woodpecker. Thumbing through some of the customer reviews on this page it would appear that he's had some degree of success in achieving this goal, and when I bought the book the red-headed girl at the cash register positively beamed when she saw me carrying it to the counter (proclaiming it the *best* novel ever!)
Woodpecker does have its funny moments, and Robbins manages to make a few insightful observations (one that pops to mind is his discussion on the ideas of visionaries being reduced to dogma when embraced by unimaginative zealots). Unfortunately, Robbins buries these nuggets of insight in so much drivel that you have to sort through a lot of nonsense in order to get to them.
As literature Woodpecker is a very thin offering. The characters are one-dimensional outlines that speak and think in clever but unrealistic riddles. A list of the novel's characters reads like a casting call of a bad B-movie: the naïve idealistic red headed princess; the brooding, narcissistic terrorist (also idealistic and red headed); the cuckolded rich Arab; the exiled King and Queen and their wacky servant; the bumbling CIA agent...
It seems that Robbins' goal was to weave these characters into an irreverent, quirky fable. Unfortunately what emerges are a bunch of hollow caricatures that are never given anything interesting to say or do. Robbins flirts with a number of themes that might have been interesting: creating a lasting love, societal pressure to conform, responsibility to self vs. responsibility to others. He raises these themes by inserting them sporadically into the characters' various diatribes and hair brained conspiracy theories, but unfortunately fails to develop them into any sort of idea or concept. He, for instance, goes on ad infinitum about "making love stay" but says nothing interesting on the subject and reaches no conclusion.
As a novel, Woodpecker is all sizzle and no steak. Readers who manage to look beyond the flash and complexity will realize that there is nothing here but a bunch of dreamy confusion. Robbins' clever wordplay caught my attention through the first 50 pages or so, but in the end it makes for a pretty hollow diet once you realize there's no substance underlying.
Yes, it is possible to write a funny novel which also has both weight and intelligence. Try Tristan Egolf's Lord of the Barnyard, Paul Beatty's Tuff, John Kennedy Toole's Confederacy of Dunces, or Joseph Heller's Catch 22.
18 people found this helpful
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An Experimental Absurdist Masterwork Of A Novel!

Tom Robbins is perhaps one of the most winsome and unforgettable novelist of the late 20th century. In a series of absurdist novels, he has memorably stretched the boundaries of what can be said and how with some of the most creative, artful, and poetic turns of words this side of Shakespeare. His celebration of the central absurdities of modern life provide the matte on which he paints indelible portraits of contemporary human lives in motion, from characters as memorably unique as Sissy Hankshaw in "Even Cowgirls get The Blues" to our intrepid "Woodpecker" in this novel. Robbins is anything but predictable, and to the reader's considerable advantage, he always takes a slapstick look at things we might otherwise disregard or take to be a fact of life, so that when he renders a fact of contemporary culture much more recognizable in all its absurd colors and hues, we come to appreciate the method in his madness. In that sense, Still Life With Woodpecker" is a work of art indeed.
Indeed, amid the carnage of everyday life, full of its endless claptrap and rife with people trying to get by with slogan management, our heroine struggles to find her way clear to some sort of better and more meaningful life, in spite of her well-intentioned parents' attempts to sway her almost irresistibly onto the eventual path of the numbing conformity they think life has for its reward. Like Sissy Hankshaw before her, mere convention cramps her style and her spirit, and in her own way struggles to be free. Enter the Woodpecker, of the outlaw species, cynic extraordinaire, fast talker, hard lover, and a wild-eyed redhead to boot (hence the Woodpecker moniker), and suddenly everything changes. A few clues here: Robbins is asking the most central and profound of contemporary questions in this work; how do you make love stay? And the arguments and insights he contrives to throw in our direction will amuse, entertain, and edify. This is another of the sweet confections Robbins continues to give us, covered over with a wonderful weave of wry words and wisdom, disguised as an entertaining and eminently readable absurdist novel. Enjoy!
14 people found this helpful
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I'm looking into the return policy

This book is about as bad as they come. The narration gets in the way of the narrative. The author gets in the way of the narrative with his pointless first person rambles. Oh and there is no narrative. No development of events, nor of (the bundles of whacky/stock that pass for) characters. There is no theme to speak of. For those of you who believe it has a theme about the dangers of dogma, might I suggest the first three books in the Dune series. They actually have that theme. [[ASIN:0441013597 Dune, 40th Anniversary Edition (Dune Chronicles, Book 1)]], [[ASIN:0441015611 Dune Messiah (Dune Chronicles)]], [[ASIN:0441104029 Children of Dune (Dune Chronicles, Book 3)]]

And as far as it being "deep", it's not. It is not even philosophically literate. I've had students who failed my intro to philosophy classes with a deeper understanding than this book's narrative voice has. It's symptomatic of the postmodernist nonsense that permeates our literature departments[...] [[ASIN:0312204078 Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals' Abuse of Science]].
11 people found this helpful
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Worst Tom Robbins Book I've Read

Could not finish. Plot was lost to his "Peach fish fuzz" gross talk. The plot might have been ok but after reading half the book I lost interest after all his pre-adolecent musings. Should have been condensed to a teen pamphlet.
9 people found this helpful

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