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reading & insomnia
Oct. 13th, 2021 12:35 pm Been dealing with some ridiculous insomnia lately...2-3 nights a week I just *cannot* get to sleep. Doesn't matter what I eat or drink before bed, doesn't seem to be related to having something important to do the next day, or a lot of tasks that need to get done, or a racing mind. There's no 'race' it's just.....this sludgy blah of just cant' sleep. Too hot, sounds, smells, who the hell knows. It's frustrating. I don't want to get into a habit of taking something every night, but maybe I will have to. I like Solaray-17 best but the OllY sleep gummies are alright too. Melatonin makes me feel dopey the next day, though, if I take it too late at night. I have to decide to take the Ollys no later than 9pm or I'm kind of a zombie in the morning.
Anyhoo.....last night was another insomnia night so I stayed up and finished a book I'd been re-reading. Skinny Legs and All, by Tom Robbins. I remember that I really used to like his writing, I found it profound and philosophical, witty and clever, I loved the characters and the conversations and the author's asides and expositions. This reading did not feel good to me, though. The dancer in the book who does the dance of the 7 veils is a 16 year old girl. The patrons of the restaurant are enthralled and in lust with her, and the observation that she has the air of a woman resisting someone's sexual advances before she starts dancing but then her dancing shows the woman finally 'giving in' to passion [to the rapist, he means]. They say and think really gross things about her, including one bar patron making a lewd trumpish remark about what if that was his daughter. It was really super, super gross. I'd noticed in some of his more recent novels that there is generally kind of a dirty old man sage/philosopher/priest/hermit type and a young pretty girl who is somehow enthralled with him, and in between bouts of tantric sex the old man goes on (and ON) about life, politics, religion, sex, ancient deities, bla bla bla, and the girl just kind of oohs and ahhs and when she's not quite clever enough to understand what he's talking about, she decides to distract him with a blow job or something. It's....gross. It feels like grooming. Like, the young women who read these novels and think they are learning edgy things about pop psychology and pop culture are actually being set up to find an older man and become his sex-kitten. I guess it's one thing to read these novels when one is a coltish young ingenue, you get caught up in the philosophizing and the fetishization of your youth, innocence, sexual abundance, etc. You feel like the one in charge because there is a this whole book dedicated to how badly all these dudes want to sniff your panties. But are there mature women? Are there *whole* women? Are re there complete women--women who exist in their own right with no complicated and sick sexual-philosophical mentorship that somehow makes them who they are? Are there older wise women who get to have it off with young studs and impart their smart-ass philosophy? nope nope nope. These women are vehicles for the author to implant his prurient fantasies and off-the-wall blathering. Not humans, not actual people. Sweet little pussies with wide eyes and some odd personality quirk. Just another manic pixie dream girl fantasy. Creepy and gross.
I feel like I've made this 'discovery' about Robbins before and I'm just rehashing something I already realized that disappointed me. Anyway, that book was falling apart from me having it for so long and having re-read it so many times. So I tossed it. yay decluttering. I feel like some of his other books (earlier books?) are not as pedophilic, rapey, and gross but I wonder if re-reading them will reveal this as a common thread running through all of them. I also feel like Robbins is the kind of person who would say, in a terribly supercilious mansplain-ish tone "It's not pedophilia, it's ephebophilia!" Like that somehow makes it OK. Anyhoo...the world keeps turning. I have errands to run. I was thinking of getting Flavio some new dice to take with him on his journey. I'm definitely putting a Tesla coin in his coffin, if I can.
Anyhoo.....last night was another insomnia night so I stayed up and finished a book I'd been re-reading. Skinny Legs and All, by Tom Robbins. I remember that I really used to like his writing, I found it profound and philosophical, witty and clever, I loved the characters and the conversations and the author's asides and expositions. This reading did not feel good to me, though. The dancer in the book who does the dance of the 7 veils is a 16 year old girl. The patrons of the restaurant are enthralled and in lust with her, and the observation that she has the air of a woman resisting someone's sexual advances before she starts dancing but then her dancing shows the woman finally 'giving in' to passion [to the rapist, he means]. They say and think really gross things about her, including one bar patron making a lewd trumpish remark about what if that was his daughter. It was really super, super gross. I'd noticed in some of his more recent novels that there is generally kind of a dirty old man sage/philosopher/priest/hermit type and a young pretty girl who is somehow enthralled with him, and in between bouts of tantric sex the old man goes on (and ON) about life, politics, religion, sex, ancient deities, bla bla bla, and the girl just kind of oohs and ahhs and when she's not quite clever enough to understand what he's talking about, she decides to distract him with a blow job or something. It's....gross. It feels like grooming. Like, the young women who read these novels and think they are learning edgy things about pop psychology and pop culture are actually being set up to find an older man and become his sex-kitten. I guess it's one thing to read these novels when one is a coltish young ingenue, you get caught up in the philosophizing and the fetishization of your youth, innocence, sexual abundance, etc. You feel like the one in charge because there is a this whole book dedicated to how badly all these dudes want to sniff your panties. But are there mature women? Are there *whole* women? Are re there complete women--women who exist in their own right with no complicated and sick sexual-philosophical mentorship that somehow makes them who they are? Are there older wise women who get to have it off with young studs and impart their smart-ass philosophy? nope nope nope. These women are vehicles for the author to implant his prurient fantasies and off-the-wall blathering. Not humans, not actual people. Sweet little pussies with wide eyes and some odd personality quirk. Just another manic pixie dream girl fantasy. Creepy and gross.
I feel like I've made this 'discovery' about Robbins before and I'm just rehashing something I already realized that disappointed me. Anyway, that book was falling apart from me having it for so long and having re-read it so many times. So I tossed it. yay decluttering. I feel like some of his other books (earlier books?) are not as pedophilic, rapey, and gross but I wonder if re-reading them will reveal this as a common thread running through all of them. I also feel like Robbins is the kind of person who would say, in a terribly supercilious mansplain-ish tone "It's not pedophilia, it's ephebophilia!" Like that somehow makes it OK. Anyhoo...the world keeps turning. I have errands to run. I was thinking of getting Flavio some new dice to take with him on his journey. I'm definitely putting a Tesla coin in his coffin, if I can.
