Villa Incognito

infobox Book |
name = Villa Incognito
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption = Cover of first edition (hardcover)
author = Tom Robbins
illustrator =
cover_artist =
country = United States
language = English
series =
genre = Novel
publisher = Bantam Books
release_date = 2003
english_release_date =
media_type = Print (Hardcover & Paperback)
pages = 241 pp
isbn = ISBN 0-553-80332-8
preceded_by =
followed_by = Bantam Doubleday Dell (US) and Random House (Australia) published "Villa Incognito" in April and June 2003, respectively. One of the most quoted lines from the book is the very first, setting the tone for this Tom Robbins adventure: "It has been reported that Tanuki fell from the sky using his scrotum as a parachute."

Plot introduction

"Villa Incognito" begins with the story of Tanuki, a raccoon-like Asian creature with a reputation as a shapeshifter and trickster with a lust for sake and women. It should be noted that Tanuki is a tanuki; a member of the species named for him. The cast also includes a beautiful young woman who has unconfirmed Tanuki-blood in her veins (but definitely has a chrysanthemum seed embedded in the roof of her mouth), and three American MIAs who have "chosen" to be "lost" in Laos, long after U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War ended. Typical Robbins-esque debacles ensue when one of the MIAs is arrested with heroin taped to his body, while dressed as a priest. Meanwhile, two sisters of one of the missing American soldiers are still searching for their lost relative, unfolding bizarre plot twists that paint a caricature of life in a Post-9/11 America.

Writing style

The author expresses his ideals by punching holes into the military, big business and religions. Such ideas as sexual congress are remarkably expressed by his prose regarding the copulation of a grown man and a 16 year-old girl:

"For them not to have fucked then and there would have required such a reversal of the laws of nature as to cause Newton to spin in his coffin and NASA to discontinue the space program."

The work has a flow of metaphors and similies, with phrases like: "He crooned the way a can of cheap dog food might croon if a can of cheap dog food had a voice"; "Dickie's heart felt suddenly like an iron piano with barbwire strings and scorpions for keys."

Interpreting the author's meaning

The extracts show how Robbins depicts events in an individualistic way. The approach might be vulgar, disgusting, absurd, or even offensive to the reader, but it is intentional. The desired effect is a disturbance just large enough to make the reader see it "his" way, allowing the readers to enjoy an unusual perspective on the event.

Sexual themes

Tom Robbins tends to compare objects with and emphasize genitalia in all things he writes, but his books are never "about" sex. More often they show sex as a strange, unnatural force that sweeps up the people (and in this case, demi-gods and woodland beings) mentioned in his novels. "Villa Incognito" is like Robbins' other works in that it has multiple plot threads woven together in diverse and seemingly unrelated ways.

The author understands that before his reader can truly appreciate the message he wants to deliver, he must align their perceptions, even if only slightly, to that of his characters. Using sex, a common taboo in western cultures, is one way he draws a line of relationship between his fictional characters and his readers. This tactic has been used liberally throughout history by professional authors, the Scriptor tantalized the minds of his readers in his depictions of the excesses of ancient Rome, while more recently Nathaniel Hawthorne similarly shocked his readers with sexual themes in his work "The Scarlet Letter".

The Importance of Tanuki

At 256 pages, "Villa Incognito" is a self-confessed hedonistic yet gleeful work, with the author himself referring to the central character Tanuki as an "Asian combination of, say, Falstaff and Zorba the Greek." Perhaps the best explanation of the nature of "Villa Incognito" is in another example of the writing, found in this description of Tanuki's music:

"... the drumming sound, one intuits, that the heart used to make before the heart was domesticated and yoked; the thump of pure appetite, (so pure it is almost holy); the pounding pulse of some sweet and terrible unnamed joy. Pla-bonga pla-bonga pla-bonga."

A sense of freedom of movement and being is embodied within the furry confines of the immoral Tanuki, and this pure (and yet lusty) celebration of life and living is what "Villa Incognito" is about. His characters are aware of their station in life, they understand their circumstances and accept them.

* For further understanding, Wikipedia has a lengthy article discussing the being known as Tanuki (or tanuki) in both fact and fiction.

External links

* [http://www.rain.org/~da5e/tom_robbins.html AFTRlife] - A Tom Robbins playground (fansite)
* [http://archivesofamericanart.si.edu/oralhist/robbin84.htm A 1984 interview with Tom Robbins]
* [http://www.rain.org/~da5e/trbio.html From Blowing Rock to Windy Cliff: A Tentative Chronology]
* [http://www.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_id=5456 A biographical essay]
* [http://www.sirbacon.org/4membersonly/robbins.htm Basking Robbins Interview]