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"All Carolina folk are crazy for mayonnaise, mayonnaise is as ambrosia to them, the food of their tarheeled gods. Mayonnaise comforts them, causes the vowels to slide more musically along their slow tongues, appeasing their grease-conditioned taste buds while transporting those buds to a plane higher than lard could ever hope to fly. Yellow as summer sunlight, soft as young thighs, smooth as a Baptist preacher's rant, falsely innocent as a magicians handkerchief, mayonnaise will cloak a lettuce leaf, some shreds of cabbage, a few hunks of cold potato in the simplest splendor, recycling their dull character, making them lively and attractive again, granting them the capacity to delight the gullet if not the heart..."

Now, that's the way you praise a condiment.


I shall forever compare all descriptions of spreadable edible goods to this passage. So, truly, when the meat of a story is missing, it is the mark of a good writer (we'll keep the word "author" out of this for now) who can keep the audience with him. There's even a whole plot element of the story which includes a weird kind of mystical bestiality with a large-scrotumed animal god I've neglected to mention.

But, that all remains a side detail--the real key to this book is in the descriptions and details--I promise you will never look at bestiality with a large-scrotumed animal god the same.

After grazing through the darkened and friendless corners of the web where Tom Robbins fans gather, the general conclusion seems to be that Villa is among his weakest work. Having nothing else to compare it to, I won't. If you're a person who hasn't had the pleasure of skipping through Robbins' mind for a bit, Villa seems a good diving board. And look at it this way, if all the web geeks are right, it can only get better from here.