As the title promises — and as I sorely needed — we have here a whimsical and airy romp, which shifts between the remote past when ancient gods peopled the forests to what is more or less the present day, between the quest for the freedom of life eternal and the boring, uninspired way toward death. And as the book vacillated, so did I in my opinion of it.

As I said, my prescribed dose of whimsy was over due (all blindness and murder lately), and the irreverent and playful tone of the historical scenes were up to the task:

Upon those travelers who make their way without maps or guides, there breaks a wave of exhilaration with each unexpected change of plans. This exhilaration is not a whore who can be bought with money nor a neighborhood beauty who may be wooed. She (to persist in personifying the sensation as female) is a wild and sea-eyed undine, the darling daughter of adventure, the sister of risk, and it is for her rare and always ephemeral embrace, the temporary pressure she exerts on the membrane of ecstasy, that many men leave home.

Charmingly meta, unique, like finger painting with words: I loved the tone. And the sex! Nothing wrong with a little historical randiness with the god Pan. For about half the book, my belief was suspended and I was flying high, riding the ferris wheel.

But sheesh, as we continue along our journey, we lose all focus, snowballing into long dialogs in badly written accents (see below) and conjectures about how flowers killed the dinosaurs, the human’s “flower brain” and how perfume can stave off death. Suddenly, not so much fun. Belief unsuspended crashing to earth.

We’ve got ourselves stuck in a cyclic system that makes true freedom, true growth impossible. In the arts, a period o’ classicism is followed by a period o’ romanticism. Then ’tis back to the classical again. ‘Tis as simpleminded as a bloody pendulum, and for me, at least, it robs art of any real meaning. Same thing in society. A conservative cycle, a liberal cycle, then a conservative cycle again. Action and reaction, back and forth, like the tides. As long as we’re trapped in these cycles, we can’t expect much in the way o’ liberation, we can’t even expect fundamental change except the awful slow variety where each step takes a million years or more.

Hmm. I think this character is trying to talk about shedding the bad habit of surrendering to death without at fight and saying, “I quit!” However, I more thought that he was talking about the stagnating plot — or maybe American politics. But at that point, I really didn’t care anymore if the “base note” of the immortal scent was beet pollen, or how beets symbolize the human condition. (Seriously, people.) And the ending? Nothing happens, or nothing too interesting. It’s as if the author reached a certain word count and put down his pen.

Mr. Tom Robbins has a voice that appeals to me, that’s for certain, enough so that if I run across his other books, I’ll gladly take another whirl of whimsy. But I think he fought the plot and the plot won on this one, leaving both parties the worse for it.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars – Mediocre vacation reading