So well written I ignored that nothing really happens.

books:


	• The World According to Garp John Irving Ballantine Books, 1990 - 624 pages average customer review:based on 288 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

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.

So well written I ignored that nothing really happens.

T.S. Garp is the only child of the famous, yet constantly-misunderstood, Jenny Fields. Under her care he had a most peculiar upbringing and maybe...just maybe, that can help explain who he has become. For one thing, he has become a writer, like his mother, but he is different. His mother's memoirs, her only published work, are read by many as the original feminist manifesto. Garp writes fiction. The World According to Garp is exactly that: a glimpse of the world through the eyes of a man who was raised by the woman credited as the founder of the feminist movement, and is now married and raising children of his own.

I appreciate recommendations as much as, if not a little more than, the next guy. And this one came with a very passionate delivery. Anyone who can speak with that much resolve about a book has my attention. She did not tell me what it is about, just as I was unable to really tell anyone what it was about while I was reading it. She only told me that it was the best book she had ever read, and she seemed a credible source.

While it wasn't, necessarily, the best book I have ever read, I thoroughly enjoyed The World According to Garp. It took me awhile to get through it; each word seemed so carefully chosen that it deserved as much attention as the rest. From cover to cover I was captivated by the writing. A few sections of the book made me a little uncomfortable, but for the most part Garp was an interesting protagonist who was able to hold my attention.

The gentleman who sat next to me on an airplane as I read this book shared that he had enjoyed it when he read it. I told him my thoughts on the slow pace of the book and he said Irving writes each of his books that way, calling his writing very "Southern." I'm not sure if he was saying that so I wouldn't feel isolated in my opinion or as a caution should I ever choose to read Irving again. If he meant it as the latter I do not plan to heed his warning; I liked The World According to Garp and I am curious to read more from John Irving.

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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.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

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."

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