Tom Robbins Still Life With Woodpecker

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While writing Still Life With Woodpecker, Tom Robbins spent much of his time connecting with his fictional character, Leigh-Cheri, through the use of Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (LSD) and other hallucinogenic drugs such as marijuana. Through the writing process and the hallucinations mainly from LSD, Leigh-Cheri became a real person over time for Robbins and he had a seemingly intimate relationship with her. Leigh-Cheri was the reason Robbins originally raised the question, “Who knows how to make love stay?” (Robbins 4). I intend to change the way readers understand the novel by making it known that Tom Robbins has been known for the use of several drugs. His familiarity with these is most likely why several of his fictional characters…show more content…
In one interview, Robbins admitted, “In general, I’ve found female protagonists more intriguing to work with than males. I cherish women and have always preferred their company.” He finished his statement, “It takes [about three years] to complete a novel. If you’re going to be shut up in a room with someone every day for [that long], it might as well be someone whose company you enjoy” (Daurer, 2002). From this statement we can infer that Robbins evidently spent much of his creative time designing and constructing a story of his ideal woman. Leigh-Cheri was the woman of Robbins dreams, and he helped her come alive by telling her background and story. While writing the novel, Robbins spent so much time with the concept of Leigh-Cheri to the point that she almost became a real person to him. At one point, however, she did become a living, breathing, reality, but only for Robbins, leading to a bond and relationship between the…show more content…
When describing the liberating feeling of LSD during another interview, Robbins articulated his journey: “The differences between so-called reality and so-called fantasy, between wakefulness and dreaming, between animate and inanimate, between the world of the living and the world of the dead were no longer so distinct” (Contemporary 467). Here Robbins tells us that LSD helped him to break down the wall that kept him from seeing his ideas and meeting with his characters. With the walls torn down, Robbins could easily travel between reality and fantasy, but he was often unable to distinguish the difference between the many realms. This time during his life was most likely comparable to a constant lucid dream-state, where his dreams were a reality, and his characters arose from what appeared to be
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