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Friday, May 15, 2009
Arts / News Book Review: Tom Robbins' B is for Beer
Posted By Chris Deal on Fri, May 15, 2009 at 9:00 AM
Charles Bukowski once said, “An intellectual is a man who says a simple thing in a difficult way; an artist is a man who says a difficult thing in a simple way.” That ability to capture in just a few words the most heavy of themes, to boil down what man’s been thinking on for millennia to a turn of the phrase, that just can’t taught.
In his tenth book, B is for Beer, Tom Robbins gives us an off kilter bedtime story, that tells the sad tale of almost six-year-old Gracie Perkel. On one rainy day in Seattle just a couple weeks away from her birthday, Gracie starts thinking about beer, the adult drink of choice, which the book will tell you happens to sell in excess of 36 billion gallons a year worldwide. Her uncle Moe, philosopher and layabout, tells her a bit on the subject and promises to take the young Gracie on a tour of the local brewery, but then injures himself when he drops a bottle of Sapporo on his foot.
On the young girl’s birthday, the day before he promised to finally take her to the brewery to help her understand more about this most mysterious drink, Moe absconds to Costa Rica with his podiatrist, leaving Gracie so devastated, she grabs a can of beer and drinks it all down before dancing some time away to Aretha Franklin. The results of this indiscretion are mostly what you would expect for a children’s book about beer.
The thing is, this is not a basic children’s book (“A Children’s Book for Grown-ups. A Grown-up book for children,” so the cover says), but the strange thing is, it could be. There’s nothing completely out of place in Robbins’ book for the genre he’s chosen. Like any great piece of children’s literature, there’s something for both the kid and the parent to take away, enjoy and learn. There is a lesson, a moral of sorts, that sits right there on the surface for any takers, and what a lesson it is.
With great wit and an economy of words, Tom Robbins has turned his eye to the form and functions of children’s literature. Like Bukowski said, an artist says something difficult with simple words. Robbins is an artist. This quick read will either help you put your children to sleep or it'll have you heading to a pub to have a pint with friends.
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