It had been a while since my last Tom Robbins book and Jitterbug Perfume is the one I broke my inadvertent fast with. I can’t remember ever not liking one of his books. They’re always funny and philosophical. This one talks about scent, Pan, immortality and individuality. It’s now my favourite of his.
There’s a whole treatise near the end about evolution bringing consciousness from the reptilian brain to the mammalian brain and soon we will need to transition to the floral brain. That section might not be worth the price of admission alone, but mostly because you need the rest of the book to put it in context. I also love Robbins’ use of puns and other tricks of language as he moves through vaguely serious issues in a vaguely serious but completely irreverent way. There’s something about the scholarly tone he uses mixed up with clever metaphor that I wish I could do myself.
I didn’t like the philoso-babble at the end about evolution. And it’s not because I don’t understand evolution, but maybe it’s because I am a biologist and do understand evolution. The new age take on nature present throughout the book really grated on me. Robbins knows how to write, and his mastery of pacing the story was impressive. The elements built well on each other, but it was all caked in rambling, pseudo-science. Maybe this wasn’t the best book to read as an introduction to his work.