Book Review - Villa Incognito from Schmeg.com

   

Tom Robbins is a necessary American novelist. Our nation and our culture will not benefit from an uninspired Tom Clancy novel, or a vapid James Patterson novel. We do not need more dull, watered-down encouragement of our war-and -espionage-obsessed, patriarchal, insular traditions. There's no advantage in literature pounding the same tired old adages into our heads. The point of literature is to open our eyes, to show us the new, the foreign, the unknown. At its best, literature shows us the folly of our own ways.

Because of this, it is imperative to read at least one Tom Robbins book in your lifetime. Unfortunately, if you're only looking for one Tom Robbins book to read, Villa Incognito isn't the one. It does address some subjects which Robbins enjoys throwing at us (drug use, nationalism, philosophy) with his trademark style. But this novel is merely a Robbins tale, rather than a Robbins epic.

Testing my own abilities to wield the written word, I'll attempt to introduce the story elements in brief. The story begins with a mythical Japanese badger with a huge scrotum, a matching sex drive, and a taste for sake. This animal, the Tanuki, takes a young girl as his wife, and his descendants' paths bring the tale to the present day.

We follow three counterculturally-minded MIA Army officers, who decided to stay in Vietnam after the war. The trio lives the Laos village of Fan Nan Nan, where they run their drug-smuggling business, and help to educate the locals, who are all circus performers.

Also featured is the attractive Lisa, a Tanuki descendant and animal trainer, who has had sexual relationships with two of the three expatriates, and is slated to marry one of them. A drug bust brings all of the characters together, as well as two spinster sisters, an Army intelligence officer, and a Bangkok whore.

As per usual with Tom Robbins' books, to explain any further would only confuse a reader more, and will therefore be avoided. Robbins is satiating his fan base by turning out this book, but since he's not at his best, he probably won't be gaining many new converts.

One problem the book has is the shallow character development. Upon reading Robbins' previous books, you felt that you knew the main characters intimately, whether they were human, animal, or object. Villa Incognito touches upon a handful of character traits, then is off to another person, locale, or situation. Quite simply, since you're not led to know the characters, you don't care much about the characters.

Another problem is that the story dates itself. The story takes place largely in 2001, and September 11 serves as a nearly-predictable deus ex machina for one of the tale's tight spots. Perhaps Robbins felt it was necessary to address our current sociopolitical climate, but it ends up feeling empty and gratuitous. Some of Robbins best work has addressed major world issues, while remaining pertinent, fresh, and re-readable as the decades have gone by. Villa Incognito doesn't seem to share those traits.

With Villa Incognito, Tom Robbins has not shaken our foundations. He has written about subjects as only he can, but he leaves them uncharacteristically unmarred. He does an admirable job of addressing the demonization of drugs, but unlike his previous work, he avoids challenging religious tenets, conventional wisdom regarding world politics, discrimination, sexuality, or definitions of social strata. By the end, it felt like Villa Incognito was written out of boredom rather than inspiration.

I think the Fuji S5100 is a great camera and I highly recommend it