Still Life with Woodpecker - a book review

"The tears of the Princess, if placed end to end, would have circled Seattle like a moat.
The tears of the Princess, if dammed, would have provided refuge for the hunted whale and moorage for the Ship of Fools."

- Tom Robbins ( excerpt from Still Life with Woodpecker)


Still Life with Woodpecker is a love story that makes one feel the depth of despair of a woman in love.


 The tears of such a woman are the sacred tears -  they are endless like the ocean of her aching soul. When she cries, snows fall in avalanches from the mountains. When she sobs, rains pour over the city, filling earth with salt.  She cries gently but passionately, burying her head deep in the heart of the pillow, searching for the softness of her lover’s touch, reinventing images from the past, going over all the things that went wrong and all the terrible things she had to endure in the name of love.  Feeling forsaken, misunderstood, abandoned and deserted, she weeps a plea of justice.  But knowing that love is unfair and often unforgiving, she dwells in her misery, narrowing her eyebrows in pain and wishing she could call him and tell him how much it hurts and blame him for everything he did to her and make him repent. But her pride would not allow it.

 If you have ever felt such pain, you would know that her will to live is stronger than her grief.  You would know that her mind is more powerful and conniving than an army of angry ninjas.  Oh, but if you knew at least half of what she has survived, you would not stand in the way of her happiness. You would not hope falsely to posses her heart for, although she smiles brightly and her voice sounds chipper and sweet, her heart is shut tight, and she is determined to slay every man who dares to ask her for the kind of love she managed to survive.

Yet, a day will come when she will move on and meet the kind of man who will instill trust and comfort in her doubting head. And when such man will come, she will forget the one, who once has caused her so much pain.  With time, she would not even be able to remember his face and she will wonder why she was so in love with him and, without finding an answer, she will shrug her shoulders and curl up next to her new love and drift asleep peacefully.

"So Princess ... blew her nose. She sat her bare buttocks on the cot wires, careful not to snag anything. She thought for a while... Then she smiled. She turned to Gulietta. her voice was determined and gay.
    "Bring me A'ben Fizel," she said."

(c) - same as above