Night School Teacher Pushes Robbins…

…to little avail.

Literature: Learn it, Live it, Love it? Fuck it.
by Joelle Renstrom

When we’re discussing what makes a good opening paragraph, I bring in the prologue to Tom Robbins’ Still Life With Woodpecker, which begins: “If this typewriter can’t do it, then fuck it, it can’t be done.” It’s perfect. If this doesn’t grab them, what will?

I pass out the copies. “I think you’ll like this,” I say. “Tom Robbins is a lot of fun.” Someone reads the page out loud. Silence follows. I look out at them, awaiting evidence of their literary conversions. “’If this typewriter can’t do it,” I pause and look up, “then fuck it, it can’t be done.’” It’s twice as clever.

“I hate it,” says a woman in the front row. She’s never uttered a single word in class.

“Why?” I ask.

“The F-word in the first sentence?! I would never keep this book in my house!”

“Neither would I,” the father of ten adds.

“Okay,” I say. Well. “Anyone else?”

A couple of people think it’s funny. Some even say they’d like to read the book sometime. I offer to loan my copy, but they all quickly back down, as though selflessly passing up the last hot appetizer on a plate.