"...to emphasize the afterlife is to deny life. To concentrate on heaven is to create hell." -- Tom Robbins
The author I begin with is Tom Robbins. The guy just exudes coolness. He's so cool that his publicist has advised him to never appear in public without sunglasses or his glare might instantly turn the room into a walk-in cooler, prompting pointy nipples of his adoring fans. I have read near about everything that the man has written. Robbins writing is comic, yet intelligent, perverted, yet poignant. His characters often launch into philosophic diatribes about many topics, the most prevalent of which is religion. In what I consider to be his best book,
Skinny Legs and All, the Seven Veils of Salome are dropped in each part of the book revealing the truth behind the seven "illusions" that obscure humanity's potential. The characters in his books are often whimsical and have included, Pan (
Jitterbug Perfume), Tanuki, a badger like demigod who parachutes from heaven by his scrotum only to cause mischief amongst the mortals (
Villa Incognito), and the unlikely quintet of a dirty ol' sock, a can of beans, a dessert spoon, a painted stick and a conch shell (
Skinny Legs and All). No topic is taboo with Robbins, and you often find his characters engaged in activities that would make a porn star blush. But the real beauty of his books is the factual (and obscure) information that he weaves into his stories. Robbins is well versed in theology, and by reading his books as a young undergraduate, I learned a lot of trivia about religion, most of which has been relegated to that dusty old box in my memory labeled "things I used to know."
But the moral is, the guy is cool. So cool that he has now decided to write a children's book.... about beer.
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