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Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates (Hardcover)

by Tom Robbins (Author) "then naked parrot looked like a human fetus spliced onto a kosher chicken ..." (more)

4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (180 customer reviews)

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Product Details

Hardcover: 415 pages
Publisher: No Exit Press (Dec 2 2000)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1842430173
ISBN-13: 978-1842430170
Shipping Weight: 790 g

Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (180 customer reviews)

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Product Description

From Amazon.co.uk

The fierce invalid in Tom Robbins's seventh novel is a philosophical, hedonistic US operative very loosely inspired by a friend of the author. "Sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll are enormously popular in the CIA", claims Switters. "Not with all the agents in the field, but with the good ones, the brightest and the best". Switters isn't really an invalid, but during his first mission (to set free his ornery grandma's parrot, Sailor, in the Amazon jungle), he gets zapped by a spell cast by a "misshapen shaman" of the Kandakandero tribe named End of Time. The shaman is reminiscent of Carlos Castaneda's giggly guru, but his head is pyramid-shaped. In return for a mind-bending trip into cosmic truth--"the Hallways of Always"--Switters must not let his foot touch the earth, or he'll die.

Not that a little death threat can slow him down. Switters simply hops into a wheelchair and rolls off to further footloose adventures, occasionally switching to stilts. For a Robbins hero, to be just a bit high, not earthbound, facilitates enlightenment. He bops from Peru to Seattle, where he is beguiled by the Art Girls of the Pike Place Market and his 16-year-old stepsister, and then off to Syria, where he falls in with a pack of renegade nuns bearing names like Mustang Sally and Domino Thirry. Will Switters see Domino tumble and solve the mystery of the Virgin Mary? Can the nuns convince the Pope to favour birth control--to "zonk the zygotic zillions and mitigate the multitudinous milt" and "wrest free from a woman's shoulders the boa of spermatozoa?" Can the author ever resist a shameless pun or a mutant metaphor?

The tangly plot is almost beside the point. Switters is a colourful undercover agent, and a Robbins novel is really a colourful undercover essay, celebrating sex and innocence, drugs and a firm wariness of anything that tries to rewire the mind, and Broadway tunes, especially "Send in the Clowns". Some readers will be intensely offended by Switters's yen for youth and idiosyncratic views on vice. But fans will feel that extremism in the pursuit of serious fun is virtue incarnate. Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates is classic Tom Robbins: all smiles, similes and subversion. --Tim Appelo

From Publishers Weekly

Fans of Robbins (Jitterbug Perfume; Still Life with Woodpecker) will be delighted to find that his first book in almost six years contains many of the elements they have come to expect from this imaginative author. Sex, sedition and similes abound in a tale of loves both indictable and divine. Unlike Robbins's previous work, however, the novel's story line, though typically eclectic, feels contrived. Switters, the protagonist, is an errand boy for the CIA, a secret lover of Broadway show tunes and a pedophile. On assignment in Peru (he has been ordered to verify the philosophical commitment of a new CIA recruit), Switters encounters a Kandakandero medicine man who gives him mind-altering drugs and wisdom, but in exchange inflicts a curse: if Switters's feet ever touch the ground, he will be struck dead instantly. So Switters spends the rest of the novel in a wheelchair, although this in no way slows him down. He returns to Seattle, chases after his 16-year-old stepsister and numerous art students, then embarks on a mission to Syria to sell gas masks to Kurds; there, he beds a nun who even so remains a virgin. In true Robbins style, the writing throughout is lush and sexy, containing a great deal of witty social and political commentary. But this time around, his story fails to catch hold until too far into the text. And although Robbins's signature prose is in effect here--he mentions, for example, "a pink wink of panty"--he leaves too many loose ends dangling. Agent, Phoebe Larmore. (May)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

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Customer Reviews

180 Reviews

5 star:		(101)
4 star:		(32)
3 star:		(22)
2 star:		(18)
1 star:		(7)

Average Customer Review

4.1 out of 5 stars (180 customer reviews)

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Second Tier, April 20 2007

By	K. S. Puls (British Columbia, Canada) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates (Paperback)

Tom Robbins is the Grand Master of simile and metaphor, capable of incredible invention of unique characters exploring cosmic and comic themes in weird locales. His "Skinny Legs and All" is one of THE must-read books, and "Jitterbug Perfume" is also outstanding. Most of his earlier works richly reward the reader, with the exception of the pitiful toss-off "Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas".

Unfortunately, "Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates" isn't quite up to the level of his greatest work. It will still stop you cold with an image, a rhythm, an insight or a laugh, but there's a sense that Robbins had a lot of potential paths he considered following, that he wandered a ways down several of them, and in the end, he decided none of them really led anywhere in particular, so he might as well end it fast. The result is that you're stimulated, inspired, intrigued, amused, and finally thoughtful, but ultimately a bit disappointed. It's like you gave Leonardo paint, canvas, and brushes, and he created the Mona Lisa, but gave her Alfred E. Newman's smile and walked away. It's a comical take with clear evidence of genius, but you feel like a masterpiece got missed.

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4.0 out of 5 stars The Tao of Tom Robbins, Jan 7 2007

By	Paul Cocker "pisceanpaul" (Waterloo, Ontario, Canada) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates (Paperback)

A poet, a philosopher, a polygon, there are many sides to author Tom Robbins. We see this in his earlier novels: In Another Roadside Attraction, he replaces paranoia and cynicism of Catholism, secret societies and conspiracy theories with humor and fun; in Skinny Legs and All, he spins a prosaic punchline around politics, religion, art and sex; in Jitterbug Perfume, we get a colorful allegory that travels over a period of a thousand years and traces the life of Pan, the god of nature, and a bottle of perfume that's the essence of the universe.

In Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates, Robbins again does a remarkable job of pulling in the secrets of history, religion, and anthropology, adding myth, magic and metaphor to present-day events, without being a heavy-handed preacher. The characters aren't as colorfully absurd and outrageously zany as they were in his previous works, but you won't forget them nevertheless. And his zest for language and life is sure poetry; his message is as sinuous and sly as the line in the yin-yang symbol.

Fierce Invalids lays it out for you clearly, faithfully.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Fierce book in a hot climate, Mar 31 2005

By	Jane Doah - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates (Paperback)

Tom's books represent, literally and figuratively, everything unique and fun about this country. Tom has the uncanny knack of not just pouring you the juice by which to quench your soul's thirst, but also inserting a life line I.V. to ensure it hits its' target. No effort asides from sitting still and allowing the juice to run its' course is required. Needless to say Tom's juice is full of paradox, adventure, laughter, and philosophical meanderings. Simultaneously acting as a stimulant, an aphrodisiac, an hallucinogen, and a guided meditation, this book, like all of Tom's work, is, more than a great story, it's Finnegan's Wake-up call to the cultural malaise of the one true enemy: a mundane existence; a life without curiosity. Also highly recommended would be McCrae's CHILDREN'S CORNER and the great and funny GRAVITY'S RAINBOW.

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