Still Life with Woodpecker

Bernard, otherwise known as the Woodpecker, became a fugitive after a bombing that killed a graduate student. His story echoes that of real-life Americans, like members of the Weather Underground, who performed acts of domestic terrorism in protest against the Vietnam War, and then remained fugitives for many years afterward. His representation as a member of that older generation contrasts with Leigh-Cheri, who is only aware of his activities in a historical context. The fact that they are from different generations, with differing points of idealism, allows Robbins to explore the disconnect between the generation that came of age during the Vietnam War and the generation that came of age in the following decade, when the US was espousing the idealism of wellness, which Robbins exemplifies through Care Fest.

Like Leigh-Cheri, Bernard represents a character trope—the outlaw—and has very specific ideas about what an outlaw is (and isn’t). These ideas push back against societal ideas of outlaws and their purpose and place in society: “As long as there are matches, there will be fuses. As long as there are fuses, no walls are safe. As long as every wall is threatened, the world can happen. Outlaws are can openers in the supermarket of life” (62). Bernard sees the outlaw as not a criminal, but someone who disrupts the status quo.

Although Bernard is a comic character, he asks serious questions and probes the larger issues of life, purpose, and love. He also pushes Leigh-Cheri to question these things, and this is one of his functions in the novel. However, Bernard has his own journey, and one of the ways that Robbins emphasizes this is through his change in hair color. When he first appears in the novel, Bernard’s hair is dyed black, ostensibly because he is a fugitive. However, as Leigh-Cheri notes, his clothes are also black, including even his swim trunks and flip-flops. It is more than a measure of protection against the law: It is a choice that represents his state of mind—his inner passion has been subdued. After he meets Leigh-Cheri, he rinses the dye away, exposing himself to legal repercussions, but also revealing himself and showing the reinvigoration of his passion.

Gulietta is the last of the servants who accompanied the Furstenberg-Barcalonas to the United States and is in her 80s. Her name references Juliet Capulet and draws a comparison to the character of the old nurse in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. This nursemaid/chaperone character is a common trope, and like the princess trope, Robbins introduces it and then subverts it—although Gulietta serves the function of the faithful nursemaid, she behaves in a distinctly modern way, buying a bikini for the trip to Hawaii she chaperones and developing a fondness for cocaine while she is there. Robbins pushes further against the nursemaid trope by making Gulietta the queen, after the discovery is made that she is actually the old king’s daughter and half-sister to Max.

Gulietta is also the best example of the melding of The Modern World, the Old World, and the Human Animal in the novel. When they fly to Hawaii, Gulietta tries to bring Prince Charming the frog along, but isn’t allowed. After she helps Bernard, he gives her a plastic frog filled with cocaine, to which she has taken a liking. This shift represents yet another move toward the modern world, yet she clings to certain aspects of her old life, such as her suspicion of indoor plumbing. As queen, she also reconnects her population with the human body through the adoption of lunaception. When Gulietta is made queen, it is because she is a combination of royal blood and commoner—she is a combination of the old world and the new as she is elevated to the highest office in the country. She is expected to serve as a figurehead but, like Leigh-Cheri, is determined to take active participation in her new role.

Max is a deposed king, living in Seattle in a house paid for by the CIA in exchange for his continued removal from his country and its politics. Max is described as “a tall, horse-faced man with a Hitlerian mustache” (9), a description that emphasizes Max as the member of a past generation. He is an artifact of the old world, and his character feeds into Robbins’s discussion of the modern world, the old world, and the human animal.

After being removed from the throne, Max was a gambler, but after the installation of a Teflon heart valve that “made a metallic noise as it opened and shut” (5), Max is unable to bluff. This valve illustrates how the modern world has intruded on Max’s world and disrupted it. He feels useless and retreats to their Seattle house, transferring his attention and loyalties to the various Seattle sports teams. With Max’s new loyalty to sports, Robbins highlights the modern world and the way that Max’s allegiance that, in the past, might have involved other countries and allies, is now just as fiercely expressed with sports.

Max’s character arc in the novel is essentially a shift in which he finally decides to move on. Although he isn’t actively planning to retake his country, he is disappointed when the revolutionaries don’t want him to return to the throne. He plots to marry off Leigh-Cheri, thus strengthening his alliances and possible return to power. However, when Gulietta is given the throne, Max is finally able to move on. He leaves the Seattle house, which to him was a holding place until his return to power, and moves to Reno, a gambling city, fully embracing his new life.

Tilli is Max’s wife and deposed queen. She is described as “a sausage skin inflated by Wagner” (6). Tilli is from a family who has members in several aristocracies and is related to nearly every royal in Europe, and thus embodies the traditional trope of European royalty to an even greater degree than her husband. Unlike Max, when Gulietta is crowned queen, Tilli doesn’t leave that life behind to enter the modern world; she goes to work for Gulietta as manager of the national opera, her only true interest.

Tilli serves as comic relief and as a character that is an amalgamation of several European countries. She is another artifact of an earlier time, yet she has absorbed some of the modern world. Like a sitcom character, Tilli has a catchphrase: “Oh-Oh, spaghetti-o” (23), which was a ubiquitous 1980s slogan for Chef Boyardee’s Spaghetti-O’s. Through Tilli, Robbins juxtaposes the modern and old worlds with some of the silliest aspects of both—Tilli is mainly there for humor’s sake, but also to illustrate another instance of an anachronistic character’s response to the modern world, using a pop culture reference to emphasize the ridiculousness of aspects of both time periods.