The World According to Garp Library Binding Author: Visit Amazon's John Irving Page | Language: English | ISBN:
1439570574 | Format: PDF
The World According to Garp Library Binding Description
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
- Library Binding
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1439570574
- ISBN-13: 978-1439570579
- Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.1 x 1.3 inches
- Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
I first read THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP in 1982, the year the movie adaptation came out. I was a great fan of Robin Williams (MORK & MINDY still being on television at the time), and because I was far too young to view the film, I decided to read its source novel. Actually, I did an oral report on it, much to the chagrin of my 6th grade teacher. It's hard to do an oral report when the rest of the class is awestruck at the use of the word 'bastard'. I did very well, but the teacher did recommend that I stick to less challenging works, considering my age. Thankfully, I did not listen.
In the many times I have reread GARP since, I have never failed to be struck dumb by the sheer elegance and beauty, not to mention brutality, of John Irving's novel. While Irving's writing have too often been described as 'Dickensian', it is truly an accurate summation. Irving presents a family saga rife with bizarre yet realistic characters, all swirling around what very well may the finest character put to paper in the 20th century, T.S. Garp.
Garp is the bastard son (there's that word again) of Jenny Fields, a sometimes nurse and headmistress, who doesn't believe in anyone but herself, and her son. As Garp matures, finding success as an author, Jenny inadvertently eclipses his fame with her own autobiography, which catapults her to the forefront of the feminist movement.
I won't say more about the plot, because nothing else would suffice. To try and describe it any further might inadvertently gloss over the innumerable circumstances that make up Garp's life.
The World According to Garp is about many, many things: death, feminism, friendship, infidelity, loss, marriage, parenthood, rape, being a writer--and most especially--lust. In its unique examination of life, there are many lessons to be learned.
Irving's title character is forced to deal with these issues. In this way, Garp is somehow universal. We all go through trials of one kind or another. Even if we disagree with Garp's decisions, we can understand the struggle that living often is. Garp's life is no picnic. But it rarely ever is.
The World According to Garp is the capstone to Irving's three previous novels (Setting Free the Bears, The Water Method Man, and The 158 Pound Marriage). All the themes in Garp can be found (to a degree) scattered through the three earlier stories. The big leap from the first three books to the fourth one is in Irving's plot twisting ability. Garp is nothing if not well twisted.
The character of Garp comes into the world in bizarre circumstances. From there, his life only becomes stranger and stranger. Lust, the thing his mother most misunderstands, dictates much in his life. Misinterpretation (by Garp and those around him) also greatly influences Garp's path. Irving acknowledges that life is rarely black and white. Those characters who come to see it as such do so with their heads in the metaphorical sand. Perhaps this is what most enrages the more rabid critics of this book.
The more of Irving's books I read, the more I have come to believe that Irving is the greatest living American author. Though I often disagree with what he writes (he seems to offend people of all ideologies), his skill as an author and storyteller is undeniable. I would put him neck and neck with A.S. Byatt as the greatest living author period.
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