Villa Incognito

I finished Tom Robbins' Villa Incognito today and I really enjoyed it. He writes odd novels that are quirky and funny, and after reading Still Life with Woodpecker and Villa Incognito, I think Robbins is now among my top 5 favorite authors (also making the list are Douglas Coupland, Chuck Palhaniuk, David Sedaris, and Caleb Carr).

Tom Robbins may have started Villa Incognito with the funniest beginning to a novel ever written, when he wrote:

It has been reported that Tanuki fell from the sky using his scrotum as a parachute. That is not so ridiculous when we take into account the unusual size of Tanuki's scrotum. Well, okay, it's still pretty ridiculous - and no less so just because in relation to his overall body mass, Tanuki's scrotum is proportionately larger than the scrota of elephants, whales and the Jolly Green Giant.

There are several more lines to that paragraph describing Tanuki's testicles in detail, but I wouldn't want to spoil it for anyone. I will say that Robbins managed to fit alien animals, Vietnam era MIA/POW's, Asian circus acrobats, and a lesbian clown into this novel in his beautifully offbeat way. I wish I new more adjectives to describe his writing. Odd, strange, silly, and unique are all appropriate, bearing in mind that I mean them in a good way.

I am on to my next Tom Robbins novel, Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates, and I also went to Half Priced Books and picked up Even Cowgirls Get the Blues and Half Asleep In Frog Pajamas for good measure.