Goodreads Mobile | see what your friends are reading

Feb 22, 2008

Gail rated it:

My favorite Irving book. I have a love/hate relationship with Irving's work. "Son" is a madhouse of a novel, even for Irving. The plot(s) are dizzyingly complicated; the characters as bizarre as always, but somehow believable. I loved the feeling for India in the book; and the humor--oh my! The scene in the cab made me laugh until I cried, thus waking up my husband, as I was reading in bed. If you can tolerate really, really weird situations, don't mind some mild but off-the-wall sexua More...

2 comments like (5 people liked it)

Dec 15, 2008

Jennifer rated it:

My favorite of Irving's. I went through a huge John Irving phase in college and grad school, and read everything the man ever wrote. I was thinking about Irving the other day wishing he would hurry up and write something else. When I read Son of the Circus, I loved it! It's a bit confusing at first and probably challenging to someone not ready to have to put together a puzzle, but as the story unfolds, the persevering reader will see how everything fits together.

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Nov 21, 2007

King Dinösaur rated it:

John Irving writes dense, complex, plot-driven books and this is his greatest. There is so much going on in this amazing work, I can't even describe it. Set in India with plenty of exotic flavor to go along with the interesting characters and dizzying plot.

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Feb 24, 2009

Elsa rated it:

Caught in between two cultures? Yes, I know something about that. And I loved being taken to India. I read it during my first trip to India in 2000. I felt caught into one of those "life mirroring art mirroring life" moments. Two thumbs up.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 07, 2008

Roy rated it:

2.5 stars. My least favorite John Irving book and the only one I can say that I did not especially like, not that it isn't written with his usual level of skill and attention to detail. But I found the plot and the characters far less addictive than that of the typical John Irving book. I probably would have rated this a little higher if it was written by someone else but I have the highest of expectations for Irving novels. He set a standard for himself with masterpieces such as The World A More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Ann rated it:

Critics may complain about the repetitive images of John Irving's books, but I love how he weaves the symbolism and influences of his life into his work. A Son of the Circus includes the common imagery of India, Toronto, central Europe, dwarfism, circuses, etc. from his other works. (More on that topic here: [http://www.readertravels.com/2006/09/India-via-the-John-Irving-Highway.php])

As always, I love his writing voice and the flow of the story. In this one, his nod to Graham Green More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Jan 26, 2009

Alys rated it:

I'm a John Irving fan and this book did not disappoint. He weaves together characters from different decades and different countries, complex and rich in detail. The book is both disturbing in its subject matter as most of his books are but compelling in a way that I could hardly put it down. A great summer or vacation read as it is close to 700 pages long.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 22, 2009

Tali added it

I read this book by accident and discovered how rich a a story can be.

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Feb 10, 2009

Lisa rated it:

I've always been a John Irving fan, but this one took me by surprise. It has a very slow start - I found myself struggling to get into it, thinking, "Why on earth would I care about an Indian circus and an Orthopedist's quest for dwarf blood?" (And yeah - it's exactly as weird as it sounds, at least at first.) I almost gave it up. Suddenly, though, after I pushed through the first two chapters, the dozens of characters started to gain their own identities, and all of a sudden, bang!, I More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 04, 2010

emi rated it:

I used to love John Irving, read most of what he wrote (The World According to Garp, A Prayer for Owen Meany, Cider House Rules, The Water Method Man, The 158 lb Marriage) until A Widow for One Year and The Fourth Hand, which I hated and quit him over. So I was hesitant about A Son of the Circus, but then ended up falling in total love with it, and all the characters, even the minor ones.

The story is wacky, the main character Dr. Farrokh Daruwalla lives part-time in Canada and part More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 18, 2009

Ana rated it:

My decision to listen to this audiobook happened on the spur of the moment. It had to do with a really great sale at Audible.com that was going to end in a few hours, and the fact that I am part Parsi. I didn't have any familiarity with Irving, only a vague, mild, positive feeling based on the fact that I read The World According to Garp ages ago and someone I respect once told me that A Prayer for Owen Meany was one of her favorite books.

In the preface, Irving explains that the Indi More...

0 comments like

Nov 25, 2011

Cv rated it:

There are authors who can seemingly throw in any disparate elements into the literary blender and come out with a well-conceived story. John Irving is one of those. Take an Indian Orthopedist and part-time screenwriter, a dwarf, twins separated at birth, a slutty c-list Hollywood actress, a crippled begger child, and a transexual. Throw ingredients into a typewriter, stir for several hundred pages, bake in a plot oven set to wild and viola, you have a work of wonder.

What I like so much More...

0 comments like

Sep 17, 2010

Snotchocheez rated it:

At long last I got around to reading Irving's long, LONG, LOOONG "A Son of the Circus", and despite its faults (and there are many, given its bloated 600+ page length), it's one of his best efforts, right up there with "A Prayer for Owen Meany", "...Garp", and "A Widow for One Year". I thought he'd be out of his element (if not out of his mind) writing about India, and put off reading it for more than a decade, although I wish I hadn't.

Irvin More...

0 comments like

Jan 21, 2010

Kaput rated it:

A few people have recommended John Irving to me and always with that fevered look of the true believer. Such recommendations meant that it was with apprehension that I approached this novel. When I realised it was eight hundred pages long, I may have cursed and blasphemed the good John Irving's name.

The underlying theme of this book appears to be identity. Social, political, sexual, religious and so on. It is also about discrimination in these areas. Mostly though it is played for la More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 24, 2011

Sandy rated it:

Dr. Farrokh Daruwalla's fascination with the circus, dwarfs, and his place decidedly between the India of his childhood and the Canada of his adulthood, finds himself back in Bombay and caught in a vortex of people and circumstances surrounding a serial killer whose decades of murder are about to come to an end.

John Irving's A Son of the Circus is not about India or even about the clubmen, dwarf clowns, transvestite whores, missionaries, and movie stars who populate the almost 700 pa More...

3 comments like

Aug 31, 2009

Joan rated it:

I had this book on the bookshelf for years and had started it once or twice, but until I read Water for Elephants a few weeks ago, I couldn't warm up to a story that takes place in India about a circus and features strange characters such as dwarfs. I'm glad I finally got around to reading this! While not my favorite John Irving book (I'd have to say the first I read, Garp, and then A Prayer for Owen Meany are my favorites), it's fun to fall under the spell of Irving's writing and his way of wea More...

0 comments like

Jan 09, 2010

Badly Drawn Girl rated it:

John Irving is one of my favorite authors and this book is my favorite of his (thus far). This was one of those books that I found myself savoring in hopes of putting off the inevitable ending. It's a good sized book but I still wasn't ready to say goodbye at the end. I loved the depth of the details. John Irving brings India to life in this book. The characters are well developed and we get to know them well. I also found myself laughing aloud several times which rarely happens.
More...

0 comments like

Jan 10, 2012

Monica rated it:

What can I say about this book besides great and wonderful things? When we chose this as our monthly selection for book club I was only slightly interested. The subjects of India, of dwarves, held no appeal for me. I struggled through the first 250 pages. I criticized the writing. I complained about the plot. And then complained about Irving’s overuse of the semi-colon. And then...I got it. I was mesmerized with the writing, with the plot, with the many characters in this 633 page book. I loved More...

0 comments like

Jan 01, 2009

Michael rated it:

So far so good ... I've read some reviews that say it digresses too much in its 600+ pages, but I love getting lost in the world of a book, so sometimes that's a good thing for me ... we'll see!

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

May 30, 2010

Karen rated it:

I loved Prayer for Owen Meany, and when I saw that Irving had a novel set in India, I thought that I'd read the novel. I enjoyed the characters and their quirks until about page 200, and then Irving's adolscent treatment of sex just got too annoying. He treats sexuality with all the depth and subtlety of a 13 year old boy. I skipped to the last 50 pages to learn the identity of the mysterious villian. This didn't make me regret skipping the bulk of the novel. Irving has such wit and complexity More...

0 comments like

Aug 07, 2009

Tiana rated it:

This book took a little time to get into because like many of John Irving's books, it is very dense and you have to read it very careful or you might miss something. It took longer to read than I do most books because of its very intricate 680 pages in tiny font.

Anyways, as all Irving's book every little details is important to the overall part of the story. Every character, every event. I love how everything becomes related. I've only read this one and Owen Meany, but Irving is very More...

0 comments like

May 12, 2009

Manda rated it:

Irving can make even the ordinary fascinating (as in "Cider House Rules") but in this case he chooses to take a trip to the bizarre. This novel reads like a Bollywood movie come to life: transsexuals, movie stars, monks, circus contortionists, dwarves who drive limos, long-lost twins, murders, dirty hippies, and so forth, and so on. Yet Irving somehow manages to make all this mayhem plausible. The individuals caught up in the various storylines seem like real people who took wrong turn More...

0 comments like

May 15, 2011

Chanda rated it:

I'm breaking up with John Irving-effective immediately. I've tried. Since the movie adaptation of Cider House Rules, which incidentally, I loved, I've tried. I struggled through A Prayer for Owen Meany and 158 Pound Marriage and nearly half of A Son of the Circus and I just can't do it anymore. I don't know what the point of the story is and I can't even stay interested long enough to figure out who the people are and what part each of them plays in this maniacal collection of nonsense and point More...

0 comments like

Dec 21, 2010

Katie rated it:

This book was pretty strange and that's usually fine with me, but at times the weirdness seemed pointless and the narrative became disjointed. It was also hard for me to "care" about the characters, as they all seemed pretty amoral and shallow.

I also have a few issues with the way the Irving portrays India. While I like his exploration of immigrant identities, I was a little turned off by the way he described India and Indian people. His depiction seemed a little too otheriz More...

0 comments like

Jul 22, 2010

Stevebri rated it:

Once again I almost abandoned this book after fifty pages. Irving has the annoying habit of writing about characters as if you know all about them. It is very frustrating at first and only after you start learning about the character can you appreciate the story. If I hadn’t been listening to this in my car on some long commutes I would have gotten bored and frustrated. Another annoying habit Irving has is to do flash backs inside of flashbacks and on at least one occasion a third level of f More...

0 comments like

May 24, 2011

Rose rated it:

I love John Irving and I love circus books so I was pretty excited about this one. It is a very long book and has a lot of the themes fans of John Irving will expect. Sexual ambiguity, a transgender character, displaced people. Stories within stories. As a circus book it leaves you wanting more. Only a very small part of the story takes place in a circus although the idea of circus winds it's way through the whole book. If you are after a John Irving book, try this out, I bet you like it. More...

0 comments like

Jun 07, 2011

Cams rated it:

I'm reviewing the audio book, read by David Colacci and available on Audible.

It took me a while to get into this book. In fact, I got about a quarter of the way through and then stopped for a few months, although this was more to do with the fact that I was listening on my Shuffle in the swimming pool and then stopped swimming while I healed from surgery. I had to go back to the beginning again...

I loved the plot of this book. Although it was slow to start, it was defini More...

0 comments like

Feb 09, 2010

Jacob rated it:

Dwarfs and beggars, whores and transvestites, murderers and movie stars and twins separated at birth, and the doctor/amateur geneticist/really amateur writer who knows them all...

Of what I’ve read, this is John Irving’s most raucous novel yet, a wild circus with a half-dozen acts all scrambling for the center spot. Easily worth five stars, but I probably read it wrong. Often, with Irving, you can set the book down and come back to it after a long absense, or even just pick a page a More...

6 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 08, 2012

Kellie rated it:

This took every last bit of a reader’s endurance to complete. First and foremost, I am in awe of the writing talent of John Irving. It is amazing how his mind works. The intricacy of his writing is like a ball of yarn. It weaves around tight and comes back around to its point of origin on its way. This novel had so much to it. Not only in it’s plot, but the characters too.

The story takes place in India, which, based on this novel, is a very strange place. It’s environment is More...

0 comments like

Aug 05, 2009

Christina Stind rated it:

Who else but John Irving can write a novel where one of the major plot twist is about a man converting to Christianity because he gets bitten in the toe one night while sleeping?
I can't think of anybody else - but Irving does it and he does it well!
Dr. Farrokh Daruwalla lives in Canada - but he's born in India and he goes back to India regularly, because of the dwarves and because of the Inspector Dhar Bollywood movies. The dwarves are the circus dwarves - and his question is why nor More...

4 comments like