About this title: Tom Robbins' novel offers insights on some of the major problems of our time - race, religion, politics and lust. The author's previous novels include "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues" and "Jitterbug Perfume".
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Edition: Book Club Edition. Illustrated.
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Bantam Books, New York
Date Published: 1990
ISBN-13:9780553057751ISBN:0553057758
Description: Good in very good dust jacket. Sewn binding. Tan paper over boards with purple spine and gold lettering. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade. Quite a few light spots and smudges on covers and spine. One bumped corner. Light rub wear to bottom edges. A number of tiny tears along edges of dust jacket. read more
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. light wear to edges and corners; otherwise fine. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade. read more
Description: Good. Bantam, PB, 1991, 1st PB printing. Good reading copy, Clean, wear on front cover, no markings or highlighting, pages lightly toned. read more
Description: Fair. Dust Cover Missing. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Good. Dust Cover Missing. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Good. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Good. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Very good. Book has appearance of light use with no easily noticeable wear. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Good. Dust Cover Missing. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
"Perhaps, in this particularly cynical day and age, it is hardly surprising that the most philosophically bent of Tom Robbins' characters in Skinny Legs and All is a can of beans. A redneck welder-turned-artist is a close second, expressing his own brand of somewhat confused philosophies regarding art, love, and the state of the world.
Robbins uses his pontificating Can O'Beans and the can's animated inanimate friends to take the plot of Skinny Legs and All to a higher level of academic thought than it might otherwise achieve; our main link to the tangled history of the Middle East and the legendary city of Jerusalem is a Painted Stick, a Conch Shell, and Can o'Beans him/herself.
We start the story sitting with Boomer and Ellen Cherry in their honeymoon getaway vehicle: a gigantic welded roast turkey on wheels. This is the physical expression of Boomer's love for his brand-new wife. The story only gets stranger from there.
The book follows the structure of the legendary Dance of Seven Veils, a dance so enchanting that John the Baptist was murdered because of it--so the story says. It creates a spiritual and philosophical journey for the reader as well as each character, and flawlessly mixes modern motivations with ancient traditions. In New York City, a Jew and an Arab start a restaurant together, the welder becomes an artist and travels to Jerusalem, an Evangelical preacher believes he can create the Apocalypse, Ellen Cherry just wants to get laid, and Can O'Beans fulfills his/her greatest dreams despite enormous odds.
One of the first comments Robbins makes in the novel is that art is the rearrangement of reality. He's talking about mockingbirds, but the same can be applied the the entirety of Skinny Legs and All. Robbins recklessly pushes his characters into a strange version of our world, one where a bellydancer named Salome out-performs the SuperBowl, one where the ancient god of Palestine is rediscovered by a guy named 'Boomer.' And the characters themselves: they not only go along for the ride, they're aware that they're on a sort of pilgramage, particularly Boomer, who, grasped by the unforgiving Muse, delves deeply into art. His erstwhile bride, however, digs her heels into New York and stays put, stubbornly trying to stop the inexorable enlightening movement...in her defense, however, it's through Ellen Cherry's eyes that we watch the veils drop, and she is by far the most entertaining of the various narrators. Unlike Can o'Beans, who, seeming to regard him/herself as self-nominated historian, translates at length Painted Stick and Conch Shell's history of Jerusalem, Ellen Cherry does her best to keep out of the whole mess. Her stubborn belief that she is neither interested nor involved in the Middle East is jarring next to the other characters' obsession with the place: Abu and Spike wax lyrical about Jerusalem, Can o'Beans and the other inanimates do their best to make it to that famed city, and even Boomer finds himself totally fascinated by the combination of violence and religion that is that citadel, Jerusalem.
One of my favorite aspects of Robbins' writing is his love of women, and that comes to the forefront in Skinny Legs and All with his portrayal of Ellen Cherry Charles. With her obsession with Jezebel, her love of girlish shoes, and the way she clings to a feminine ideal, Ellen Cherry is voluptuously feminine. Even her temperment--quick to anger, quick to compassion, quick to leaps of logic--is practically a stereotypically female one. Robbins needs Ellen Cherry's strength of character to discuss the book's main motive: the feminine pagan religion of Astarte vs. the patriarchal organized religion of Yahweh. Let me put it this way: if you are a fan of Robbins' soliloques on feminist religions vs. masculine ones; if you enjoy his unabashed Whitman-esque worship of bodies, nature, love and sex; if you prefer unexpected metaphors to straightforward prose, you will enjoy this book.
it is impossible to describe Robbins as a purely feminist writer, or Skinny Legs and All as a purely feminist book. In fact, I'm not sure I would call it "feminist" at all. Skinny Legs and All is simply, in my opinion, the finest example of Robbins' ecletic ideas and ideals, his bizarre and alliterative imagery, and his love of people and the world at large. Not even in Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, a novel whose main character is famous for her hitch-hiking, is the breadth and width of the U.S. so lovingly described, or its place in the world studied. It's a strange mix of modernism and romanticism, of mythology and street performers. Robbins spins us through the story with breath-taking ease and familiarity. No one who is familiar with Robbins' past work will be surprised to find that Skinny Legs and All evolves into a treatise on religions: ancient, organized and defunct, Robbins considers them all. His main beef is with Christianity, so if you're a bit edgy on that subject, I'd suggest keeping an open mind or avoiding the book altogether. The good news? He's already used the Corpse of Christ in one novel, so it doesn't pop up again. The bad news: two of the Bibles most famous tramps are, welll--unveiled. But that's not so bad."
"Inanimate Objects... make me laugh out of my skin! My 11th grade English teacher recommended this to me because she believed I could appreciate it with her. It became my favorite instantly and held that title for years. I enjoy stories that stem from someone's wildly fascinating imagination-- they're always funnier and more entertaining to me. This was an easy, fun read that inspired my continuation in quirkiness in general, and in my own writing."
"This is the best book I've ever read! Robbins keeps me on my toes with his vocabulary and uses unique characters to provide interesting perspectives on cultural clashes and life in general. I love this guy!"
"I should start by saying that I'm not a fan of Tom Robbins' novels. I don't dislike his work, but you will not find me among the legions of his fanatical fans. I just need to get that out of the way before I begin...
However, I have enjoyed reading two of his books. I almost put down Still Life With Woodpecker, but because of my admiration for the person who recommended it to me, I made it through. I feel much the same way about this novel. In fact, I did put Skinny Legs down for about six months, but returned to it for two reasons: because unfinished books are like splinters in my mind, and because it took me quite some time to appreciate Robbins' view of the world (as expressed through his writing). I take life far too seriously, all the time, and to my detriment. This is initially why Robbins' didn't resonate with me. Yet, I've realized recently that life can be far too difficult to take very seriously. Levity and ease of mind are invaluable, and for this reason I finished Skinny Legs and all with renewed gusto after a six month hiatus (and after suffering through a book by William T. Vollman). I now appreciate Robbins' humor, his rebelliousness, and his sarcastic irreverence much more. They seem to make life easier and more enjoyable somehow. And what Skinny Legs (and it's philosophy) lacks in sophistication, it makes up for with humor. Ultimately, I cannot shake or deny my way of looking at, and living in, the world--my tendency toward deep introspection, critical analysis, and intense focus of mind are my default settings. What Tom Robbins' constant comic assault allows me is a little respite, and ultimately a valuable lesson. Though it sounds a bit dramatic, it's true. Though I am not sure that I entirely agree with Robbins' way of understanding the human experience and the nature of the universe, he's pretty damn close. And that's what interesting--the ongoing meditation on the more serious philosophical questions throughout the two novels I have read. Though at times a bit juvenile and intellectually simplified (or simplistic?), he gets at something deeper through his constant rhetorical barrage that seems to seek the undoing of that which is held sacred in our culture. By making fun of the serious things in life, by exposing and making the taboo funny, and well, everything funny, we have a new, perhaps more liberated way of looking at ourselves and everything in our world, especially the ideological hang-ups that restrict and paralyze us. These things are thrown into the open, and I could be wrong, but I think we're all better for having to confront what he sets before us. For example, (and despite the fact that I wonder about his tranparent lust for young women and girls--or maybe it's mine?) I think the way in which he humorously humanizes girls and women is important. Though, it is 2008, admittedly I read few novels that really allow women freedom of thought, freedom of sexuality, and the freedom to be human. More often women seem to exist in novels (particularly in the works of males authors) as silent, two-dimensional characters. Robbins' female characters possess all of the beauty and foibles that make humans human, and it's these taboo parts of the human experience that make us real and complex, and something more than a success or failure as measured against abstract concepts about what makes a good citizen, or person. I think that is really enjoyable in his works. Finally, that's what this novel seems to be about: the peeling away of Dogma, and law, and forced consensus. This novel is about the way in which these concepts work as veils to obscure our vision from a truer way of knowing the world, and our place in it. And I appreciate this, because like so many others my eyes are veiled from perhaps a truer truth. But who's to say what's true, really? Perhaps being too serious is a veil that clouds my vision. And if it is, hopefully it started to fall away while I was reading this novel."
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