A Great Quote from Tom Robbins
I just started reading
Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins, which was recommended to me by David (otherwise known as
Pagan Topologist.) The very first sentences of this novel are absolutely priceless:
THE BEET IS THE MOST INTENSE of vegetables. The radish, admittedly, is more feverish, but the fire of the radish is a cold fire, the fire of discontent not of passion. Tomatoes are lusty enough, yet there runs through tomatoes an undercurrent of frivolity. Beets are deadly serious. Slavic peoples get their physical characteristics from potatoes, their smoldering inquietude from radishes, their seriousness from beets.
As a Slavic person (and a passionate lover of beets, potatoes and radishes), I can testify to the surprising aptness of this sentence.
1 comment:
My first daughter once had a tape recording of Tom Robbins quoting that passage in a speech she heard him give. Apparently it has been lost. He was one of several writers giving a workshop for young writers, and the lectures were available for sale. I sometimes wonder whether it is still available for sale somewhere.
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