Even Cowgirls Get the Blues Free

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Even Cowgirls Get the Blues Free FREE EVEN COWGIRLS GET THE BLUES PDF Tom Robbins | 365 pages | 01 Apr 1990 | Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group Inc | 9780553349498 | English | New York, United States EVEN COWGIRLS GET THE BLUES CHORDS by Waylon Jennings @ For June, we celebrate the birthday and the sensitive, insightful eye of Gus Van Sant. How offensive! In living amongst the cowgirls and falling for the captivating Bonanza Jellybean Rain PhoenixSissy comes to find new and queerer understandings of herself, love, and home. Queer people are often seen as fabulous-but-not-quite-humans; almost-citizens. When Even Cowgirls Get The Blues failed to meet their standards of what made a respectable queer film, critics were puzzled how the golden boy they were all but ready to canonize could displease them so. As Tim Stevens succinctly discussed in his retrospective of Drugstore CowboyVan Sant earned his initial acclaim for a laconic, still, and grounded realist cinematic style. Van Sant has a wonderful eye for stillness, but to do so in the context of critiquing a noticeably more flamboyant film reveals the masculinist and heteronormative contours of film criticism of the mids. Such descriptors carry value hierarchies with them. We need to recognize that the perceived strength behind the words critics used to describe Drugstore and Idaho comes from their adherence to masculine ideals of reason, economy, and control. For critics, the weaknesses stem from a supposed lack of narrative clarity. Rather being than a composite of contemporary signs, Sissy and indeed all the characters in Cowgirls have queer identiies because they are un- conventional collages of different times and references to Even Cowgirls Get the Blues an identity they fit into unlike the dominate ones enforced by society. Only now do we see the radicalness of an exclusively queer-femme space that violently resists police. Ironically, Sissy seems almost more-real when watching her now, which speaks to an unexplored prescience underneath Cowgirls. Critics and the audiences they had taught were not prepared for the playful queer perspective of Even Cowgirls Get The Blues. It takes its playfulness seriously, working hard to be noticeably playful, as evidenced by the elements of magical realism and scenes with Uma Thurman in a crane costume. And in so doing, Cowgirls renders play paradoxically pointless and actually more playful, because it is free to be as it is. This is the kind of deeply ingrained homophobia that needs to be excavated from cultural criticism. Does calling out the un-queer blinders built up by decades of criticism make Cowgirls a perfect film? Absolutely Not. The film has problemsbut not the ones critics focused on. I will give Van Sant the benefit of the Even Cowgirls Get the Blues and say that what was probably a more expanded racist portrayal of Chinese people got lost in last-minute editing. Instead, we have a truncated racist portrayal of Chinese people in a desperate attempt to address the noticeable lack Even Cowgirls Get the Blues an Indigenous presence in this Western. Queer utopias should not be built on structures of racism. Queer utopias should not disrupt the environment like ranch does. These are real-world issues we can unroot once we accept a queer film for its queerness and go deeper in Even Cowgirls Get the Blues criticism. Critics can learn a lesson from Sissy. The most enjoyable way to travel on the road of cinema is to be open to whatever direction Even Cowgirls Get the Blues your way and listen to the pricking of your thumbs. Skip to content Even Cowgirls Get the Blues. Powered by JustWatch. Author Even Cowgirls Get the Blues Posts. Latest posts by B. Panther see all. Liked it? Take a second to support The Spool on Patreon! Share this: Click to share on Twitter Opens in new window Click to share on Facebook Opens in new window Click to share on Reddit Opens in new window Click to email this to a friend Opens in new window. Post navigation. Search for: Begin typing your search above and press return to search. Press Esc to cancel. Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email. Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (film) - Wikipedia Perhaps the book would make the new movie of the same name explicable, if not enjoyable. I cannot say. What I am sure of is that "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues" is one of the more empty, pointless, baffling films I can remember, and the experience of viewing it is an exercise in nothingness. How did this happen? Nothing in them would suggest that his next work would be like a throwback to the blissed-out s, in which the very idea of women living and working on a ranch would be its own justification. One of the more peculiar aspects of "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues" is that the movie presents us with Even Cowgirls Get the Blues that might barely have been daring 30 years ago, and expects us to be amazed today. It's in a time warp. That it's also written and edited in incoherent bursts of disconnected and arbitrary events is no help. The film begins with the birth of the character named Sissy Hankshaw Uma Thurmanwho has big thumbs. Very big thumbs, like a foot long. Her parents Grace Zabriskie and, yes, the Ken Kesey take her to a doctor Buck Henrywho offers no help short of surgery, after which Kesey opines that at least his daughter is well-equipped to be a hitchhiker. He turns out to be Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, and as the story moves up to the s, Sissy tells a friendly ride: "When I was younger I hitchhiked hours without stopping - across the continent twice in six days, and cooled my thumbs in both oceans, and caught rides after midnight on unlighted highways. Sissy has become a "successful feminine hygiene model," whether because of or in spite of her thumbs is hard to say. She finds her way to the Rubber Rose Ranch, way out west, to shoot a commercial. The ranch is named after Even Cowgirls Get the Blues douche product. This sort of detail is, I guess, thought to be funny, but actually it comes across more as a nudge in the ribs from the kind of bore who thinks he is much more daring than Even Cowgirls Get the Blues is. The ranch is the home of the last nesting grounds of the whooping crane, and also to strange figures like The Chink Pat Moritawho answers all questions with either laughter or scrutable idioms. Bonanza lectures Sissy on cowgirl lore, which is heavily leaded with would-be pioneering feminist insight. This movie is as current in its attitudes to feminism as " Guess Who's Coming to Dinner " is up to date about race. Among the scenes which must be seen to be believed are all the gals gathered around a campfire, singing. Inexplicable characters wander through the film from time to time, including John Hurt in drag as the Countess and Sean Young and Even Cowgirls Get the Blues Reeves in cameos which depend heavily on our notion of how cool they are to be in these cameos. As one of the witnesses to that occasion, I remember the hush that descended upon the theater during the screening; it was not so much an absence of noise as Even Cowgirls Get the Blues palpable presence of stunned silence. The movie was set to open shortly after, but was pulled by its distributor for "more editing. This is one of the wide open spaces of recent cinema. Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Even Cowgirls Get the Blues Sun-Times from until his death in Inhe won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism. Uma Thurman as Sissy Hankshaw. Rain Phoenix as Bonanza Jellybean. Keanu Reeves as Julian Gitche. John Hurt as The Countess. Roger Ebert May 20, Now streaming on:. Powered by JustWatch. Science Fiction. Now playing. Black Box Nick Allen. Small Axe: Mangrove Odie Henderson. Teenage Badass Simon Abrams. The Sounding Tomris Laffly. Film Credits. Latest blog posts. Even Cowgirls Get the Blues by Tom Robbins: | : Books Young girls. Yet their rebellion at the Rubber Rose Ranch is almost overshadowed by the arrival of the legendary Even Cowgirls Get the Blues Hankshaw, a white-trash goddess literally born to hitchhike, and the freest female of them all. As his robust Even Cowgirls Get the Blues attempt to turn the tables on fate, the reader is drawn along on a tragicomic joyride across the badlands of sexuality, wild rivers of language, and the frontiers of the mind. When you buy a book, we donate a book. Sign in. Halloween Books for Kids. Read An Excerpt. Apr 01, ISBN Add to Cart. Also available from:. Jun 17, ISBN Available from:. Paperback —. Also by Tom Robbins. Product Details. Inspired by Your Browsing History. Deadeye Dick. Kurt Vonnegut. Gold Fame Citrus. Claire Vaye Watkins. Chuck Palahniuk. White Tears. David Mitchell. Bleeding Edge. Thomas Pynchon. George Saunders. Bret Easton Ellis. Man Walks Into a Room. Nicole Krauss. Tell the Machine Goodnight. Katie Williams. Look at Me. Jennifer Egan. Hocus Pocus. The Unit. Ninni Holmqvist. Lunar Park. Tom McCarthy. Independence Day. Richard Ford. Super Sad True Love Story. Gary Shteyngart. The Broom of the System. David Foster Wallace. The Lost Weekend. Charles Jackson. Skinny Legs and All. Inherent Vice. On the Beach. The Intuitionist. Colson Whitehead. Player Piano. Mildred Pierce. James M. Shades of Grey. Jasper Fforde. Jitterbug Perfume. Fever Dream. Samanta Schweblin. Other Voices, Other Rooms. Truman Capote. Buy other books like Even Cowgirls Get the Blues.
Recommended publications
  • Tom Robbins on Creativity
    m a p s • v o l u m e X n u m b e r 3 • c r e a t i v i t y 2 0 0 0 27 Robbins Rants Tom Robbins is the author of numerous books, including Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates, Still Life with Woodpecker, Skinny Legs and All, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues and Another Roadside Attraction. feelings or experiences that sponta- neously wish to arise. It may take THE TIN CAN was invented in 1811. The can opener was not invented exploring with different attitudes until 1855. In the intervening 44 years, people were obliged to access and occasionally focusing our their pork ’n’ beans with a hammer and chisel. attention on various considerations, Now, the psychedelic can opener, the device that most efficiently especially if we are prone to getting opens the tin of higher consciousness, was discovered thousands of years tense by trying too hard. Things that ago and put to beneficial use by shamans and their satellites well before may work in one situation may not the advent of what we like to call “civilization.” Yet, inconceivably, work the next time, and a fresh modern society has flung that proven instrument into the sin bin, forcing approach is required. And since we its citizens to seek access to the most nourishing of all canned goods with are all different, results may well the psychological equivalent of a hammer and chisel. (I’m referring to vary considerably from person to Freudian analysis and the various, numberless self-realization tech- person.
    [Show full text]
  • AN ABSTRACT of the THESIS of Cxnthia M. Akers for the Master Of
    AN ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS OF Cxnthia M. Akers for the Master of Arts in English presented on 8 Ma;y 1986 Title: From Bubblegum to Personism: The C;ycle of Choice in the Novels of Tom Robbins Abstract approved: ~ s/~¥C--;--:.- The four novels of Tom Robbins, Another Roadside Attraction, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, Still Life with Woodpecker, and Jitterbug Perfume, represent an apparent shift by Robbins from the post-modernist conventions in his first two novels to certain conventions of mimetic literature in his last two novels. Robbins' critics as yet have not adequately explained this shift, nor have they defined a central theme in his fiction. However, Robbins reveals in his last two novels that a controlling theme, choice, is pre­ sent in all four novels. The existence of this theme, which consists of a two-part cycle, explains the movement in Robbins' fiction from non-linear to linear structures. Robbins' gradual awareness of his theme also indicates that his novels have progressed not from a post-modernist to a mimetic literature, but from the techniques of bubblegum fiction to the aesthetic of personism. Robbins' theme of choice manifests itself in the response of the reader to each novel, which in turn affects the roles of the thematic character who embodies choice and the narrator of each novel. In Robbins' first two novels, the reader is a participant in the non-linear structures and a passive observer of the cycle of choice as it is represented by the static thematic characters and unreliable narrators of those novels.
    [Show full text]
  • The Role of Trickster Humor in Social Evolution William Gearty Murtha
    University of North Dakota UND Scholarly Commons Theses and Dissertations Theses, Dissertations, and Senior Projects January 2013 The Role Of Trickster Humor In Social Evolution William Gearty Murtha Follow this and additional works at: https://commons.und.edu/theses Recommended Citation Murtha, William Gearty, "The Role Of Trickster Humor In Social Evolution" (2013). Theses and Dissertations. 1578. https://commons.und.edu/theses/1578 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses, Dissertations, and Senior Projects at UND Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of UND Scholarly Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE ROLE OF TRICKSTER HUMOR IN SOCIAL EVOLUTION by William Gearty Murtha Bachelor of Arts, University of North Dakota, 1998 A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the University of North Dakota in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Grand Forks, North Dakota December 2013 PERMISSION Title The Role of Trickster Humor in Social Evolution Department English Degree Master of Arts In presenting this thesis in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a graduate degree from the University of North Dakota, I agree that the library of this University shall make it freely available for inspection. I further agree that permission for extensive copying for scholarly purposes may be granted by the professor who supervised my thesis work or, in his absence, by the Chairperson of the department or his dean of the Graduate School. It is understood that any copying or publication or other use of this thesis or part thereof for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission.
    [Show full text]
  • TOM ROBBINS Mark Twain with an Illegal Smile
    TOM ROBBINS Mark Twain with an Illegal Smile n what TIME magazine deemed “the year that changed the world,” Tom Robbins em- bodied the Altered States of America. Robbins, 36, was an Air Force veteran, grad school Idropout and seasoned journalist. He had been an art critic for The Seattle Times until he famously quit one day by calling in “well.” By 1968 he was mustache-deep in countercul- ture. He hosted a free-form radio show called Notes from The Underground on non-com- mercial KRAB, “the only station in America with macrobiotic kilowatts.” He wrote for Helix, Seattle’s underground paper. He found his writing voice there, he declared, with a concert review the previous year. It began: “On July 23 and 24, Eagles Auditorium was raped and pillaged, anointed and sanctified by The Doors.” Reviewing Jimi Hendrix’s 1968 “homecoming” Seattle concert, Robbins called the revolutionary guitarist “Oscar Wilde in Egyptian drag” and said, “What he lacks in content, he makes up in style.” Seattle’s distractions proved too much, though, for the aspiring novelist who hailed from North Carolina hill country but fell for Washington’s firs and ferns, its sloughs and salmon. In 1968, Robbins decamped to tiny South Bend in Pacific County where he and his girlfriend Terrie Lunden rented a place for $8 a month. They grazed on restaurant leftovers she brought home from waitressing. “I finally figured if I was going to write this book, I had to get out of town,” he said. “This book” turned out to be Another Roadside Attraction, a fantastical novel of out- laws and Buddhism, mischief and metaphysics, erotica and exotica.
    [Show full text]
  • Realism, Multivocality, and the Margins Of
    EXTRAORDINARY OBJECTS, EXCEPTIONAL SUBJECTS: MAGIC(AL) REALISM, MULTIVOCALITY, AND THE MARGINS OF EXPERIENCE IN THE WORKS OF TOM ROBBINS A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in English in the University of Canterbury Sionainn Emily Byrnes University of Canterbury New Zealand 2015 Table of Contents i TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................ ii Abstract ................................................................................................................................. iii Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 1 Chapter One: Alternative Realities and the Extraordinary Object .................................. 6 Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 6 The Emergence of the Magic(al) Realist Genre .................................................................. 7 Postmodernism and Identity Politics ................................................................................. 13 Still Life with Woodpecker ................................................................................................. 18 Discursive Objects ............................................................................................................. 21 Object-Oriented Ontology ................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • A Comparative Study of Tom Robbins's Still Life with Woodpecker and Ishmael Reed's Flight to Canada Michael Philip Mattison Iowa State University
    Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Retrospective Theses and Dissertations Dissertations 1996 Un(Reed)ing Robbins: a comparative study of Tom Robbins's Still Life with Woodpecker and Ishmael Reed's Flight to Canada Michael Philip Mattison Iowa State University Follow this and additional works at: https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/rtd Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Mattison, Michael Philip, "Un(Reed)ing Robbins: a comparative study of Tom Robbins's Still Life with Woodpecker and Ishmael Reed's Flight to Canada" (1996). Retrospective Theses and Dissertations. 16190. https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/rtd/16190 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Dissertations at Iowa State University Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Retrospective Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Iowa State University Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Un(Reed)ing Robbins: A comparative study of Tom Robbins's Still Life with Woodpecker and Ishmael Reed's Flight to Canada by Michael Philip Mattison A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS DePartment: English r: English (Literature) Signatures have been redacted for privacy Iowa State University Ames, Iowa 1996 ii TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCflON 1 "A" IS FOR AUTHOR 13 MYTHISTORY 32 CONCLUSION 63 1 INTRODUCTION "In 1968 the student movement had swept across Europe, striking against the authoritarianism of the education institutions and in France briefly threatening the capitalist state itself.
    [Show full text]
  • Tom Robbins: a Man Doing Feminism Through His Fiction
    1. Introduction This thesis, entitled “Tom Robbins: A Man Doing Feminism through His Fiction” 1, explores the novels written by Tom Robbins and focuses on their feminist aspects. Strikingly, even though Robbins is a male author, his novels are abounding with feminist ideas. Nevertheless, there is some disagreement among feminists as to whether Robbins should or should not be considered a feminist author. One of the objectives of this thesis, therefore, is to provide sufficient evidence, by means of analyzing three of his novels, to prove that Tom Robbins indeed is a feminist author. Due to the fact that the story of his second novel, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues 2, centers around feminist movement and its related isssues, I will demur at Robbins’s connection to contemporary feminist movement. Thus, at the beginning of the thesis, I explore the feminist debates of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. For the purpose of this thesis, the period of the turn of the decades is significant for two reasons: it marks the re-emergence of feminist movement which, at that time, became a cultural and political phenomenon. The other reason for which I focus on such a narrow period of time lies in the fact that Robbins started to publish his novels in 1971 and the feminist debates of the day clearly had an impact on and are reflected in the story of Cowgirls , published in 1976, the most feminist of Robbins’s novels. Apparently, it was the feminist debates of that period which provided food for thought for the young author and influenced him in such a way that he himself became profeminist.
    [Show full text]
  • Even Cowgirls Get the Blues
    EVEN COWGIRLS GET THE BLUES Written by Gus Van Sant Based on a novel by Tom Robbins SHOOTING DRAFT 1993 INT. CAVE NIGHT There is a huge ancient hourglass made of animal skins, and acorns plop through the waist of the hourglass one by one. It sits in a pool of water. In the water swim EYELESS CATFISH in geometric patterns. An underground stream feeds the pool of water and then flows into a huge underground crevasse that on occasion emits a LOW RUMBLE. INDIANS with torches surround the hourglass, which now we can see is in a cave. And as soon as the acorns have finished passing through the hourglass, a crew of Indians turn it on its opposite end. One of the Indians appears to be JAPANESE. ONE INDIAN stands at the wall of the cavern in front of a series of symbolic carvings and scratches, with stone in hand he makes a few hatchmarks, and keeps an eye on the CREVASSE. THE CREVASSE RUMBLES once more, loosening a few chunks of rock from the cave. The earth begins to shake. THE CHART KEEPER She is restless tonight. ANOTHER INDIAN She dreams of loving. STILL ANOTHER She has the blues. View of the chartkeeper's drawings. One is of a crane with a very long neck. Another is a primitive drawing of a naked girl, who has long flowing hair. She also has, pointed out from her sides, thumbs that are three times normal human proportions. A MUSICAL CHORUS sounds at the sight of this drawing of a girl with the thumbs.
    [Show full text]
  • Another Roadside Attraction Tom Robbins Reissue
    ANOTHER ROADSIDE ATTRACTION TOM ROBBINS REISSUE SALES POINTS: Tom Robbins is an international bestseller with a worldwide following Robbins' debut novel bears all the wild signature characteristics that have th Pub. date: 17 August 2012 made him famous Price: £12.99 ISBN13: 978-1-84243-129-0 DESCRIPTION: Binding: Paperback Another Roadside Attraction. An Apocalyptic Entertainment. Format: B (198 x 219mm) A Metaphysical Suspense. Extent: 352pp What if the Second Coming didn't quite come off as advertised? What if "the Corpse" on UK and Commonwealth Rights: excl. Canada display in that funky roadside zoo is really who they say it is - what does that portend for Market Not for sale in the USA the future of western civilization? And what if a young clairvoyant named Amanda re- Restrictions: & Canada establishes the flea circus as popular entertainment and fertility worship as the principal Market: Fiction religious form of our high-tech age? BIC code: FA Rpt. Code: RI Another Roadside Attraction answers those questions and a lot more. It tells us, for example, what the sixties were truly all about, not by reporting on the psychedelic decade but by recreating it, from the inside out. CRITICAL PRAISE: critical acclaim: "written with a style and humour that haven't been seen since Mark Twain..." For a review copy, or for further - Los Angeles Times information, "Tom Robbins has a grasp on things that dazzles the brain and he's also a world-class please contact: Alexandra Bolton storyteller..." - Thomas Pynchon Tel: 01582 766 348 Mob: 07824
    [Show full text]
  • Filozofická Fakulta Univerzity Palackého
    Filozofická fakulta Univerzity Palackého KATEDRA ANGLISTIKY A AMERIKANISTIKY How to Stay in Love Forever? Themes and Principles of Romantic Love in Tom Robbins's Jitterbug Perfume (BAKALÁRSKA PRÁCA) Autor: Emília Karisná (Anglická filológia- Japonská filológia) Vedúci práce: Mgr. David Livingstone, Ph.D. Olomouc 2012 | 2 Prehlasujem, že som túto bakalársku prácu vypracovala samostatne a uviedla som úplný zoznam citovanej a použitej literatúry. V Olomouci dňa 21.8.2012 ................................................. | 3 I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisor Mgr. David Livingstone PhD. for his professional help, patience, kindness, encouragement and resourceful comments that contributed to the successful completion of my thesis. I also would like to thank Prof. Dr. Bernd Herzogenrath for his kindness, helpfulness and willingness to help with finding source material for my thesis. Last, but not least, my thanks belong to Renáta Foltanovičová for her help and encouragement. | 4 Contents 1. INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................... 5 2. BIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................ 7 3. CULTURAL CONTEXT ........................................................................................ 10 The Counterculture ...................................................................................................... 10 The Sexual Revolution ...............................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • The Search for Temporal Transcendence in the Novels of Aldous Huxley and Tom Robbins
    Expunging Father Time: The Search for Temporal Transcendence in the Novels of Aldous Huxley and Tom Robbins A Thesis Submitted to The Faculty of the School of Communication In Candidacy for the Degree of Master of Arts in English By Stephanie Abigail Taylor May 1, 2009 ii Liberty University School of Communication Master of Arts in English ____________________________________________________________________ Dr. Emily Heady Thesis Chair Date ____________________________________________________________________ Dr. Karen Prior First Reader Date ____________________________________________________________________ Dr. Chene Heady Second Reader Date iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Table of Contents ……………………………………………………………………………….. iii Introduction………………………………………………………………………….................... 1 Chapter 1: “Time’s Misdeeds (or Misuse)”....…………………………………………………….4 Section 1: Historical Overview of the Concept of Time…………………………………..4 Section 2: Historical Overview of Time Measurement………………………………….33 Chapter 2: “The Cage Must Be Broken: Aldous Huxley’s View of Time”…..………………….41 Chapter 3: “The Gatekeeper Remains Intact: Tom Robbins’ View of Time”…………………...74 Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………………………..104 Works Cited .…………………………………………………………………………………...108 1 Introduction: The nature of time is elusive, always slipping through man’s grasp because of its complexity. Time is intangible, yet man attempts to measure it; time seems sometimes to progress in a straight line and at others proceed in cycles; the passing of time also leads to both good and evil.
    [Show full text]
  • Tom Robbins' Chink: a Posthumous Zarathustra
    Wright State University CORE Scholar Philosophy Faculty Publications Religion, Philosophy, and Classics 1979 Tom Robbins' Chink: A Posthumous Zarathustra Charles Taylor Wright State University - Main Campus, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://corescholar.libraries.wright.edu/philosophy Part of the Continental Philosophy Commons Repository Citation Taylor, C. (1979). Tom Robbins' Chink: A Posthumous Zarathustra. https://corescholar.libraries.wright.edu/philosophy/7 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Religion, Philosophy, and Classics at CORE Scholar. It has been accepted for inclusion in Philosophy Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of CORE Scholar. For more information, please contact [email protected]. by Charles Senn Taylor TOM ROBBINS’ CHINK A POSTHUMOUS ZARATHUSTRA Copyright © 1979 The Enigma Press For KIM Among the graffiti found in Boston in the early 1970’s was the suggestion, "Martin Heidegger is a Zen Buddhist”; I expect that today one would find it accom­ panied by, "The Chink is a Nietzschean”. The "Chink” referred to here is of course the anti-guru of Tom Robbins’ Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (hereafter referred to as Cowgirls). The thought about the Chink pre­ sented here originates in studying Robbins’ protagonist, Sissy Hankshaw. Sissy is a unique heroine in a number of ways but most importantly because she goes on a quest. In ppntrast to most female quests in contem­ porary fiction Sissy’s quest is quite like that described for the male-only hero of Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Sissy quests for those ultimate truths that Campbell’s heroes seek rather than for the love that her literary sisters traditionally have sought.
    [Show full text]