My bad day began at 11:00 AM this morning when I finished the book after a long month of reading only a few pages at a time, hoping for a never ending version of it. Neither the sun shining at my window, nor the warm coffee on my bed stand could turn this morning back into a usual December morning.
It’s been a long time since a book drew and captured me like this one did. Fairy tales weren’t my thing as a kid, but as I grew up, I started re- reading childhood books, such as Poil de Carotte and falling in love with them for real, this time. The association between Poil de Carotte and Still Life With Woodpecker isn’t involuntary – both of them are full of adventures, almost falling out of the their covers, they both mess with your imagination and perception up to the point where you start acting the same way the characters would, or find yourself in a real situation and ask yourself the inappropriate question that will tell you the degree of addiction you’re facing: ‘What would Poil de Carotte/ Bernard Mickey Wrangle (Baby) do?’
The narrator is omniscient, and has only a few 1st person ‘interventions’ throughout the whole book. These are either distinct chapters, epilogues or prologues, whenever he switches from one moon phase to the other (the moon phases are larger units and include a few chapters each). The narrator launches a basic question in the beginning – What makes love stay? – and a few others that derive from this one and get answered on the way – What’s the importance of the moon?, What’s the significance of the Camel pack design? He tries to answer the first question structuring the story as a post-modern fairy tale, where the princess is a vegetarian ex- cheerleader and her future - to – be – prince is… a lot of guys. But mostly, Bernard, a redhead (such as the princess herself) outlaw (not criminal!) who has a passion for explosives. We then have a mixture of random fairy tale – like characters, such as the princess’ servant – the actual throne heir and a cocaine addict -, her parents – a father with a noisy mechanical heart valve and a foreign mother, with a strong accent and a little dog -, the vengeful sheikh who painted the pyramid black and an unopened pack of Camel cigarettes.
These handful of characters have to make peace with themselves and their captivating personalities and solve their problems at the same time. Tom Robbins has written the funniest comparisons I’ve ever come across in literature (e.g. ‘The first time that she spread her legs for him it had been like opening her jaws for the dentist.’) or just funny, interesting, morally correct or slightly philosophical sentences, such as ‘It's never too late to have a happy childhood.’
If I were to think of these characters as real life human beings, I would say they are full of flaws, egocentric and immature bastards. As characters from a book they become fascinating and close to role models. After she heard about me reading the book, the girl who recommended it to me asked me whether I was already in love with Bernard (of course I am, damn it).
It feels I went on an entire trip with these special, but dysfunctional people and I have to let them go now. And we all know I’m terrible with that.
A fairy tale ended with a crooked, but happy ending. We were together for a month. I can’t make myself set it on the book shelf, next to the other victims.
