Tom Robbins' Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates

reviewed by Ilda Pozhegu

Tom Robbins is the ringmaster of a literary three-ring circus in Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates. Housed underneath the big top of an unlikely title lives an erratic story juggling the themes of religion and prophecy, walking the tightrope of purity, and taming taboo all simultaneously within the audience’s peripheral vision. Congealing these subjects into coherency requires a balancing act capable of toppling under less of a literary master. Yet even with his great skill and rapid imagination, the result falls just short of the greatest show on earth.

The central clown in this show is Switters, once and future CIA "angel" whose uncommon devotion to his lovingly cynical Grandmother sends him into the bowels of the jungles of Peru to set free her pet parrot. While there, Switters just happens to walk into a meeting with tribal king, Today is Tomorrow, whose allegiance to giddiness spurns an unlikely philosophy that would only make sense coming from a Robbin’s character. Switters leaves Peru in a wheelchair for unanticipated reasons and rolls back to grandmother’s Seattle house for a brief, futile period. Without revealing too much, his next jaunt finds him once again in the bowels, this time it’s of the Syrian desert where, he morphs into the George Clooney character of the Facts of Life in a clandestine convent holding the controversial revelation of the prophecy of a celebrated saint. In the grand finale of his trials and travels, Switters emerges once again in the bowels, of Catholic Church that is, as a cross dressing visitor to the Vatican.

Now that we have the plot down, let us enter the bowels of the tale. Initially, I was not too thrilled with this novel. For one, it took some time to adjust to the male voice. Generally, Tom Robbins’ highly sarcastic and highly evolved poetic nonconformity is more palatable coming from a woman than from a male, especially a pedophilic one. But as the story evolved, I relinquished my gender irritation and was able to more openly appreciate the intricacies of the new perspective.

Yes, Switters intends to stomp (or wheel) over the taboo of the seduction of the blossoming lass, his obsession with purity and virginity establishes his sure failure to consummate his lust. Of course the hero of the novels has to be flawed in some way, and in a time where teen pop stars launch their careers by exploiting this very taboo in scant schoolgirl get-ups, the reader can almost forgive Switters of this particular setback. Even more so when deeper into the novel, he falls victim to amorous emotion to a slightly older and out of touch woman.

The regular formula of character foils, imperfect heroes and rampantly suppressed sex was aflutter through the novel. And, as always, Robbins elaborates and constructs his tale around his theological training with the story of Fatima. This is one of my favorites parts of reading him, he is always teaching in a non-didactic way because nothing in this novel is subtle.

I could go on and on about the characters, his relationships with women Old, young and middle aged. How these women follow the cycle of the Goddess of Pagan religions and Wicca (the maiden, the mother and the matron). His philosophy about laughter as holy and the connection to eastern philosophy whose Buddha is usually depicted a jovial Asian Santa Claus. But what stuck me as the most new concept to the novel, novel’s portrayal as running lexis encyclopedia. He not only peppered the novel with direct mention of the use of letters and the dying art of language currently being suffocated by the computer; but he used practically every trick of the grammatical trade in the novel. He employs etymology, onomatopoeia, analogy, symbolism, alliteration, poetry, iambic pentameter, foreign language, definitions, thesaurus etc. He cleverly used the term but then saved himself from seeming "arrogant" in their usage by mentioning the game and giving a lesson and example of how valuable, useful and malleable language remains after centuries of use. He even coyly used modern technology to e-mail—another form of using language.

Even though a great part of the novel was original and entertaining, I was bothered by the tempo. I found myself waiting for Switters to return to Peru and meet up once again with Today is Tomorrow to close the story because their early meeting did not develop the foundation to push the entire novel. I also did not feel that the "laughter" philosophy propagated by the Peruvian was all that intriguing because Robbins failed to create a life for the argument. Life is absurd, I got that, we should not take it too seriously—but in my opinion, if you drape a story in absurdity and you are Tom Robbins, you should take it beyond the level of absurdity in previous novels and move forward with those ideals.

Was this book my favorite of all of his; no, it lacked the thought-inciting nuances of skinny legs and all and the whimsy of jitterbug perfume. There are, however, only a few slots open for favorites and while I continue to form the list, Tom Robbins generally offers the twisted themes and nimble tones that make reading his novels worth the effort. So when the Robbin’s circus comes to town, usually I’m one of the first in the bleachers.

Ilda Pozhegu mostly writes as an extension of elaborate e-mail exchanges with friends and family. To afford a tolerable life in NYC, she works in marketing for a financial consulting company. When she is not obligated to the 9 to 5, Ilda reads, partakes in any kind of physical activity (running, surfing, tennis, etc.), has determined to learn how to sew and smothers her dog, Drumstick.