The World According to Garp | John Irving | Fatalistic, yet optimistic

The World According to Garp | John Irving | Meat and Potatoes

books:

The World Accordin...

	The World According to Garp John Irving Ballantine Books, 1990 - 624 pages average customer review:based on 286 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

20th ANNIVERSARY EDITION
with a new Afterword from the author

The New York Times bestseller

This is the life and times of T. S. Garp, the bastard son of Jenny
Fields--a feminist leader ahead of her times.  This is the life and death
of a famous mother and her almost-famous son; theirs is a world of sexual
extremes--even of sexual assassinations.  It is a novel rich with "lunacy
and sorrow"; yet the dark, violent events of the story do not undermine a
comedy both ribald and robust.  In more than thirty languages, in more than
forty countries--with more than ten million copies in print--this novel
provides almost cheerful, even hilarious evidence of its famous last line:
"In the world according to Garp, we are all terminal cases."

for more information click here

Fatalistic, yet optimistic

The accomplished fantasist Gene Wolfe has been quoted as saying that his definition of good literature is "that which can be read with pleasure by an educated reader, and re-read with increased pleasure." By that standard, The World According to Garp, at least in my mind, is good literature, one of the best books of the last half century, capturing post war America through the seventies in all its glory and absurdity.

Garp is one of those magical books that I reread every three or four years or so, a novel that affects me differently each and every time I have read it (eight times, as of this writing). Reading the paperback at age 19 in 1979 (remember those great multiple covers?) I saw it as a classic coming of age story, identifying strongly with the young Garp. Nearing age 48, I've come to see it as a cautionary tale about how important it is to cling to those you love, because life can get scary pretty quickly; now, I identify more with Jenny Fields and the older Garp in their roles as terrified parents. No matter how many times I read it, however, I find new things to marvel at, and nuances to appreciate.

I'd like to take the opportunity on this, the thirtieth anniversary of the publication of this worthy, award winning bestseller, to celebrate the novel's complexities and charm, by mentioning some of its themes, settings, and, more importantly, its huge supporting cast. The three main characters, Jenny Fields, Helen Holm, and Garp himself have been rightly celebrated elsewhere. Vivid and memorable and eccentric and oh so human, they are fascinating, their triumphs and travails and quirks making for riveting reading. But, it's the problems they face, and the people they interact with, through which Irving reveals their character, making for a book that's by turns whimsical, poignant, sad, and laugh out loud funny, a book full of sorrow and lunacy, but also grace and hope.

For those of you who've read the book, I merely have to mention subject matter like lust, writing, bears, wrestling, fame, intolerance, and feminism to evoke the book for you. Let me add The Steering Academy, Vienna, and Dog's Head Harbor, just to widen the smile doubtlessly growing on your face. What about Garp's stories and novels, such as "The Pension Grillparzer," Procrastination, Second Wind of the Cuckold, and The World According to Bensenhaver? Now, to top everything off, let me list, in no particular order, a portion of the immense and varied supporting cast to send you deep into a fond reverie: Technical Sergeant Garp, Dean Bodger, Fat Stew Percy, Midge Steering Percy, Cushie Percy, Pooh Percy, Bonkers the dog, Ernie Holm, Ellen James, the Ellen Jamesians, Roberta Muldoon, Mrs. Ralph, Walt, Duncan, John Wolf, Jillsy Sloper, Harrison and Alice Fletcher, Charlotte the whore, Michael Milton, Mrs. Truckenmiller, and last, but certainly not least, the Under Toad.

To those who haven't yet experienced this dark Dickensian wonder, I hope these words and the lists above intrigue you, and lead you to pick up a copy of this ultimately uplifting and, dare I say, inspirational novel. If, as according to the book's final sentence, we are, in the end, "all terminal cases," thank goodness that there are books like this to ease our burdens for a moment or two as we march on towards our inevitable fates.

for more information click here

Meat and Potatoes

The thing about this novel that really struck me was that it seemed to have so much substance. I don't know how else to describe what I mean. It was funny and serious and trivial and kind and mean and messed up and perfect and weird all rolled into one - kind of like real life. And I loved the stories within the story. This is the first book by John Irving that I've read, but you can bet I'll be reading more.

GARP REVIEW

This book is fantastic. Irving deftly mixes humor with tragedy. His skill in undeniable. It is evident in every sentence. He possesses the ablility to make the reader laugh and cry within the same scene. Superbly written and universally meaningful, you cannot go wrong with The World According to Garp.

for more information click here

Uneven (But I Don't Regret Reading It)

It's hard to say how I felt about this book, mostly because I liked the beginning and loved the end, but hated the middle. From the start it's clear that the story is only loosely tethered to reality; in some ways that's what makes it enjoyable, but in other ways it can be hard to swallow at times. On the negative side of the ledger, the entire middle of the book is built around a series of tangential and unconvincing sexual encounters of one kind or another, which I thought detracted from the flow and credibility of the story (some of it was essential, but it would have been easy to cut 100 pages without losing anything). On the other hand, I loved the Pension Grillparzer, the Under Toad, and the account of the Garp family's recovery with Jenny Fields at Dog's Head Harbor. I also happen to share Garp's fear of seeing something terrible happen to loved ones in a world that seems "unnecessarily dangerous," so that element of the story resonated deeply with me. And it was fun to spend time with this cast of characters, even if they weren't always entirely credible. All told, I didn't enjoy this one as much as the first Irving book I read (A Prayer for Owen Meany), but it was still a worthwhile reading experience thanks to a somewhat haunting ending.

for more information click here