Even Cowgirls Get The Blues (Major Spoilers)

Let's talk about this 1976 novel.

This book has made me love women more. I knew I was attracted to females, but I never felt this strongly before for the experiences only women share and how beautiful they are. Women are so pretty!!1 

Background: The author's name is Tom Robbins. He's a postmodernist author. His books discuss philosophical topics and break the fourth wall in every chapter. His books feature unhinged plots and unique characters that each have a different philosophy.

-summary-

Sissy Hankshaw is a girl from Southern Richmond, VA who is born with abnormally large thumbs. As a baby, her father's friend said she would be a hell of a good hitchhiker...if she was a boy. Baby Sissy would dedicate her life to hitchhiking. Ever since 9, her only way of travel was hitchhiking. When she was a teenager, she ran away from home; 1. her parents and town treated her as a freak, and 2. she wanted to move. Sissy is described as the 'freest woman of them all'. She has no home, she's always moving. She craves the unexpected and adventure. She was never worried about sex, looking beautiful, or other things girls would usually think about. 

Later on, Sissy is approached by a man who goes by The Countess. He owns a women's hygiene business. It's a deodorant for your vagina. But his philosophy is that he is correcting an error females have. He says their smell must be removed. He thinks he's doing women a favor. The Countess is enamored by Sissy's beauty and makes her his model for the products. Except he always hides her thumbs. The Countess is annoyed by Sissy's tendency to run away. He wants her to settle down. So, he sets her up with a Native American man named Julian. Sissy is 1/16th Native, and so she has a naive fixation on Native Americans and how they are 'free'. Sissy and Julian fall in love and get married, but Julian favors materialism and social parties over the spiritualism Sissy associates with Natives. Julian disapproves of her hitchhiking. So, Sissy lives in his apartment for 9 months, wanting to satisfy Julian.

One day, The Countess decides he wants to do a photograph session for a new line of product down at his beauty ranch. He wants to use Sissy and whooping cranes that migrate to the lake every year. The Countess asks Sissy to stay at the beauty ranch and check on the place.

The Rubber Rose is a beauty ranch. Cowgirls work there. It used to be mostly cowboys, but one woman named Bonanza Jellybean forced the ranch to be female only. She is a cowgirl who disapproves of sexism. The girls do not like the beauty aspects of the ranch, or The Countess and his beliefs. They prefer cowgirl stuff.

Sissy moves into the ranch and falls in love with Bonanza Jellybean. She cheats on Julian with her. Later on, the endangered whooping cranes go missing. They are supposed to migrate south, but they don't. The US government gets involved and investigates the ranch. It turns out Delores del Ruby was drugging the cranes with peyote. The cranes were staying at the lake, not moving. They were mellowed out. The cranes represent the women's unity and community. The women like the company of the cranes. But the government wants to move those cranes. The girls have lengthy discussions on the patriarchy and oppressive government. Bonanza Jellybean goes out and tries to negotiate with the government. She is shot dead. Her friend Billy West then executes an explosion, killing the officers, and sending the cranes flying away. The ranch is taken over by other cowgirls, who turn it half men and half women. It is no longer a beauty ranch. Sissy falls in love with Delores and moves into a cave. The Countess is sent to the hospital after he gets brain damage. That's pretty much it.

-discussion-

There are a lot of parts and characters I left out, just because this novel is so layered and confusing. It is mainly about what it means to be free as a person, but it covers a variety of topics and debates. Let's discuss and give thoughts!

Let's start with my criticisms for the book. Tom Robbins writes wonderful characters, but there is a lot of fluff in his stories. Maybe he gets better later on, but in his first two novels, a plot doesn't actually happen much because half of the book is filled with his philosophical ramblings and discussions by the author talking to you. Also, like I said, Robbins writes wonderful and fun characters, but he cannot write the feminine spirit he's trying to capture. When Robbins writes the women in the book, he ends up objectifying them more than empowering them. Sissy is literally molested dozens of times as a child during her travels and it's portrayed as nothing but an odd sexual awakening. Bonanza is described as the cutest little cowgirl with a tiny skirt and still having baby fat. The women are all conventionally attractive and interested in sex. Now yes, I do love the lesbian rep and female sexuality, but the women are usually described by how they appear. I would have liked to gotten to know the characters more. I wanted to explore Bonanza Jellybean as a person more and her relationship with Sissy. I also would have liked to know more about Delores del Ruby, her drug addiction and hatred towards men. This book would be more powerful if it was written by a woman who knows their experiences first-hand. The development of the characters is ignored in favor of philosophical debates and poetry that take up much space, and consequently shortened plot. But I expected this, as this was a problem in his first novel Another Roadside Attraction(the plot of that book only occurs in the last third). I also do not like how Robbins inserts himself into the story as a love interest of Sissy in the very end. Now, I don't have a problem with his self-insert on his own, but making him Sissy's love interest? :/ This is another critique I have of Robbins's writings. In Another Roadside Attraction, Marx Marvelous, the narrator/protagonist, feels very self-insertsy and is in love with the female lead Amanda. 

Now that my critiques are out of the way, let's get into the good parts.

1. Creative and surreal postmodernist writing
Tom Robbins is a postmodernist writer. In every chapter he breaks the fourth wall and regularly pauses to talk to you, the reader. He then describes a character and then reveals the character to be him. Then the story switches to first person once he gets involved in the plot himself. Many chapters are philosophical observations, ramblings, and poetry. Robbins is good at wordplay. In one chapter, he writes a poem. Each sentence starts with 'This sentence...' and ends with something different. For example, 'this sentence cried wee wee wee all the way home'. 'this sentence is pregnant, it's missing its period This sentence...'. In another chapter, Robbins has wine with you and you discuss magic vs mysticism. The point of views also change. Sometimes, the POV switches to second person when the author is indirectly talking to Sissy. And it switches to first person in the very end. 

2. Charming and creative characters
Tom Robbins is great at writing wacky characters with hilarious names and odd personalities. Some of his character's names include Plucky Purcell, Bonanza Jellybean, John Paul Ziller, Bernard Mickey Wrangle, and Delores del Ruby. Each character he writes has a different unique philosophy. The main character in this novel, Sissy Hankshaw, is also interesting. She is an odd person. She is aloof, prefers to be alone, was never interested in sex, and likes to play hitchhiking games where she runs around the room. Despite me complaining about sexualizing the women earlier, Sissy is not sexualized much (at least not as much as Amanda Ziller, the female lead in Robbins's debut).  Jelly, my favorite character, is also very fun and a badass. I found myself growing attached to her.

3. Lesbian rep; beautiful relationships between women
Even Cowgirls Get The Blues is partly a discovery/exploration of Sissy Hankshaw's sexuality and what it means to be free. There are hints of Sissy being attracted to women when she is a child, but she does not explore this until she meets Bonanza Jellybean, a cowgirl who is sexually open and an advocator of free love and feminism. Sissy and Jelly have a nice relationship, although I wish this was explored more and deeper, as it seemed kind of hollow. Nevertheless, the lesbian rep is nice and portrayed in a positive way. Delores del Ruby is also a great character. I kind of enjoy her relationship with Jelly more than Sissy's relationship with Jelly. Delores is the man-hating lesbian. She's got a temper and Jelly usually has to calm her down. It's cute. Delores gets with Sissy in the end though. Most if not all of the cowgirls are sexually open with other women (but of course there is no men on the ranch) and are not ashamed to discuss sex aloud. I also love how the cowgirls interact with each other when they're not doing anything sexual. They argue and debate over humorous things like food, cattle, or electricity. Bathroom business or gross/impolite activities are also described in a non-objectifying matter. I love when girls are wacky and it is not played for the male gaze in an mpdg way. Kind of like the debates of the friends in Nichijou or Azumanga Daioh. I have always liked female friendships. 

4. Feminist discussions
I love how this novel mentions different types of feminism. Each cowgirl holds a different opinion on what to do about the government/authority, which they all agree is a 'masculine' and oppressive system that must be limited and/or transformed. For example, Delores does not want any man on the ranch at all. She hates them and sees them all as a problem and oppressors. She thinks women should be the ones solely behind everything on the ranch. She also does not like technology as she believes it is a soulless, logical, oppressive, and therefore masculine way. She and the other women prefer nature, spirituality, and the power of being a woman. Delores prefers matriarchy as she sees it as how the world was in the past, before technological advancements and industrialization. Jelly also wants women to control the ranch; when she came along she kicked every man out. However, Jelly doesn't hate men. She just wanted to create the first all-female ranch, because she wants cowgirl rep. She wants to help women find more positions in the world, specifically in cowgirl work. Debbie is spiritual. Like Delores, she dislikes technology. Debbie does not hate men though. Debbie dislikes the cowgirl's manifesto as she argues they use the same sexism that men perpetrate against women. She believes women should be kind, caring, and maternal--to use their positive 'feminine spirit' to teach men. At the end of the novel, Delores changes her ways and turns her hate towards authority instead of men. She then goes with Sissy to live in the caves, leaving Linda and Debbie to control the ranch, who turn it into a ranch for cowboys and cowgirls and distance themselves from The Countess and female beauty. When the cowgirls meet Sissy, the ones that know her as a hitchhiker see her as an inspiration and a symbol of freedom. But the ones that only know her as a model for women's deodorant are snooty towards her, as she represents an oppressive product from a sexist company. There are things I agree and disagree with in each woman. But I love how different aspects of feminism are represented, debated, debunked.