For all us provencial English speakers, Uli Niebergall, has translated an  Interview with Tom Robbins that appeared  in the German Magazine "SUBWAY".

                    (The interview is preceded by a summary of the plot in "HAIFP". I skip that
                    part since it doesn't contain any news whatsoever about the book or the
                    writer, only the usual stuff that we've already read all over the place. So I'll
                    dig right into the interview)

                    SUBWAY (SW): Your writing resembles some kind of anarchy.

                    TR: Yes, but a controlled anarchy. Writing gives you a lot of freedom, but you
                    have to keep the control, otherwise you'll ruin everything.

                    SW: What do you want to tell the people? Do you have any messages to
                    give?

                    TR: Oh, I have lots of them (grins). On the one hand I try to show people that
                    their lives aren't as limited as they think. But above all: "Love really works!"

                    SW: Do you want to tell people to start using their brains?

                    TR: Yes, and apart from that they shouldn't take themselves so seriously.
                    Relax (smiles)!

                    SW: Do you take yourself and your writing seriously?

                    TR: I try not to. Some days I do, and I always end up miserable.

                    SW: Your book has a great sense of humor, but it seems to maintain a
                    serious core?

                    TR: I think that jokes are the most serious thing in the world. Humor is both a
                    kind of wisdom and a tool for survival. A funny situation is often the most
                    hopeless of situations. Thus, humor grants you access to the most profound
                    seriousness. There are some things in life that are so serious that the only
                    way of handling them is making jokes about them. That leads to a deeper
                    understanding. That is why cheerfulness to me is the deepest, wisest and
                    most sensible way to meet the challenges of life.

                    SW: What is your strategy when writing? Do you have a certain way of
                    working?

                    TR: Well, I first make up a title, then I write the first sentence which leads to
                    the second sentence which leads to the third sentence… Somewhere in my
                    subconsciousness I have an approximate idea of the topic I am dealing with.
                    But I have no clue how the plot will develop and all that (laughs)! If I had, I
                    wouldn't write the book, if I already knew the end when I started writing, I
                    wouldn't be able to finish it, because it would be way too boring. Just like
                    working in a factory! Besides, I write every day, I usually aim at writing two
                    pages a day. That's a lot of fun, but it's also hard work, because you spend a
                    lot of time all alone. Therefore I have to surround my writing with an aura of
                    adventure and surprise, just to enable me to deal with it every day.

                    SW: Years ago, many of your readers believed you were a woman.
                    Why?

                    TR: Oh, but that was before my surgery (laughs). My first two books were
                    written from the perspective of a woman. I must have done a quite good job,
                    because many women assumed that only a woman could write like that.
                    Besides, I never gave any interviews, there were no photographs of me, so
                    nobody could know for sure whether I was a man or a woman.

                    SW: A lot of your books deal with odours. Don't women react more
                    sensitively to odours than men?

                    TR: In every man there's a woman and vice versa. The woman in me is rather
                    well developed. When I was a kid, we moved around a lot, and in every new
                    town we lived next door to a family with little girls. And they told me
                    everything. Evrything I know!

                    SW: You are not afraid of women because of that?

                    TR: No. Those towns in the south of the USA were "very macho". For a boy it
                    is impossible to show any sensitivity there. If you'd done that, they'd have
                    punched your nose immediately. (laughs) But to the little girls I could show
                    the sensitivity that is inherent in every man. That was really a gift.
 

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