ot

24 - Wednesday, May 9, 1990 - North Shore News

books

Tom Robbins delivers
Skinny Legs and All

processor keyboard.

Apatt from its role as a
20th century techno-tool it
has no importance as it
bobs/bobbed/will bob hap-
hazardly in the generai ebb
and flow of the space-time
continuum. Noy, for that
matter, do the 7,743 pages
stacked beside the keyboard
(or so they are perceived}
and yet...

Yet...

Both serve as a cosmic warning
that reality as we know it is not at
all as we thought/think it is. Even
as we and every other bressed
speck of spatial jetsam hotfaot it
away from the scene of the Big
Bang like kids fleeing a broken
window, there are some things we
can’t run away from whether we
accept il or not.

In fact, according to several
theorie: of universal physics, you
can’t run away from anything
since ‘to’ and ‘from’ exist con-
currently in both space and time
and ... welf, never mind.

Welcome to the First and Maybe
Last Annual Tom Robbins Festival
featuring strange titles and a dash
of truth. Not ‘Truth’ with a capital
‘T’, not the truth as defined by
(what else?) a definite adjective
but the thing that lurks behind the
false facades of common belief.

Or at least those facades we've
been able to identify so far.

Tom Robbins’ Skinny Legs and
All (Bantam; 422 pp.; $24.95) con-
fronts all of the above: space,
time, perception and the fallacy of
believing in absolutes. it also
might be said to celebrate lust,
blasphemy and inanimate objects
ranging from cans of beans to cer-
tain marital aids.

Skinny Legs and All is nominally
about an Arab and a Jew who
open a restaurant in New York Ci-
ty. Within two weeks of this amaz-
ing act of culinary cooperation,
Isaac & Ishmael’s is fire-bombed.

Suspects include fundamentalist
Christians, Jews and Muslims who

| have befare me a word

Vancouver
254-1000

Your Host

Bill Bennett
of the

Coast Atrium Hotel

invites you ta a $

Mother's Dy,

Mediterranean

Brunch Buffet
Featuring many taste delights including gourmet pusta
dishes prepared especially for this very special occasion,

Sunday, May 13th.
$16.95 Adults, $12.95 6-12 yr. olds, 6 & under free

For reservations call

© The Coast
Atrium Inn
2889 East Hastings Street

Every Sunday The Atritan features
Mediterranean Brunch

MIKE
STEELE 4

book review

are more than a touch miffed at
the prospect of rapprochement
between any two or more rival
religions.

In fact, a crazed Baptist minister
and a group of radica! rabbis are
so affected by the possibility that
they (paradoxically) form an un-
easy alliance whose main goal is to
precipitate the real ‘war to end abt
wars’: Armageddon.

But there are, of course, other
forces at work here as Robbins
roams freely through the
minefields and mindfields of
America and the Middle East.

He peers and probes at the in-
stitutions, prejudices and myths
that have led to the establishment
of major world religions in their
present form, pulling aside one
veil of illusion after anather until

Robbins rereleased

EACH TOM Robbins book is a
philosophical! journey slyly
disguised as a hip trip into the
quirky lives of characters who are,
generically if not genetically,
related to al! of us.

Catching these Sesser heroes and
heroines with their biases down
around their ankles is a Robbins
trademark gleefully applied to
each of his five novels that have
collectively sold over 3.5 million
copies since 1971.

To coincide with the publication
of Skinny Legs and All, Robbins’
first book in six years, Bantam has
released brand-new editions of all
four of his previous bestsellers:
Another Roadside Attraction
(1971), Even Cowgirls Get The
Blues (1976), Still Life With
Woodpecker (1980) aid Jitterbug
Perfume (1984),

doin Us for MOTHER'S DAY

BRUNCH 11:30 a.m-3 p.m.

_ from 35 5 to $12.95

dessert for all the
Ktom's wen this ad.

VA AAAA gl .
DINNER iS
from

5p.m.-10:30 p.m.

987-4610

some forms of truth are revealed
in all their naked glory.

Ana, naturally, he does this with
the typical Robbins caprice that
has made all of his books so
tremendously popular. His writing
style flirts with the obscure and the
enigmatic, only to rebound back
into reality — but usually a clearer
version of reality than the reader
previously recognized.

And, as do al) Robbins’ novels,
Skinny Legs and All is bound to of-
fend those who waliow in the
stagnant sloughs of sedimentary
thinking, perpetuating schisms of
gender, race and faith by clinging
to convention.

But this time Robbins may be in
for a rougher ride than usual. Toi-
erance, especially religious toler-
ance, is in short supply as the
much-abused author of The
Satanic Verses discavered.

Salman Rushdie wasn’t even
questioning Muslim tenets when
cretinous leaders of the ruling
Shiite faction of lran objected to
his novel and put a price on his
head.

Robbins does dissect the Jewish,
Christian and Muslim religions and
draws conclusions about these pa-
triarchal belief systems which
many will applaud as daringly log-
ical while others wiil condemn
them as profane.

Will publication of Skinny Legs
and All touch oif a new round of
book-burning. protests and deadly
edicts ar have the forces of intol-
erance finally vented their spleens?

Just in case it’s the former in-
stead of the fatter, you might want
to pick up your copy of Skinny
Legs and All while you still
can. But check it for dangling
wires, first.

“At the Sea Bus
Landing”
157 Chadwick Court
North Vancouver

gorgrous city Ow.

Reserve Now
ux call that romance

te ne,
For Mother's Day sunset, cundiehght

FOR MOTHER'S DAY?

WE'RE LOADED WITH GIFT IDEAS! !
SEWING BOOKS, BASKETS, NOTIONS
SCISSORS, DRESSFORMS

@ Pressing Equipment @ And Much Wore

CALL 439-3311
PRESS OR SPEAK

742 WESTVIEW CENTRE, NORTH VAN.
(ON THE UPPER LEVELS HWY.)
| OPEN DAILY 9:30-6:00 SUNDAY 12:00-5:00

S
NOTIONS e NOTIONS e NOTIONS = NOTION!

We will beat
any advertised
price of this

print on the
North Shore.

rN
N

14th Street|
Ostersens
a

345”

*295"

Suggested Retail

“AA SBDSUOT

Osterson’s Price