Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas
Tom Robbins always has the dopest titles. Every good book needs a good bookmark to complement it, so I paired Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas with this little number:
A staple of every young woman’s repertoire: a penis that holds your place in a book. Shout out to my friend Ashley for the stellar gift.
Speaking of penises…Tom Robbins loves to talk about them. This 1994 novel was reminiscent of the other two I’ve read (and reviewed— search his name in that search bar).
Aside from the lurid sex scenes, other distinctive Robbins signs include:
Use of women as powerful protagonists. The main character here is Gwendolyn Mati. It seems that she is intended to be unlikeable and, sure enough, she is. She’s an uptight, judgmental stockbroker who is unwittingly swept into a swarm of scandals. In his other works, the fabulous female characters have driven the plot; I’m always curious as to what they’ll do next because I find them inherently interesting. In this case, since Gwendolyn fell flat and she bored me.
Not-so-subtle social commentary. Robbins has fully embraced a hippie persona in real life…and it shows. I eat it up. He emphasizes how important it is to protect our environment and not treat the world in such an entitled way. He makes clever digs at the church as an institution and encourages us to think for ourselves rather than blindly embrace religious dogma. He basically kills it on this front.
Exploration of the supernatural through symbolism. Still Life of Woodpecker centers on a pack of Camel cigarettes and the pyramids on the package. Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas has less to do with pajamas and more to do with frogs. Robbins toys with the idea that our ancient ancestors are actually an extraterrestrial race of amphibians, insinuating that we’ll return to that state of being in a future evolutionary step. I don’t think that Robbins actually believes this; the point is that he wants to question our belief systems. Currently, we’re in our pajamas on the brink of snoozing through life’s good stuff.
Unfortunately, the symbols in this book are excessively complicated and frankly unexciting. Robbins has never adhered to the axiom “less is more”; it’s worked for him in the past, but it fails him here. I didn’t find the action very suspenseful because there was simply too much going on.
Still, Robbins challenges me as a reader. Always—even when I’m not feeling the plot. He drops rando facts that are so obscure, I’m forced to look them up because I’m disbelieving and curious. He applies multi-layered analogies that make me do a double-take. I will continue to respect Robbins as one of the greats, but I will not recommend this book, as I don’t think it’s representative of what he’s truly capable of. Compared to Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, this novel pales in comparison. Consequently, I give it 2 out of 5 flames.
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