by Tom Robbins
The latest book by enduring hippie oracle Tom Robbins is as much rant as novel. The narrative swirls around a misanthropic idealist and CIA dropout named Switters, who lusts after his 16-year-old stepsister in Seattle, eats a parrot, is cursed by a Peruvian shaman, discovers the lost prophecy of the Virgin of Fátima in the Syrian desert and has sex with a nun—in other words, typical Rob-bins mania. Though his love of wordplay is entertaining, the author and his alter ego too often become enraptured with the wheeze of their own "verbal bagpipes" (to use a phrase from the book) as they assail the evils of today's culture, from college football to corporate totalitarianism. The result? The cartoonish pleasures of the plot are drowned by the din. (Bantam, $27.50)
Bottom Line: Philosophical screwball comedy
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