The Real Valley Of The Dolls By Tom Robbins

Caleb Micheli
Professor Teresa Howell
English 101
20 November 2014
Review
The Real Valley of the Dolls, by Tom Robbin is a humerous story that actually raises interesting questions of the past and present sexuality of man. Robbins and two of his friends, Alexa and Jon, take the reader on a trip to a place called North canyon, somewhere between Winnemucca and Las Vegas, which to reach you have to travel down the loneliest highway in the world, Highway 50. It is a short story that mixes both humour and the sexuality of past and present civilizations.
In The Real Valley of the Dolls Robbins refers to North Canyon as being “rather vaginal in shape, terminating in a scooped out basin . . . those so inclined could read uterus or womb” (510).The

walls of the canyon are decorated with petroglyphs, hence the canyon is also known as Canyon of the Vaginas. Robbins talks about the different types of petroglyphs in the western U.S., “some of them are ceremonial in intention, some are mnemonic, some totemic (clan symbols), and some, it would appear, just an outburst of pleasurable doodling” (510). Glyphs depicting vaginas are not limited to North Canyon though and Robbins explains, “at no other site is it found in such concentration or profusion” (511). It’s not just petroglyphs that draw people here, but also the connection one feels with the spiritual power of the earth.
Much of the essay is filled with different metaphors for west-central Nevada; “present knocks against the past, development knocks against nature, repression against indulgence, reality against dream, masculine against feminine, the Goddess of Destruction against the Goddess of Creation, the Atomic proving grounds against the Canyon of the Vaginas” (509).

Spirituality and sexuality are compared in the canyon side by side. Robbins recalls feeling “somewhat sexy and somewhat religious, feeling a little like laughing and a little like weeping” (511). Did he get in touch with his feminine side while experiencing these surroundings? Or was Robbins overwhelmed by the ancient drawings of female

genitalia.
The word play of Robbin’s is artfully weaved throughout the story and Robbin’s humor shows when he discusses the age of North Canyon.

“One of the few archaeologists to give North Canyon more than a passing nod has estimated it could maintain a vulva in fairly good condition for about five centuries. Shelly Winters, eat your heart out’” (511).
When referring to primitive cultures vs. the European invaders, and the oldest petroglyph on the site being “pecked at by a white man . . . A figure on the boulder. A Caucasian figure. A male figure.” it was as though he were describing rape and dominance, which again contrasts with sex as pleasurable. Whenever a male action or symbol is described Robbins uses harsh words such as “pecking” (513), and “invading” (514); yet, for the most part, feminine actions or symbols are more inviting. Cradle, glisten invitingly, merry saline humidity, and perpetual smile (512-513), are but a few

examples.
“The Real Valley of the Dolls” raises some interesting questions, the largest of which is, why? Why did the Shoshone “adorn the sun gate of Nevada’s high desert” with images of what some may call the center of feminine power? Was it, as Robbins suggests, “purely sexual, a horny pecking of individual lust.” or are some of his other ideas closer to reality; such as a (place for) “a coming of age ritual, a fertility motel, or homage to the feminine principle of Earth herself”” (511)? Perhaps the natural formation of the “Queen of the Yoni’s . . . the great-grandma of vaginas” inspired the Native American’s to honor it in glyphs. The answers may remain a mystery, as will the reason the ol’dudes don’t take off their hats.
Are we so far removed from “nature and those forces that our ancestors knew intimately yet seldom named”, if we don’t have a place to connect our “hormones to the stars” that we run the risk of becoming psychological paraplegics” (51