Villa Incognito | 
|  | | | Title: | Villa Incognito | | Author: | Tom Robbins | | Publisher: | Bantam | | Type: | Book / Paperback | | Publication Date: | 27 April, 2004 | | ISBN / ISBN-13: | 0553382195 / 9780553382198 | | List Price: | $14.00 | | You Save: | $2.80 | | Amazon Price: | $11.20 | |
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Product Description
Imagine that there are American MIAs who chose to remain missing after the Vietnam War.
Imagine that there is a family in which four generations of strong, alluring women have shared a mysterious connection to an outlandish figure from Japanese folklore.
Imagine just those things (don’t even try to imagine the love story) and you’ll have a foretaste of Tom Robbins’s eighth and perhaps most beautifully crafted novel--a work as timeless as myth yet as topical as the latest international threat.
On one level, this is a book about identity, masquerade and disguise--about “the false mustache of the world”--but neither the mists of Laos nor the smog of Bangkok, neither the overcast of Seattle nor the fog of San Francisco, neither the murk of the intelligence community nor the mummery of the circus can obscure the linguistic phosphor that illuminates the pages of Villa Incognito.
A female fan once wrote to Tom Robbins:
“Your books make me think, they make me laugh, they make me horny and they make me aware of the wonder of everything in life.”
Villa Incognito will surely arouse a similar response in many readers, for in its lusty, amusing way it both celebrates existence and challenges our ideas about it.
To say much more about a novel as fresh and surprising as Villa Incognito would run the risk of diluting the sheer fun of reading it. As his dedicated readers worldwide know full well, it’s best to climb aboard the Tom Robbins tilt-a-whirl, kiss preconceptions and sacred cows goodbye and simply enjoy the ride.
From the Hardcover edition.
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Customer Reviews:
• Busted Book 04 March, 2008
Very sorry he even attempted this tragic demise of his style and talent. Compared to his other tremendous works, I have to wonder why he sent this underdeveloped and wandering screed to press.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A1CG5FXU0ZVPXD
• Knock! Knock! "who's There?" Lots Of Padding! 25 May, 2008
Tom Robbins is a decent writer: his prose is enjoyable and frequently witty, and he has a knack for working in interesting trivia as he explores the dynamics of the human condition. I liked "Still Life" and "Jitterbug Perfume" for these reasons. "Villa Incognito" was a decent attempt to continue this tradition, but sadly falls short on several levels, and for several reasons.
It seems as if he had a nub of a decent idea to start with, but creatively ran out of steam near the end and just forced a contrived "everything works out for the best" ending on it.
VI would probably have worked as a short story, but it feels fluffed out to near-book-length. There are several characters which do absolutely nothing to advance the plot, and quite a bit of detail about the setting that, ultimately, serves no purpose. It's almost as if Robbins submitted a 200-page manuscript to the publisher, and got the response back "sorry, but minimum length needs to be 250 pages" so he threw in his research notes and whipped up a couple of extra characters just for filler. Filler which is OBVIOUSLY filler is bad, and there's just too much of it in this book for my tastes.
Ultimately, this was a let-down, but only because I've seen that Robbins has done better. That said, it's a quick read and still offers a few chuckles, so if you have a long plane trip to kill, keep your expectations reasonable and give it a go.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A3OGMDFM045MQ7
• Slippery Lipidity Is Not Enough 27 January, 2008
Robbins may have flown tush over teacup into the literary stratosphere with a succession of sporadically acclaimed and not infrequently best-selling books, but he hasn't forgotten his roots. As he explains in Villa Incognito: "All Carolina folk are crazy for mayonnaise, mayonnaise is as ambrosia to them, the food of their tarheeled gods. Mayonnaise comforts them, causes the vowels to slide more musically along their slow tongues, appeasing their grease-conditioned taste buds while transporting those buds to a plane higher than lard could ever hope to fly."
Isn't it so? Do we not, as a polity, gloriously wallow in "this inanimate seductress, this goopy glorymonger, this alchemist in a jar."? Or are our grocers misreading us when they proffer the never-ending discount on slipperily lipidic eggy whiteness at the end of aisle three?
The author of nine weirdly contorted and squishily sexy romps, from Another Roadside Attraction (1971) to Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1976), to my favorites, Still Life with Woodpecker (1980) and Jitterbug Perfume (1984) and on to the vaguely disappointing Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates (2000), and the equally recherché current title, Robbins is not a prolific writer. As he said in a 2000 interview with January Magazine " ... I probably spend as much time on one sentence as John Grisham spends on five chapters."
In that interview he limned his muse thus: "What I try to do, among other things, is to mix fantasy and spirituality, sexuality, humor and poetry in combinations that have never quite been seen before in literature."
Perhaps what pales for longtime readers is that we have seen it before, in Robbins' own work. Perhaps, also, this explains why his core audience remains post-adolescent, a demographic for whom much is new. Nor is this a damning critique -- someone needs to be the can opener for young, impressionable brains. But dashed hopes are hard on the heart, and Prozac is no substitute for the hope that Robbins' rabbit hole romping would carry us past his leering Jabberwocks into Canaan or Sybaris.
In a nutshell? Don't bother with this one.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A1O3SZ5I2F42A
• Recommended Only For The Tom Robbins Completist 02 February, 2008
For such a brilliant opening line, the rest of the book is just trampled hot trash. A thin plot with even thinner characters wrapped around... Well, there was no kernel to wrap all that around. A few enjoyable moments in a gracefully short novel but a stain about this author's name.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A1L94WV25FV2QT
• A Polarizing Book. 07 June, 2008
It seems to me that Tom Robbins books are hit or miss. This book is one of the more polarizing titles. However, I think its gotten a bad rap. Considerably shroter than most of his books, I think its enjoyable as a quick read. I guess some people want and expect something longer from Robbins.
I was a little set-off by the beastiality scenes early in the story. But you really have to check a lot of things at the door when reading a Robbins novel, because he always has weird things abound.
This book is best enjoyed as a summer read. Perhaps its not the best introduction to Tom Robbins.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A10W40DOIE1EOP
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