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Dec 16, 2009

Emily rated it:

This book is one of my favorites. Because I like it so much, I'm not going to say much, except that it's always worth reading, even if you have read it before.
There's a scene in this book it's a revealed that a high-up publisher gives all his manuscripts to his cleaning lady, and she's the one that tells him whether they're worth publishing or not. When he asks her why she read a particularly disturbing novel, she answers "To find out what happens next." Later, she adds, "A More...

2 comments like (25 people liked it)

Sep 03, 2011

Noce rated it:

Il lettore prima di tutto

Non so se capita anche a voi, ma ogni tanto mi succede di leggere involontariamente una sequenza di libri, legati da qualcosa, una tematica, una situazione, un oggetto, che ricorre senza che io lo possa anticipatamente sapere, in tutte le storie. Ad esempio, negli ultimi tempi, ho letto diversi libri, e a distanza ravvicinata, dove un ruolo decisamente significativo viene ricoperto da un cane. Ne “La porta” della Szabò, c’è il cane Viola. Nel libro di Fante, More...

11 comments like (6 people liked it)

May 12, 2009

Holly rated it:

I think I may be too young for this book. I've done that a few times--read a book, then later realized that I just wasn't old enough for it. Take Kerouac's On the Road, for instance. I read it in 7th grade and thought it was dumb. Of course. Everything is still black and white then--drugs are bad, you shouldn't like bad people, and I'm going to be ___________ when I grow up. However, re-reading it near the end of college, with no idea what in the hell I'm going to do and a bit more of an u More...

5 comments like (8 people liked it)

Jan 16, 2011

Janene rated it:

I had heard so much positive about this book...that it was on my 'Books to Read Before I Die'...list.

Well, I will die with having read 1/2 of it. I kept reading, I guess...because of how great it was supposed to be. I mean...John Irving! I got to the half way point and thought..."Where is this going?!" I then realized I really didn't care. And put it down. Page after page, I finally came to the realization there wasn't enough of a story/plot to get me to turn ano More...

0 comments like (7 people liked it)

Feb 10, 2012

Jacob rated it:

Quite possibly my favorite book. Irving is a master here; it's a brilliant story, and it feels more like a life than a novel--the life of T.S. Garp, not just a novel about him. Garp's world seem so true, even if, like The Hotel New Hampshire (another favorite), the story departs from a historical setting (WWII and later postwar America and Europe) and goes on to forge a unique, magical--and entirely believable--history of its own. Not many novels--and not many writers--can really do that. More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Sep 27, 2008

Jackie rated it:

I had heard great things about this book. It deals a lot with feminism, parental paranoia, and the challenges of career ambitions. I kept assuming this book was on the brink of something totally earth-shattering, so I kept turning the pages, and it never came.

0 comments like (11 people liked it)

Oct 13, 2008

dirt rated it:

The part of the penis part! Ouch!

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 25, 2012

FlibBityFLooB rated it:

The World According to Garp is one of those books that is so unique that I think everyone should read it at some point in their life. The plot revolves around a very interesting mother/son pair. Jenny, the mother, is an odd female nurse who seems asexual and has strong feminism ideas that perpetuate through the story. Most of the book is Garp, Jenny’s son, explaining how his mother came to write an auto-biography that makes her famous, all the while trying to maintain his role as an author More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Feb 14, 2010

Mike rated it:

Dull, dull, dull. Boring people doing boring things. Even the sex is boring.

I've spent some time wondering whether everyone is so boring because it's the world according to Garp, and Garp himself is boring. The novel is cleverly structured (it could be a literary theorist's wet dream); Garp himself is a novelist, and shards of his work appear throughout this novel, including the third chapter of his third novel, The World According to Bensenhaver. (Excuse me if I got the name wr More...

4 comments like (9 people liked it)

Apr 22, 2008

bonnie rated it:

Possible mild spoiler alert? I try to keep my reviews to what a "real" book review would contain - this necessitates some detail. After all, what good is a review that provides only information available on the back cover combined with "I liked it" or "I didn't"? That said, someone apparently thinks this particular review of mine contains too much. So consider yourself warned.

The book starts by explaining how Garp came to be by introducing Garp's mother, More...

1 comment like (5 people liked it)

Jan 29, 2008

Roy rated it:

I'd say that "Lolita" and "Love in the Time of Cholera" are the two best written books I've ever read. But if I had to pick my all time favorite book I'd probably go with "The World According to Garp". Irving takes us on the path of T.S. Garp's life from conception to death and I was enthralled every step of the way. This book is full of humanity, full of both light and dark humor, and full of insight into the human condition. Irving took over from Charles Dicke More...

0 comments like (17 people liked it)

Dec 14, 2007

Glen rated it:

Prior to reading this book, I had only read half of one novel by John Irving. I'm not going to mention the title here because I don't think it's quite fair to speak ill of a book which I didn't even finish, but suffice to say that I had no immediate plans to read another half of any of his work. That changed though when a friend talked me into taking The World According to Garp on a trip that I was planning. I thought the book was fantastic, and since I have no life I'm going to spend Friday More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Aili rated it:

Oh John Irving. You are a twisted man, who writes about twisted sex and violence between twisted characters who are clearly very thinly veiled versions of yourself. I hate you. The only reason I finished your book is that I am obsessive about finishing things.

But maybe I did this backwards -- I read A Widow for One Year first, and THEN WAtG. I think most folks do it the other way around. So all of the issues covered in Widow seemed re-hashed to me, or re-covered, or just basically mo More...

3 comments like (5 people liked it)

Jul 05, 2007

Eric rated it:

Irving writes in a contemporary style of reflection, his narration jumping hither and thither rather than in a strictly linear fashion. In the early pages, as we learn of Jenny and Garp, Irving uses what I thought to be an initially astonishing method of quoting from his characters in order to reveal something of them to us. This falls into place later when both Jenny Fields and her son, Garp, are revealed to be rather successful writers. Both have odd idiosyncracies, which are highlighted throu More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Seth rated it:

I went through an extended period in my life where I re-read this book every year(1). It's a very fun read.

You can read it as a character study, watching how Garp changes as he ages and his responsibilities mature. You can read it as an analysis of the writer's experience (the bits about Garp's writing--and especially the chapter of Garps' book The World According to Benzenhurt--are excellent). You can read it as being about his relationships, primarily with women (his mother, his wi More...

2 comments like (5 people liked it)

Mar 19, 2007

mary rated it:

i have an ongoing love affair with john irving, and it all started with this book.

i read it for the first time when i was a tad too young, and it has had a freakishly large impact on me. it is not necessarily grand or epic in any sense, and the story is ridiculous and morbid and almost fantastical with its excessive insanity. now, i want to look at it with a condescending and adultlike detachment, believing life has a much higher purpose than wading through the soap opera depicted h More...

1 comment like (5 people liked it)

Mar 11, 2009

Eileen rated it:

I read this in 1979. I can remember walking into the book store on 5th Avenue, NYC, and buying a copy after marveling at the piles and piles of this bestseller in the window. I was not disappointed. A great introduction to Irving. I later gave away my copy of GARP to a friend who truly needed at the time to see that even in the most absurd and traumatizing times, life shows us a glimpse of redemption.

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Jan 30, 2009

Jen rated it:

Someone once told me that Irving has a tendency to "ramble on" in his books. That person lied. I have read two of his books now and there is no tendency to it; the man is a certifiable rambler. This is not to say that his ramblings aren't enjoyable-most of them are. They are side dishes of escapade, if you like. But, as much as I enjoyed the sides, I felt as if this book had a sort of matryoshka doll effect (But wait! There's more! Ta da! But wait! There's more! Ta da!...), lit More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Dec 07, 2011

Borbality rated it:

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0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 29, 2012

Jade rated it:

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0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 06, 2010

Greg rated it:

When I first started my plan to read all the classics, I didn't have any rules for allowing myself to quit partway through. As a result, I endured the entire 400+ pages of this book, thinking all along how I didn't really care for it. Perhaps inspired by that experience, I now allow myself to give up if I'm at least 100 pages in, which would have improved my "Garp" experience.

The first sign I should have seen that this wasn't going to be a good book was that it is "s More...

2 comments like (5 people liked it)

Sep 28, 2009

Michael rated it:

The World According to Garp is pretty much a brilliantly written novel about a bunch of crap I don't care one bit about. I mean, it's kept me going for more than 500 pages, but I'm starting to get tired of it. It's like an epic biopic that everyone knows will win an Oscar, you know?

The thing about it is that it's about a writer, and I hate it when writers write about writers. Also, he's a literary writer, who writes thinly disguised biographical fiction. The author includes snippets More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 13, 2008

Steven rated it:

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2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 03, 2008

Lisa rated it:

A near-perfect book. I've read "Garp" many times and it's one of those stories that shouldn't have made a good film and yet it did because it just took the most important parts and made them visual. It's about sex and it's about violence and it's about writing and it's about success and it's about family above all. They say no one gets to choose their family and yet most of us WOULD choose those we happen to be related to and not because we couldn't find anything better. We'd choos More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Mar 04, 2009

Rowena rated it:

The World According to Garp begins with the decision of Jenny Fields to have a child in a most unorthodox manner. She's indifferent toward men and derives no pleasure from the thought of married life. Therefore, she endeavors to impregnate herself in a manner where she will never again have to contend with a man. And thus, TS Garp is born. Garp grows up to be a writer. The rest of the novel is peppered with a few of his "short" stories meant to give the reader insight into Garp's own p More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

May 14, 2007

Laura rated it:

Wow, talk about original. Irving packs this book with freakishly oddball characters, but every one is so... knowable. They seem, if not normal, then like people whom I have met. I am in awe of Irving's ability to make characters unbelievable and believable at the same time. Similarly, this book is full of tragedy, and is simultaneously uplifting.

I was lucky to read the book before I saw the movie, mostly because my parents loved reading so much that I could read just about anythi More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jul 17, 2007

Alice rated it:

I read a great review of John Irving's book 'Until I Find You,' when it came out, and had never read a John Irving book before. While at the book store about the make the purchase, I ran into a friend who told me that before I read any of John Irving's other books, I must begin with ...Garp. What great advice! I got into it immediately and could barely put it down. Its funny, warm, exciting and takes a journey unlike many others through the ever imaginitive world of TS Garp. I recommend it More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Aug 06, 2011

Ron added it

Where do I start? Even by his standard, the strangest Irving. What a wonderful collection of characters, every one unique, memorable and believable. And such a collection of themes too: gender differences, fatherhood, lust, etc. As with several of his wondeful novels, this is staying with me, exercising my brain and imagination after I completed the reading.

I identified with Garp more than with any other Irving character: as a father who has been known to over-react and cannot resist responding More...

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Mar 18, 2009

Gretchen rated it:

in case anyone has wondered why they haven't heard from me in awhile, it's because i've been trudging through this book and one other for the last month and a half. and i mean trudge. as we all know i love to listen to books on tape in my studio, and i would find myself procrastinating going to work SIMPLY BECAUSE i couldn't stand the thought of having to listen to this insipid story.
man is a narcissist
born from a feminist
becomes a novelist
has a bunch of meaningless affa More...

4 comments like (5 people liked it)

Jan 31, 2012

Joe rated it:

Somehow I missed reading Garp when it was published. To the best of my memory, I started reading Irving in the early 90's beginning with A Prayer For Owen Meany. I was captured and went on to read more, not all, with some disappointments, but most dazzling and brilliant. Realizing I had not read Garp, I thought I would attempt it. Like all of the good ones, Irving creates a different world but not totally un-alike from our own. What stands out for me in Garp and all those others that I think ar More...

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