Wiggs Dannyboy, who adds a bit of new-age theory to Robbins' usual flower-power rhetoric. and teaming up with a Timothy Learylike outlaw scientist, Dr. So ultimately, of course, these two plot-strands will link up-as Alobar time-travels up to the present, providing the evolutionary missing-link to 'floral consciousness'.

Meanwhile, in the other main plot, we follow King Alobar-a Dark Ages hero-through his global wanderings: he eventually reaches India, meeting a widow named Kudra both of them are in flight from Death and both eventually, through the direct intervention of the decrepit god Pan, actually achieve immortality-even learning how to capture the immortality-essence in bottled-liquid form.

In one of the two parallel plot-lines here, Robbins juggles the separate attempts of various parfumiers around the world to come up with a perfume (upon a jasmine base) that will outenchant any previous concoction: Madame Devalier in New Orleans is feverishly experimenting so is her adopted daughter Priscilla in Seattle and the megs-company LeFever is also hard at work in Paris. A round-Robbins on the themes of scent, so-called 'floral consciousness,' and immortality-skipping through time and space, but offering a little old-fashioned storytelling charm along with the usual cute/hip doodling.

Jitterbug tom robbins