This is a book that I should have read twenty years ago, when my brain had not yet been infected with real literature. The book is fun, the writing amusing, the ideas interesting, but as a whole, the book fails to deliver the grand epiphany it builds to (ok, this is where all you rabid Robbins fans press the not helpful button). I imaging Mr. Robbins, sitting at his typewriter when he wrote this, grinning to himself and saying, "wow, this is great!" Well . . . Not great, but four stars good, a bit pretentious and what may have seemed original twenty years ago now just seems dated. But so what. Bell bottoms are coming back too, and there's a lot of fun here in characters if not in plot.