The title of Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates comes from Arthur Rimbaud's farewell-to-literature poem, "A Season in Hell" (1872). In addition, other relationships to Rimbaud's work and his life exist in Robbins's novel. One critic cited lines from "The Drunken Boat": "If there is one water in Europe I want, / it is the black cold pool / where into the scented twilight / a child squatting full of sadness / launches a boat frail as a butterfly in May." This verse is evocative of Switters's paper boat races with the "art girls." Further, the notion of the main character whose feet cannot touch the ground may relate to Rimbaud's life story. Rimbaud's leg cancer and Switters's curse from the shaman, End of Time, both cause them to be carried around, "two inches off the.....
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