It seems that connoisseurs of American, postmodern literature are spoilt for choice these days. Ranging from the aforementioned Paul Auster and the disputed narratives of Jonathan Safran Foer to the even more controversial transgression of Chuck Palahniuk, many of the greatest living American novelists can be described as possessing an inherent postmodern inclination, in terms of both theme and technique.
Perhaps gliding just under some postmodern radars is Southern novelist, Tom Robbins. Known for his fragmentary works, Robbins fuses comedy and poetics to create books that are at once both crude and literary. Indeed, discussion in a Robbins novel can flip from contemplations on masturbation to musings on time and the nature of love. Moreover, the research has been done too. It seems that Robbins educates himself on random subjects (like red hair and woodpeckers) before challenging himself to unite them all in one book.
Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1976) is one of the most famous Robbins works and was also the subject of a much panned film starring Uma Thurman in 1994 (no doubt thanking her lucky stars that year for Pulp Fiction). Both novel and film focus on a woman named Sissy Hankshaw, born with exceptionally large thumbs and thus with a keen knack for hitchhiking. Her travels mean that she becomes a model for feminine hygiene products and eventually ends up on an all-female ranch, where the eponymous cowgirls demonstrate their drive for gender liberation. Along the way, Sissy encounters other bizarre characters, like The Chink, a sagely escapee from a Japanese internment camp.
Reading a Robbins novel is somewhat of a schizophrenic experience. On the one hand, Robbins seems to be writing a spoof or parody, a humorous fairytale not to be taken seriously. But on the other hand, he has produced a profound novel, touching upon deep philosophical issues and roping in interesting aspects of American culture (the role of the road in literature, for example). To combine both is no easy task, but because of his skilled writing style, Robbins manages to have his cake and eat it too.
However. The sacrifice for this bipolar narrative is any decent semblance of character or plot. Jellybean, The Countess, Sissy are shallow, unlikeable characters in comparison to the topics being expounded. In terms of story, there is a vague plot at the beginning and towards the end, dealing with whooping cranes and Sissy (the stars of the front cover), but chapters in the middle are mainly used to speak, at the expense of character development, about other things that interest Robbins. One of which is evidently sex, a recurring and obscene theme in Cowgirls. The majority of the cast has had raunchy intercourse with Sissy, and any nobility that the seemingly serious, would-be politicised cowgirl campaign might have had is undermined by the frequent references to lesbian sex and the vaginal, unsettlingly described by Robbins.
Though it seems a dreadful shame to criticise such a knowledgeable writer, Cowgirls is quotable, witty and intelligent, but fails in most other areas. Go for Still Life with Woodpecker (1980) instead.
2.5/5
artsandhumanity 