Wild Ducks Flying Backward | 
|  | | | Title: | Wild Ducks Flying Backward | | Author: | Tom Robbins | | Publisher: | Bantam | | Type: | Book / Hardcover | | Publication Date: | 30 August, 2005 | | ISBN / ISBN-13: | 0553804510 / 9780553804515 | | List Price: | $25.00 | | You Save: | $8.50 | | Amazon Price: | $16.50 | |
 This book is also available, brand-new, from 3rd-party marketplace sellers at Amazon.com, from $10.69. |
The HTML code below can be pasted onto your web-site, your MySpace page, or blog - or any number of similar places - to create a link to this page: If, instead of a text link, you'd like to create a link to this page which will display the book cover, if it's available, then the code below will do exactly that:
Check for the same book at these other US book sites:
• [ Abebooks ] • [ Alibris ] • [ Barnes & Noble ] • [ Half.com ] • [ Powells ] … or check UK bookstores
| Editorial Review / Publisher's Information:
Product Description
Known for his meaty seriocomic novels–expansive works that are simultaneously lowbrow and highbrow–Tom Robbins has also published over the years a number of short pieces, predominantly nonfiction. His travel articles, essays, and tributes to actors, musicians, sex kittens, and thinkers have appeared in publications ranging from Esquire to Harper’s, from Playboy to the New York Times, High Times, and Life. A generous sampling, collected here for the first time and including works as diverse as scholarly art criticism and some decidedly untypical country-
music lyrics, Wild Ducks Flying Backward offers a rare sweeping overview of the eclectic
sensibility of an American original.
Whether he is rocking with the Doors, depoliticizing Picasso’s Guernica, lamenting the angst-ridden state of contemporary literature, or drooling over tomato sandwiches and a species of womanhood he calls “the genius waitress,” Robbins’s briefer writings often exhibit the same five traits that perhaps best characterize his novels: an imaginative wit, a cheerfully brash disregard for convention, a sweetly nasty eroticism, a
mystical but keenly observant eye, and an irrepressible love of language.
Embedded in this primarily journalistic compilation are a couple of short stories, a sheaf of largely unpublished poems, and an off-beat assessment of our divided nation. And wherever we open Wild Ducks Flying Backward, we’re apt to encounter examples of the intently serious playfulness that percolates from the mind of a self-described “romantic Zen hedonist” and “stray dog in the banquet halls of culture.”
| Other Items You May Enjoy:
Browse Books From These Related Subjects:
Customer Reviews:
• Odds-n-sods From Tom Robbins 30 June, 2008
As a loyal Tom Robbins fan, I have read almost all of his published works. Like many of you, I have even met him in person at a book signing or two... So when I spotted this little gem, I thought it was going to a collection of short stories. I had read his novels- or at least most of them and figured a collection of short stories by Tom Robbins would be interesting to say the least. What I didn't really pick up on was that the front cover read "The Short Writings of Tom Robbins" not "The Short Stories of Tom Robbins".
Had I been more observant, I might not have been surprised by the fact that stories as such are almost non-existent in this book. Instead we are treated to Tom's responses on various subjects, short essays about famous people he admires or has met, critiques, opinions etc.
At times the Tom Robbins we all know shines through at other times, he is about as missing as the short stories I had hoped to find. This collection is kind of like a retrospective. Misc. stuff he had jotted down over the years for magazines and newspapers and so on. It spans several years of his writing career- so not all of the content is as well written as his later works. But according to his author's note, he tried to reword some of the pieces prior to this publication.
Overall it is enjoyable to read and the more recently written pieces- the ones that actually seem like Tom Robbins wrote them may even make it all worth while. Still, this collection is only for the diehards. It isn't a good place to start for a new reader. To anyone looking to test the waters... try Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, Jitterbug Perfume or Skinny Legs and All.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A2WQDJO8G9WNXK
• Contrary To Popular Belief 10 January, 2008
I thought it was good. It was neat to see some of the magazine publishings. If you're looking for a novel, this obviously isn't one and if you thought it was going to be, then you need to research what you buy a little better.
If you're looking for a little more diverse stuff from Uncle Tom, then here it is. If you're looking for a Can 'O Beans, then yes, skip it.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A3S1IFA2P884AK
• Robbins & Ducks 03 March, 2008
Tom Robbins has been a favorite writer of mine since the 70's. However, I was only aware of his fiction. In Wild Ducks, I found a whole new genre of his writings and musings. Some essays, some reports, some simply not available for a pigeon hole but all highly entertaining. If you have been a long term fan of Tom Robbins, you owe it to yourself to read this book.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A31UP4DPT3P6KY
• I'm Torn 17 January, 2008
tom robbins is a talented artist to say the least.
his wild, loose gift for language is knees and ankles above most, truly a vonnegut or southern for the mtv generation.
his style is bold an unmistakable, were you to give nearly any selection from this book to a reader at least familiar with robbins's they would surely be able to deduce the author based on his frantic off-the-cuff style and wildly imaginative metaphors.
in this artist retrospective the reader is presented with a wild smattering of material from this prolific wordsmith, and while robbins's claim to literary fame is due primarily to his novels, equally erotic and existential, the contents of "wild ducks..." is mostly of the non-fiction variety.
reviews, tributes, and travel writing populate the majority of pages in this volume but some short fiction is included for those who like to keep everything un-real.
the only problem i have with this collection, the flaw that kept it from grabbing that big five-star-brass-ring -the dung beatle in the ointment- is the poetry and lyrics section. the vast majority of poetry is trying at best, dreary and cloying at worst and robbins, though a modern literary marvel, is no exception to this rule. his poetry is bad bordering on worse and his attempts at writing country music lyrics are, well at least i hope, stabs at satirizing that dreadful playground of would be cowboys/girls. save for three amusing haiku and few [shell] silverstein-esque children's poems this section was as dreadful as i imagine dickens re-writing whitman would be.
so, thank you, mr. robbins, for collecting a career's worth of excellent prose into a single volume for those of us that missed it the first time around, and while i'm sure there's still a mess of shorts still fit to print next time leave out the poetry.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A133A4T0RHZXQU
• Hard To Believe They Couldn't Find More Interesting Stuff On Tr's Hard Drive. 25 August, 2007
I'm not a fan of short stories. I'm less of a fan of gathering together a bunch of old articles and selling them as a book. I am, however, a huge fan of Tom Robbins.
While it was good to read some Tom again, I can't say I was tremendously impressed by this selection of "short writings." Personally, in terms of cleaning out a hard drive and putting it in novel form, I much prefer Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time I did enjoy some of Tom's poetry, and the homage to the Doors but other than that, the material was seriously dated.
Hopefully there will be a new novel soon. I miss him. And these last two forays (this and Villa Incognito) have left me wanting.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A11K70GWSB7A5Z
|
