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Until I Find You

by John Irving (Goodreads Author)

3.53 of 5 stars 3.53 · rating details · 14,147 ratings · 1,081 reviews

Until I Find You is the story of the actor Jack Burns – his life, loves, celebrity and astonishing search for the truth about his parents.

When he is four years old, Jack travels with his mother Alice, a tattoo artist, to several North Sea ports in search of his father, William Burns. From Copenhagen to Amsterdam, William, a brilliant church organist and profligate womaniz...more Until I Find You is the story of the actor Jack Burns – his life, loves, celebrity and astonishing search for the truth about his parents.

When he is four years old, Jack travels with his mother Alice, a tattoo artist, to several North Sea ports in search of his father, William Burns. From Copenhagen to Amsterdam, William, a brilliant church organist and profligate womanizer, is always a step ahead – has always just departed in a wave of scandal, with a new tattoo somewhere on his body from a local master or “scratcher.”

Alice and Jack abandon their quest, and Jack is educated at schools in Canada and New England – including, tellingly, a girls’ school in Toronto. His real education consists of his relationships with older women – from Emma Oastler, who initiates him into erotic life, to the girls of St. Hilda’s, with whom he first appears on stage, to the abusive Mrs. Machado, whom he first meets when sent to learn wrestling at a local gym.

Too much happens in this expansive, eventful novel to possibly summarize it all. Emma and Jack move to Los Angeles, where Emma becomes a successful novelist and Jack a promising actor. A host of eccentric minor characters memorably come and go, including Jack’s hilariously confused teacher the Wurtz; Michelle Maher, the girlfriend he will never forget; and a precocious child Jack finds in the back of an Audi in a restaurant parking lot. We learn about tattoo addiction and movie cross-dressing, “sleeping in the needles” and the cure for cauliflower ears. And John Irving renders his protagonist’s unusual rise through Hollywood with the same vivid detail and range of emotions he gives to the organ music Jack hears as a child in European churches. This is an absorbing and moving book about obsession and loss, truth and storytelling, the signs we carry on us and inside us, the traces we can’t get rid of.

Jack has always lived in the shadow of his absent father. But as he grows older – and when his mother dies – he starts to doubt the portrait of his father’s character she painted for him when he was a child. This is the cue for a second journey around Europe in search of his father, from Edinburgh to Switzerland, towards a conclusion of great emotional force.

A melancholy tale of deception, Until I Find You is also a swaggering comic novel, a giant tapestry of life’s hopes. It is a masterpiece to compare with John Irving’s great novels, and restates the author’s claim to be considered the most glorious, comic, moving novelist at work today.

From the Hardcover edition.(less)

Paperback, Ballantine Books Trade Paperback Edition, 848 pages

Published May 30th 2006 by Ballantine Books (first published January 1st 2005)

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Nov 13, 2007 Martin rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2007books

I have very much enjoyed the other novels by John Irving I have read (Garp, Owen Meany, Widow for One Year), but I did NOT in any way enjoy "Until I Find You." All the classic Irving tropes are here (wrestling, prostitutes, New Hampshire, older women, people of small stature), but all are deployed in an absolutely forced, joyless, airless manner. The best thing I can say about this novel is that Irving's prose is typically readable. That is also the ONLY positive thing I can think to say about t...more I have very much enjoyed the other novels by John Irving I have read (Garp, Owen Meany, Widow for One Year), but I did NOT in any way enjoy "Until I Find You." All the classic Irving tropes are here (wrestling, prostitutes, New Hampshire, older women, people of small stature), but all are deployed in an absolutely forced, joyless, airless manner. The best thing I can say about this novel is that Irving's prose is typically readable. That is also the ONLY positive thing I can think to say about the book. The entire text feels like an exercise in expanding the relatively banal post-modern quote that prefaces the text, except that the quote (generally about the fallibility of memory and storytelling) is about four lines long, and the novel is 820 seemingly endless pages. And at the end of the text, I didn't feel that the quote had been the slightest bit illuminated or developed or enriched. (I don’t want to spoil anything, but the prevailing feeling I have about the novel is: that’s IT??)

The story hangs together on contrivance and uninspiring, unsurprising "twists." Previous Irving books create worlds where unbelievable acts of fate or outlandish characters become truly believable. Irving follows the old professorial dictum to "make the familiar strange and the strange familiar." Yet the world created in "Until I Find You" fails to cohere. The characters never sound real when they speak; no one’s actions ever make sense to us, nor do we (the audience) believe that they even make sense to the characters themselves. Never at any point did I truly care about a single character in this novel, and no one ever achieved anything other than the sketchiest inner life or set of motivations. Managing to keep each and every character a two-dimensional functionary within a novel so enormous is actually an accomplishment, though a dubious one, to be sure. With prose so fluid, I found myself turning page after boring, contrived, unbelievable page, waiting for something – ANYthing – to hook me, for some coincidence to startle me, for some connection to be revealed to me. But page after page (after page after page…) disappointed. There was simply no depth, no truth, no emotion.

I recently read Anna Karenina, and was shocked at the amount of activity that takes place within each and every chapter, and to each and every character. Every person in Tolstoy’s novel has a rich inner life and wonderfully nuanced viewpoints; those were 1200 pages that felt like 200. "Until I Find You" is the polar opposite: you could convince me that I have been reading that book nonstop for the last three years. It could be 800 pages or 8,000.

There’s really very little else to say about this lifeless cinderblock of a book. I enjoyed almost nothing about it, and can only reiterate my surprise and sadness at being so utterly disappointed by a book I had been so excited to read, written by a novelist I had previously enjoyed so much. What a sad waste.(less)

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Feb 27, 2008 Daniel rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-about-writers, first-edition, 2008

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. "Until I Find You" is repetitious, overwritten, overlong and untrusting of the reader. Almost no important detail, key anecdote, phrase in a foreign language, or memorable line is used just once, and few are used just twice or even three times. Even the uninspired elements get repeated again and again. (Inexplicably, however, the occasional detail -- Emma's moustache, for example -- is heavily emphasized, and then completely dropped without being resolved or mentioned again.)

It's been a while si...more

7 likes · like · see review

Patrick Until I Find You

by John Irving

(1/5 stars)

Finally my masochistic quest to read all eleven of Mr. Irving's novels in almost the proper order is complete...more
Nov 25, 2008 04:00pm

Aug 13, 2008 Vendela rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: anyone

Shelves: must-reads

This is the most personal book I have read of Irving's and I am a huge fan. I've read everything save one book, the one that was a very successful movie.

"Until I Find You" is a tough book to get into. The first few chapters are painstaking and seem laborious but you cannot put the book aside. Then in a single moment it becomes essential to know the story, know what happens to this little boy, because you care about him in his over-the-top quirky yet very sad yet oblivous existence.

For an Irvin...more

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Mar 02, 2009 Isabella Rodriguez rated it 2 of 5 stars

Interesting story. Way too long. Not my favorite Irving.

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Nov 16, 2010 Amanda Patterson rated it 2 of 5 stars

John Irving is an inspirational author and I use many of his books as examples on how to write a good book. A Widow for One Year is in my Top 10 books of all time.

Until I Find You is far from brilliant. It's tedious, self-indulgent and boring.

As much as I like to see authors making money and winning Oscars (The Cider House Rules), I'm not in favour of the power they weild afterwards. No first-time author would be indulged in this way.

Typical John Irving characters. I was hoping for more typical...more

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Jul 23, 2008 Josh Cutting rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: musicans, tattoo freaks, or any son of split parents

Recommended to Josh by: Persis

This is a case for me of a pure gut/emotional reaction, and I'm not ashamed to admit it.

First of all, this book has totally sold me on John Irving. I read "A Prayer for Owen Meany", and had the hardest time getting into it. I really liked about the last hundred pages, but getting there was a chore, to be quite honest.

But this book, this book had me from the first line to the last. And it is directly because of all of the personal parallels. You have the musician (I'm a musician, a pianist actual...more

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Nov 09, 2007 Nathan rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Irving veterans

I have read 10 of John Irving's books: his first 9, and this one. Clearly, he does something that I keep going back for. Maybe it's no coincidence that I also read all of Dickens' novels in chronological order, back in my twenties. The two are very different -- Dickens is much funnier, for instance -- but they have much in common. It doesn't surprise me to read others' mention of the links between them:

Of the scope, the sheer heft factor of their books, many complain. I like it. It's hard not t...more I have read 10 of John Irving's books: his first 9, and this one. Clearly, he does something that I keep going back for. Maybe it's no coincidence that I also read all of Dickens' novels in chronological order, back in my twenties. The two are very different -- Dickens is much funnier, for instance -- but they have much in common. It doesn't surprise me to read others' mention of the links between them:

Of the scope, the sheer heft factor of their books, many complain. I like it. It's hard not to like a character, Jack Burns for one, when, after 800 pages, you feel you've known him his whole life. I think incomplete knowledge and hasty summation of others is at the root of human conflict.

I am a sucker for writers who are both essentially compassionate and unequivocally outraged by human cruelty, especially if they don't just wring their hands, but leap from their armchairs, sprint after the offenders, smash out their tail-lights and put them on notice, a la T.S. Garp.

Irving also is a tonic to me because I feel understood when an author writes frankly about sexuality. I don't have to share a character's particular predilections to enjoy the reading, and I feel respected when things aren't whitewashed 'for my protection.' I concur that cruel sex isn't immoral because of the sex, but because of the cruelty. I believe that *any* morality that's used for superiority, used to judge or condemn others, is really just tarted-up cruelty. For these reasons, Irving is right up my street.

Both Irving and Dickens zero in on the invisible-because-conventionally-unregarded strings that most of us are still dancing at the ends of, with the other ends tethered to our childhoods. Most of us throw our hands up about our pasts, stamp 'history' on the whole bundle, and close the door upon it. If we're like sailing ships, our history is the wind, beyond our control, still pushing at us; it takes skill and tenacity to steer the present, consciously, against this wind, and most of us don't have the grit for it. Both Irving and Dickens have troubled to regard childhood, to steep themselves in it, and their writing about childhood rings with this truth as a result: childhood is magical, yes, but more Pan's-Labyrinth-magical than Pinocchio-Blue-Fairy magical; it's magical because ordinary human actions can be transformed, distorted, elevated to myth, when perceived by a child. A single instance of loss, of gratitude, of injustice, all parts of the passing parade of human experience as understood by adults, can become -- or as mysteriously not become -- lifelong, permanent, and defining for a child. As a former child, present parent, and future feature of my childrens' memories, it helps me to remember this, and reading these authors gets me there.

As for 'Until I Find You,' in particular? Well, it's not Irving's tightest work, and Irving's tightest work is none too tight. I have to conclude that he's serving a purpose other than spare, lean writing. It has a different effect on the reader than saying, "So Jack and his mom went to a succession of major Scandinavian cities, met assorted tattooers, and stayed in various hotels," to have to go through the somewhat circular experience, the full theme-and-variations, with Jack. It pays off when he has to refactor his memories, because we have them too, and they were so many pages ago that they feel like *our* childhood memories. In many respects, reading the book is more like living life than like experiencing a finely-crafted, precision-engineered storytelling. Mrs. McQuat almost gets to serve as a needed counter-weight, but dies too early; Claudia's daughter comes and goes with Jack seeming to sleepwalk through both the experience and the ramifications; the bat exhibit and The Wurtz; I could make a long list of the dangling threads that just keep dangling. Irving has no regard whatever for Chekhov's gun (look up 'Chekhov's gun' in Wikipedia), and I guess I don't either.(less)

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Nov 03, 2007 Sherry rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2006-2010

"When he is four years old, Jack travels with his mother Alice, a tattoo artist, to several North Sea ports in search of his father, William Burns. From Copenhagen to Amsterdam, William, a brilliant church organist and profligate womanizer, is always a step ahead – has always just departed in a wave of scandal, with a new tattoo somewhere on his body from a local master or “scratcher.”

Alice and Jack abandon their quest, and Jack is educated at schools in Canada and New England – including, telli...more "When he is four years old, Jack travels with his mother Alice, a tattoo artist, to several North Sea ports in search of his father, William Burns. From Copenhagen to Amsterdam, William, a brilliant church organist and profligate womanizer, is always a step ahead – has always just departed in a wave of scandal, with a new tattoo somewhere on his body from a local master or “scratcher.”

Alice and Jack abandon their quest, and Jack is educated at schools in Canada and New England – including, tellingly, a girls’ school in Toronto. His real education consists of his relationships with older women – from Emma Oastler, who initiates him into erotic life, to the girls of St. Hilda’s, with whom he first appears on stage, to the abusive Mrs. Machado, whom he first meets when sent to learn wrestling at a local gym.

Too much happens in this expansive, eventful novel to possibly summarize it all. Emma and Jack move to Los Angeles, where Emma becomes a successful novelist and Jack a promising actor. A host of eccentric minor characters memorably come and go, including Jack’s hilariously confused teacher the Wurtz; Michelle Maher, the girlfriend he will never forget; and a precocious child Jack finds in the back of an Audi in a restaurant parking lot. We learn about tattoo addiction and movie cross-dressing, “sleeping in the needles” and the cure for cauliflower ears. And John Irving renders his protagonist’s unusual rise through Hollywood with the same vividdetail and range of emotions he gives to the organ music Jack hears as a child in European churches. This is an absorbing and moving book about obsession and loss, truth and storytelling, the signs we carry on us and inside us, the traces we can’t get rid of.

Jack has always lived in the shadow of his absent father. But as he grows older – and when his mother dies – he starts to doubt the portrait of his father’s character she painted for him when he was a child. This is the cue for a second journey around Europe in search of his father, from Edinburgh to Switzerland, towards a conclusion of great emotional force."

An audiobook that I didn't finish. I found the developing sexuality of Jack (at least 6 discs long) to be much too perverted and boring to continue through. Characters felt cold and unreal.(less)

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May 22, 2007 Brean rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: people with father issues, people with mother issues, people into tattoos/tatto art/maritime art

What John Irving does best- creates a very detailed history, starting with Jack as a young boy and taking you with him into adulthood. But the childhood portion of this book is told from the perspective of his memory, which will have you having all sorts of bits of nostalgia in relating to the way Jack remembers things and reasons he mis-remembers them. It's especially heartbreaking because as an adult he is searching for his father he never knew, and discovers that some memories he has involve...more

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Jan 17, 2008 April rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: iron stomachs

Recommended to April by: Seattle Public Library, based on my checkout history

Shelves: couldn-t-wouldn-t-finish

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Mar 15, 2009 Judy rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: did-not-finish

I enjoyed the first section of this book, which seems almost like a return to the Irving of 'The World According to Garp' or 'The Hotel New Hampshire', about the young Jack and his tattooist mother wandering through assorted European cities searching for his elusive father. However, I feel the book deteriorates disastrously after that - the writing style seems to go downhill and there is a lot about child abuse which I just didn't want to go on reading.

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May 17, 2009 Peter Guttmacher added it

I don't think I can read John Irving anymore. At least not a book of this girth. Despite the colorful characters, it plods for 800 + pages. We follow the steps of the oh-so-human protagonist through his twisted childhood and then travel with him some more as he retraces those steps to get at the Truth. The reunion and redemption waiting for him at the end of his journey are....ah........small potatoes. How much can we care about a movie star? Even a movie star with a small penis. It's cruel but...more

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Sep 08, 2007 Alison rated it 2 of 5 stars

I usually love John Irving, "The World According to Garp" and "A Prayer for Owen Meany" are two of my favorite books ever, and I usually like whatever else he writes. I found this book to be kind of a meandering dud peppered with the some of the least titillating sex scenes ever put to paper. There are some bright spots (though I forget them now, the book is freakin' long), but mainly the whole thing is basically a chronicle of Irving's love affair with his own penis. Sex has always been a major...more

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Feb 11, 2009 Kerfe rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

This is only my second John Irving novel, but I can already see he has abandonment issues. And problems with relationships. Of all kinds.

I really liked the first section, describing Jack's childhood memories of his search, with his mother, for the father that abandoned them. But I got bogged down in the middle sections; I didn't like Jack, or his mother, or the girls and women who abused him, or the women and girls he abused. There was very little that was "functional" going on in the relationsh...more

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Feb 05, 2009 Bookmarks Magazine added it · review of another edition

Until I Find You showcases Irving's trademark bizarre plots, entertaining prose, and m_

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Feb 03, 2009 Carlos Velez rated it 5 of 5 stars

Jack Burns!

I can't hear the name without the exclamation point in my head. He leads an interesting life. John Irving weaves his childhood, teen years, and adult life into a strange and fascinating tale. Much of what John Irving writes about revolves around sex, especially for Jack Burns. I've read two of Irving's novels, the other being A Widow For One Year and he has a few consistencies. Taboo sex is a major factor in the lives of the main characters, for instance, a middle aged woman and a tee...more Jack Burns!

I can't hear the name without the exclamation point in my head. He leads an interesting life. John Irving weaves his childhood, teen years, and adult life into a strange and fascinating tale. Much of what John Irving writes about revolves around sex, especially for Jack Burns. I've read two of Irving's novels, the other being A Widow For One Year and he has a few consistencies. Taboo sex is a major factor in the lives of the main characters, for instance, a middle aged woman and a teenage boy. He follows the life of the main character (or characters) from their formative years well into their adult life, and he shows the change and growth the character goes through, especially in relation to the strange experiences they went through as children. Families are dysfunctional in a very refreshingly unique sort of way. And there is a love of stories.

In both novels, there is at least one creative character who writes books, or movies. He tells these stories within his own story as well. In A Widow For One Year, there are four writers, and he gives details about the plots to each of their books. One of the authors, Ted Cole, writes children's books, and he actually tells the full stories of three of them. He has since published one of these children's stories, A Sound Like Someone Trying Not To Make A Sound, which I look forward to reading.

In Until I Find You, the main characters best friend writes screenplays, and the main character is an actor in movies, and he goes into detail about the plots of these films as well.

In both books, Irving also goes off into tangents. It is especially in prevalent in Until I Find You, where he seems unable to finish a sentence without being reminded of some event in the characters future or past, or some interesting tidbit about the place where the current scene is taking place. He goes into detail on these tangents to the point where you forget what story he was originally telling, and then he brings you right back into it without whiplash to your brain and sinks you right back into his fascinating story. I don't know how he does this without making me want to put the book down...I've rather grown to like this ability he has. It's bad story telling, put to a very good use. I wouldn't trust anyone else to be able to pull it off, but he does so splendidly.

Read John Irving, unless you're morally uptight, and be enriched.

Also, see A Door In The floor, the Focus Film adaptation of A Widow For One Year. It is the best book-to-film I've ever seen. It completely captures the spirit and feel of the novel, though it only covers the first half of the book, when the main characters are young. The second half of the novel goes into their adult life, which is not addressed in the movie...sequel?...I doubt it, but would love it.

John Irving is now of one of my top favorite authors.(less)

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Apr 14, 2013 Thom Swennes rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Are lives predestined or do people have the choice to determine their futures? Are we bound to follow in the steps of one or both of our parents and have neither the powers nor abilities to change or even influence the ultimate outcome? What our early beliefs are tainted with deceit? Will this have an influence on our eventual futures? These and other questions are asked, explored and sometimes even answered or was Jack the lover his father supposedly was or was it a question of androgyny that c...more Are lives predestined or do people have the choice to determine their futures? Are we bound to follow in the steps of one or both of our parents and have neither the powers nor abilities to change or even influence the ultimate outcome? What our early beliefs are tainted with deceit? Will this have an influence on our eventual futures? These and other questions are asked, explored and sometimes even answered or was Jack the lover his father supposedly was or was it a question of androgyny that couldn’t have been altered? A mother’s deceit inflicts devastating wounds…… perception and perspective is everything.
I The North Sea
When Alice, Jack’s mother, took him on a winter tour of the Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands in search of his run-away father, I was intrigued. The small world of the tattooist is exposed and revealed in a way I never expected. As the book continues, Jack matures. This is only natural but the life he is exposed to and the influences that shape Jack the man can only be deemed unique. On a side note, the topographical and social descriptions of the countries along the eastern coast of the North Sea are almost spot on.
II The Sea of Girls
At first glance one would think Jack lucky to gain admittance to the highly regarded girl’s school of St. Hilda. From a female perspective what safer environment could Alice desire for Jack? From a male perception going to a girls school would be akin to dying and going to heaven. The lack of male peer contact and interaction play a major role in his social development. Alice could have obviated any problems by enrolling Jack in a normal school. I find myself in complete empathy with Jack and have compassion for his struggle toward maturity.
III Lucky
After completing the fourth grade, Jack had to say goodbye to St. Hilda and was shipped off to Redding, a private all boys middle school in Maine. He takes up wrestling for the purposes of self defense. High school at Exeter Academy broadens his scholastic and social worlds and keeps him far from his mother and home. Upon graduation he attends the University of New Hampshire and struggles through relationships, classes and summer stock. He took the advice of Horace Greeley and went west to the Mecca of film, Hollywood (the fact that Emma, his lifelong sister/lover/confident was there played no small role).
IV Sleeping in the Needles
Jack loses his life pillar, reacquaints himself with his youth and spreads his literary wings to soar into his future. Facts, as well as views and perceptions of his youth are shattered, leaving him with an empty slate and an empty void. He was at a complete loss of what to write or how to fill the void that was once his life. His only recourse is to start again; at the beginning.
V The Garcia
Success has a price and your life as a child influences your life as an adult. Jack is a Hollywood success but emotionally he is a wreck waiting to happen. Dr. Garcia, a Hollywood psychiatrist used to treating the stars of the silver screen, is Jacks one lifeline and only hope of escaping the dark abyss that threatens him and his sanity. John Irving includes many famous film stars to his cast of characters and found myself wondering how they experienced their new roles. When you finally reach the last chapter and you think back to the opening chapters, it feels like years have passed (instead of 11/2 weeks) because so much information has been passed from page to brain. In the end I felt for Jack, I felt for Alice and for Emma, Leslie, Heather and John. In other words I felt for all those characters lost in life and maimed by deceit.
Until I Find You is one of the most enigmatic novels I have ever read. It is also the most sexually dominated, literary non-sexual tale I ever seen in print. It is an equivocal work on a number of planes. This massive book of over a thousand pages seems to be either a complete hit or miss with reviewers. You either love or hate it. I must admit that I had doubts when I started but soon I was caught up in Jack Burns’ world. After looking at the many reviews of Until I Find you, I think it is like Joseph Heller’s Catch 22 and the readers either love or hate it. It has a plethora of emotion, action and love; the life of a man haunted by his past and unsure of his future. On the cover of this book is written, “Wonderfully sustained and very funny voice… with vivid, eccentric, memorable characters… in the manner of Dickens” I think if Dickens would read Until I Find You, he would be turning summersaults in his grave. This statement doesn’t in any way mean or even suggests that I don’t like the books characters, they are full, warm and very memorable. Nevertheless John Irving’s characters are as far apart from those of Charles Dickens as can be imaginable. There doesn’t seem to be much of a middle-ground with this story. I generally keep reviews short and to a minimum of words and thoughts but with Until I Find You I feel that an (almost) thousand word review is appropriate for a thousand page-plus novel.
(less)

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Mar 26, 2013 Jen rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book, like all other John Irving novels, is fantastically vivid because of the characters. Everyone’s motivations and feelings are clear and understandable, even when you don’t agree with them. The book also paints every location so well that I could see the Canadian and European cities of the story (none of which I’ve ever been to) as easily as I could see Los Angeles (the city I live in). And the tattoo parlors, artists, even the tattoos themselves are so incredibly well woven into the no...more

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Mar 07, 2013 Susan rated it 2 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Mar 05, 2013 Bob Wake rated it 2 of 5 stars

[Reviewed in 2005]

In contrast to several of John Irving’s large-scale comic novels of the past thirty years, Until I Find You likely won’t attract a wave of enthusiastic new readers to the writer’s work. (There are ardent fans of A Prayer for Owen Meany, for example, who have read nothing else by Irving, including his career-making The World According to Garp.) In theory, all the ingredients are here for a compelling novel. Indeed, it’s been widely reported that writing Until I Find You was a wr...more [Reviewed in 2005]

In contrast to several of John Irving’s large-scale comic novels of the past thirty years, Until I Find You likely won’t attract a wave of enthusiastic new readers to the writer’s work. (There are ardent fans of A Prayer for Owen Meany, for example, who have read nothing else by Irving, including his career-making The World According to Garp.) In theory, all the ingredients are here for a compelling novel. Indeed, it’s been widely reported that writing Until I Find You was a wrenching experience. Irving has candidly revealed in interviews that as a young boy—like the novel’s protagonist Jack Burns—he was sexually molested by an older woman.

Sexually wounded children have of course played indelible supporting roles in some of Irving’s finest work, in particular rape survivor Ellen James in Garp and pregnant incest victim Rose Rose in The Cider House Rules. With his new book, however, the ambitious decision to center an elaborate 820-page narrative on an abused protagonist has yielded frustrating and unsatisfying results.

Readers can safely deduce that in no conventional sense is Until I Find You an autobiographical novel. Jack Burns’s globe-trotting coming-of-age rise from Copenhagen tattoo-parlor urchin to first male enrollee at a Toronto all-girls’ school to international fame as a female-impersonator in Hollywood movies doesn’t strain credulity so much as shred it like confetti and toss it to the winds. Irving long ago secured his reputation as a hardworking New England fabulist comprised of equal parts Dickens and Fellini. At his dizzying best, he bridges postmodern and mainstream literary tastes by championing an idealized but recognizably human sentimentality set against forces of melodramatic calamity and absurdist circus-of-life plot twists.

Most disconcerting about Until I Find You is its portrayal of sexual abuse. The various episodes are rendered in a slapstick tone that undercuts the stern moralizing that Irving later interjects about the “thieves of Jack’s childhood.” Jack is ten years old when a middle-aged Portuguese housemaid named Mrs. Machado initiates a series of wildly athletic sexual encounters with the boy. Neither the first nor the last older woman to molest Jack under comic circumstances, Mrs. Machado’s character and dialogue are painted in broad farcical strokes complete with phonetically tortured accent (“What ees Meester Penis theenking?”).

Holding the story line tenuously together is an overarching search for Jack’s father, William. (This is another much-reported parallel between Jack Burns and the author, who was likewise abandoned by his father at an early age.) The missing father hovers teasingly at the edges of the plot like a Rabelaisian sensualist. For the greater part of the novel, we hear about William Burns only through whispered innuendo and a chain of obscure clues that stretch around the world. He’s a classically trained church organist, a passionate womanizer on the lam, and an “ink addict” whose skin is tattooed with hymns and liturgical texts like a ream of human sheet music. There is eventually a satisfying sense of closure to the mystery of the father’s whereabouts, but readers who stick around for the ending will be hard-pressed not to feel that Irving is struggling to wring emotion from an unfocused tale rife with improbable characters and situations.(less)

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Feb 22, 2013 David O'neill added it

Too much happens in this over-long, at times extremely boring novel.

It begins, however, in 1969 when Jack Burns mother, Alice a well-known tattoo artist, drags him through half of Europe for a year in search of his father, William Burns. Jack’s dad, it appears, is a runaway father, who is also a church organist and an “ink addict.” After losing the trail, they return to Toronto where Alice enrolls Jack into St. Hilda, an all-girls school. It is here, Alice assumes, Jack is safe from becoming hi...more Too much happens in this over-long, at times extremely boring novel.

It begins, however, in 1969 when Jack Burns mother, Alice a well-known tattoo artist, drags him through half of Europe for a year in search of his father, William Burns. Jack’s dad, it appears, is a runaway father, who is also a church organist and an “ink addict.” After losing the trail, they return to Toronto where Alice enrolls Jack into St. Hilda, an all-girls school. It is here, Alice assumes, Jack is safe from becoming his womanizing father his mother insists his dad is. But at St. Hilda, Jack becomes the victim of a boat-load of remarkable sexual molestation at the hands of older women. That he grows up to be an Oscar winning actor and screenwriter (taking home Irving's own 2000 Oscar) is amazing. Eventually, the novel comes full circle as the now somewhat troubled man retraces the steps of his 4 year-old self and returns to Europe to meet a half-sister and a father who –despite the narrative of his mother- very much wanted to be in his life.

Oddly, this novel is perhaps Irving’s most autobiographical work –something he’s denied for decades that all his books represent some sort of written therapy.

Unlike author Stephen King, who I’ve been reading steadily for 30 years, my affair with the works of John Irving is rather recent –it began somewhere early in the 2000’s when I read one of his most popular novels, A Prayer for Owen Meany. Since then I’ve read The Hotel New Hampshire, The World According to Garp, Cider House Rules, Last Night in Twisted River and Widow for One Year –though like Son of the Circus (which I started) I don’t think I actually finished Widow. Still, I’m bound and determined now to read all his books.

I knew Until I Find You was not one his most praised books, but I did little research into why. If I had been a regular reader of Irving, I might have been disappointed with it, and then moved on to his next book. And if this was my first Irving, I probably never want to read another one of his books. The fact that I’m reading his books out of order –and in a more compressed time- I can forgive him for this self-indulgent, over bloated novel (at 820 pages, it's about 400 pages too long) that is filled with unappealing characters –all of them women. And while I don't claim to be a prude, even I got a bit leery with the almost soft-porn aspect of the book. And the almost acceptance from the women that it was okay to sexually abuse Jack -and it doesn't help that the psychiatrist character explains that most women who abuse, do it more so out of love the child is not getting from the parent than any real sexual release. I don't buy that, and I'm curious if this is true, or just an excuse to present the abuse as being somewhat acceptable -which, of course, is the hallmark of an Irving book. His goal, it seems, is to make this deviant aspect -the abuse- as normal as breathing. He wants us, the reader, to react in revulsion. But at least in Until I Find You, it's more creepy than usual.

Long-time readers with recognize many of his recurring themes, but as I noted, this book does represent an aspect of Irving the writer's real life -he introduces two personal elements in Until I Find You, issues he’s never discussed publicly: his sexual abuse at age 11 by an older woman, and the recent entrance in his life of his biological father's family. So in many ways, Jack Burns in this novel is John Irving. Not sure how that will affect me when I read his other work, especially his first three novels –all which are in my future.(less)

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Apr 27, 2012 Mighty_Mo rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: erzaehlungen

Bei diesem Buch hat es für mich immer etwas Überwindung gekostet in die Hand zu nehmen und weiter zu lesen. Ich lese zur Zeit nur Abends wenn ich schon im Bett liege. Und wenn ich das Buch endlich in die Hand genommen hatte, wollte ich es auch einfach nicht mehr aus der Hand legen, zusätzlich sollte ich erwähnen, dass ich gerne kurze Kapitel habe. Ich mag das mitten im Kapitel aufhören nämlich garnicht. Aber nun genug von mir und meinen Lesegewohnheiten und zurück zum Buch.

Hauptdarsteller ist Ja...more

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Mar 19, 2012 Tim rated it 1 of 5 stars

"It's better than a sore penis," Jack said. — From "Until I Find You."

Well, maybe not ...

John Irving's longest novel also takes the longest to become interesting — if it ever does; I bailed before getting close to page 820, all ambition sapped from me by this strangely uninvolving work that, by my limited reckoning, never would have been published if submitted by an unknown. While containing familiar Irving elements (don't they all?), there is an utter lack of verve and momentum. It's as though...more "It's better than a sore penis," Jack said. — From "Until I Find You."

Well, maybe not ...

John Irving's longest novel also takes the longest to become interesting — if it ever does; I bailed before getting close to page 820, all ambition sapped from me by this strangely uninvolving work that, by my limited reckoning, never would have been published if submitted by an unknown. While containing familiar Irving elements (don't they all?), there is an utter lack of verve and momentum. It's as though the work were ghosted by an Irving replacement; like series Westerns or action-detective novels that are "A (known author name here) novel by (fill-in writer here)." I can see it: "Just throw in some prostitutes, child sexual abuse, talk about penises, have characters go back repeatedly to red light districts with lots of prostitutes, add some wrestling — how are you on bears?"

The early part of the novel contains Irving's typical scene-setting and history. Usually, his novels perk up at some point, and suddenly you realize you're "in" the tale, and it's smooth sailing from there. "A Son of the Circus" (a much better, and really underrated novel) was like this; about 100 pages of interesting yet not completely engrossing exposition, then you're suddenly off and running. Not here.

In the early part of the tale, 4-year-old Jack Burns is taken by his mother hither and yon in search of his tattoo-obsessed, church organ-playing father, whom Jack had never met. Oslo, Helsinki, Stockholm; Alice, a tattoo artist, visits whorehouse after whorehouse talking to prostitutes, visits church after church and listens to their organs; talks to tattoo artist after tattoo artist, most with "Tattoo" in their names. Almost nothing of interest happens in the book's first part. Oh, there's a vintage Irving moment in which a housekeeper and young Jack put their bodies against each other, hold their breath and let their hearts beat together. "You must be alive." "You must be alive, too." That's darling, and it's early; after that, it's tough sledding. Irving has Jack GIVING A MAN A TATTOO at 4 years old. This isn't funny (a 16-month old doing it might be; or a 7-year-old); it's just dumb. The only other real relief from traipsing around Europe pointlessly is a scene in which Jack is saved from the ice by a tiny soldier, who of course later has sex with Jack's mother (not everything is tiny).

Preceding the novel itself is a blurb from William Maxwell's "So Long, See You Tomorrow" (a much better novel; this mention actually is what made me decide to give the book a read) about memory, that it's "a form of storytelling that goes on continuously in the mind and often changes with the telling." This implies that what we see through 4-year-old Jack's eyes isn't necessarily what happens. Irving never develops this during the reading I did before tossing the book aside; but the way he handles it, if that's what he's doing, is not even interesting. Perhaps, later, much good happens and Irving rights this listing ship. I'll never know. But if a writer expects people to read an 820-page book, he simply MUST find a way to keep them interested in the first quarter of the novel. I hate bailing on books, particularly those from authors I've loved in the past, but I will if a writer does this to me.

If Irving were trying something completely different, I'd be more forgiving. He's not. It's like Rod Stewart going from a rocker who could do no wrong on his own and with the Faces from 1970-73 to completely losing it and later doing crappy show tunes — except Irving is throwing in the same elements he always does, but without making them the slightest bit interesting. Unlike Rod, he's not abandoning what he does best; he's simply doing what he always does very badly and at excruciating length.

I gave up on "Until I Find You" (better title: "Until I Toss You in the Trash"), picked up the new Tim Powers novel, started reading, and it felt as if I were awakening from a sleepwalk. Enough. I've spent more words on Irving's book than it deserves.

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Mar 11, 2012 Rachael rated it 1 of 5 stars

I don't often do this, but I abandoned this book. Despite the slow start (the character ages from four to nine in 200 pages), I stuck with it, hoping it would get better. To summarize: Boy does this. Boy does that. Now he does this. Now he does that. He goes to Europe with his mom. He goes to elementary school. He goes to boarding school. He goes to college. I followed Jack for about 350 pages, from age 4 to his post-college years, but I still have no idea where he was going, where his relations...more

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Feb 02, 2012 Ian Mapp rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Winner of the biggest book of the year. 820 pages that has taken me 10 days and a lot of investment.

The big question is "Was it worth it?".

Its starts well enough. Recognisably Irving with wrestlers, tattooists, sexual intrigue, peculiar families and so on.

Jack is four years old and he is taken from Canada to Europe to track down his errant father William by his mother Alice. She is a tatooist. William collects tattoos and is an organist.

The city quest across the nortern seas is well enough writt...more

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Dec 30, 2011 Cher rated it 2 of 5 stars

This is the story of Jack's life as told from the perspective of his memory (or incorrect memory as is often the case) and as influenced by his mother's biases. It's an extremely overly long account of Jack as a child being raised with his tatoo artist Mother and in the shadows of his absent musician Dad. Seriously this 800 pg book could have said it all in under 200 pages and spared me a lot of tedious and unneccesary reading.

Jack did not have a pleasant childhood; he was sexually molested by g...more

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Dec 12, 2011 ilike merey rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: book-interrupted-will-not-finish, literary-fic-current

I feel bad giving John Irving two stars, it seems wrong to do that to a living legend, but while I've really loved some of his books in the past, this was not one of them.

The writing was fine, better than fine, of course. In fact, highly readable. I made it past page 200 with minimal effort, still I stopped not because the reading was a chore, but simply because I didn't give a damn. About anyone. Until that point the story revolved mainly around four-year-old Jack and his mother Alice, an attra...more I feel bad giving John Irving two stars, it seems wrong to do that to a living legend, but while I've really loved some of his books in the past, this was not one of them.

The writing was fine, better than fine, of course. In fact, highly readable. I made it past page 200 with minimal effort, still I stopped not because the reading was a chore, but simply because I didn't give a damn. About anyone. Until that point the story revolved mainly around four-year-old Jack and his mother Alice, an attractive young tattoo artist who drags her little boy all around Europe in search of his organ-playing deadbeat father. I would have been absolutely fine with the dreamy almost fairy-tale Europe Irving paints complete with gauzy, contrived situations, my problem was that I could never quite be convinced of Alice's obsession for the father, nor was I convinced of Jack himself, as a living boy.

For reasons I don't understand, Irving was in the habit of allowing little Jack extremely astute (for a four year old) observations, then having the narrator constantly pop in and remind us that while this is an extraordinary thing for such a young lad to be thinking, we must remember that Jack had the memory of a ten year old, the cognitive abilities of a nine year old the xxxx of a xxx year old. Etc. Etc. It happened so frequently that it started to seriously annoy me. For crissakes, I thought, just make the damn kid BE an eight year old or a ten year old and then stop having to constantly remind me of how special/smart/advanced he is! Alas, I didn't get far enough in the book to see what this device was supposed to achieve. Perhaps that was one of the problems, too often, I felt I could see the pulleys and levers behind the scenes when I just wanted to enjoy the story. What does this crank do? What about this button? I kept asking, and that ruined something.

Some interesting information about the tattoo world--that evocative phrase 'sleeping in the needles' will stick with me for a long time and as always with Irving, a colorful cast of characters I enjoyed reading about--but with a book this long, if the main characters don't have me, I can't go on.

Maybe this was just not for me. :/

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Jul 29, 2011 Vera is currently reading it

This is my first experience reading Irving. All I can say is that whereas I find the style of writing very easy to get into and likable, I find the plot horrifying. It's like some kind of accident or wreck- you want to look away but you find yourself unable to do so.

I picked up the book because it said it was the story of how a boy and his mother (a tattoo artist) traveled various North Sea Ports to find his father, a church organist addicted to being tattooed. I went to Newfoundland a few year...more This is my first experience reading Irving. All I can say is that whereas I find the style of writing very easy to get into and likable, I find the plot horrifying. It's like some kind of accident or wreck- you want to look away but you find yourself unable to do so.

I picked up the book because it said it was the story of how a boy and his mother (a tattoo artist) traveled various North Sea Ports to find his father, a church organist addicted to being tattooed. I went to Newfoundland a few years ago, and have been enraptured with it ever since; in my ignorance, I thought the Maritimes were included in 'North Sea Ports', so I checked it out of the library without reading more.

The beginning was slow, but I immediately liked Irving's style of writing. There were parts I found distasteful, but in a way that I liked, it was so well done. Jack's misunderstandings of several adult situations were written in such a way that an adult reader could understand what was really happening without questioning why Jack would think the way he did.

Most of my dislike of this book comes with Jack's treatment at the hands of the older girls. He is quite obviously molested by several different girls and older women before he is ten, and I find that absolutely horrifying. His innocence and even enjoyment of these 'games' baffles me, but perhaps my confusion stems from the fact I'm not a boy.

Jack is said to be the spitting image of his father, even at four years old, and the fact seems to doom him. Several women tell him to guard against committing the same sins as his father, while some are expecting him to do so. In fact, going to the same school where his father impregnated one girl and slept with another (just to be clear, the girls were not little girls, but older teenagers) seems to seal his fate. The girls (one in particular) can't seem to wait until Jack comes of age and becomes a womanizer like his father, despite how much younger he is.

They start in on him almost immediately, touching him inappropriately, telling him to show them his penis, describe any changes to it. The fact that Jack was able to get an erection around age eight was puzzling to me, but (I'm quite happy to say) I really don't have any experience with eight year old boys in that particular fashion, so I'm just going to have to go with it.

The fact that Jack kind of enjoys the abuse (in my mind, it's abuse) is off-putting. That all men have sex on the brain all the time and are insatiably horny I find an annoying stereotype, and Jack seems to personify this. Since his fist exposure to the older girls' games, he can't seem to stop thinking about sex. (less)

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Jul 28, 2011 Sam Dupont added it

La mémoire est quelque chose de fascinant et l’un des sujets les plus intéressants pour les grands auteurs. Je ne prendrai pas le risque de me lancer dans une revue des écrivains qui se sont aventurés dans cette entreprise, je me contenterai d’en citer quelques uns parmi mes préférés : « Le cercle de la croix » de Iain Pears, « La mystérieuse flamme de la reine Loana » d’Umberto Eco ou encore « Un réfectoire un soir et une piscine sous la pluie » de Yôko Ogawa.

La mémoire a cela de fascinant qu’e...more La mémoire est quelque chose de fascinant et l’un des sujets les plus intéressants pour les grands auteurs. Je ne prendrai pas le risque de me lancer dans une revue des écrivains qui se sont aventurés dans cette entreprise, je me contenterai d’en citer quelques uns parmi mes préférés : « Le cercle de la croix » de Iain Pears, « La mystérieuse flamme de la reine Loana » d’Umberto Eco ou encore « Un réfectoire un soir et une piscine sous la pluie » de Yôko Ogawa.

La mémoire a cela de fascinant qu’elle nous permet de retravailler notre réalité, rendre notre passé et nos erreurs supportables. Ainsi, je me suis créé (inconsciemment, la plupart du temps) des croyances, des souvenirs, dont la véracité est des plus discutables. Quelle arme formidable pour le Dieu qu’est un romancier. Lui qui est le seul à connaître l’ultime réalité de son monde, il peut la refaçonner au grès de la mémoire de ses personnages.

C’est le thème et la méthode utilisée par le génial John Irving dans « Je te retrouverai » (« Until I find you »).

« Votre thérapie est comme un roman fleuve »

Le livre se décline en 3 parties. La première est consacrée aux souvenirs d’enfance de Jack Burns, enfant balloté entre divers villes d’Europe par une mère tatoueuse qui traque un père fugitif. Dans la seconde, on retrouve Jack trentenaire et acteur célèbre qui revisite son passé pour essayer de se trouver une identité. Quand à la troisième ? Et bien, je vous en laisse la surprise. Le tout est une quête du père, un double voyage initiatique, et ses conséquences sur le personnage flexible de Jack Burns « Comédien avant de monter sur les planches » (Irving m’étonnera toujours pour ses premières phrases et son sens de la formule).

Sous bien des aspects, « Je te retrouverai » possède tous les ingrédients et les thèmes chers à Irving. C’est drôle, émouvant, délirant. De nombreux personnages, situations et sentiments rappellent « Une prière pour Owen », le roman d’Irving que je préfère.

Et pourtant.

Pourtant, j’ai du commencer ce livre à 4 reprises avant de le terminer.

Ce n’est pas sa taille qui m’a rebuté mais une certaine lassitude accumulée au fil des pages. La première partie est magnifiquement écrite mais se tire en longueur et il faut attendre la seconde partie pour que le tour de magie opère et que le lecteur se retrouve entraîné dans un de ces romans qu’on ne peut plus lâcher.

Une de mes croyances de jeunesse est qu’Umberto Eco avait écrit la première partie de « Le nom de la Rose » comme un test pour sélectionné ses lecteurs. Je me rends bien compte aujourd’hui à quel point cette idée est idiote et indigne d’un auteur tel que Eco. Mais l’anecdote était assez bonne pour fasciner le jeune lecteur que j’étais. J’aurais pu croire qu’Irving aurait pu copier le procédé pour « Je te retrouverai ». Aujourd’hui, je pense plutôt qu’il a eu du mal à faire des choix et qu’il s’est laissé emporter par ses personnages.

« Je te retrouverai » est un très bon roman mais qui n’égale pas (à mes yeux), la magie de certains de ses œuvres plus anciennes. Il n’en reste pas moins que la dernière phrase du roman, toute prévisible qu’elle puisse être, m’a tiré un bien agréable frisson et que le voyage valait vraiment la peine.
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Apr 26, 2011 marg rated it 3 of 5 stars

Not Irving's best. As this is my third of his, I see an emerging pattern - single, pretty and inscrutable mom, complicated son, Toronto tossed in somewhere, quest for Mystery Dad. Throw in some seriously twisted-ness and surreal moments, crazy characters and interlocking storylines and voila - you have Irving.
This novel has merit, to be sure - it is the complicated tale of a man whose identity has been formed by a past misunderstood, and his search for self ends with his resolving a lot of what...more

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About John Irving

John Irving published his first novel, Setting Free the Bears, in 1968. The World According to Garp, which won the National Book Award in 1980, was John Irving’s fourth novel and his first international bestseller; it also became a George Roy Hill film. Tony Richardson wrote and directed the adaptation for the screen of The Hotel New Hampshire (1984). Irving’s novels are now translated into thirty...more John Irving published his first novel, Setting Free the Bears, in 1968. The World According to Garp, which won the National Book Award in 1980, was John Irving’s fourth novel and his first international bestseller; it also became a George Roy Hill film. Tony Richardson wrote and directed the adaptation for the screen of The Hotel New Hampshire (1984). Irving’s novels are now translated into thirty-five foreign languages, and he has had nine international bestsellers. Worldwide, the Irving novel most often called “an American classic” is A Prayer for Owen Meany (1989)—the portrayal of an enduring friendship at that time when the Vietnam War had its most divisive effect on the United States.

In 1992, Mr. Irving was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Stillwater, Oklahoma. (He competed as a wrestler for twenty years, until he was thirty-four, and coached the sport until he was forty-seven.) In 2000, Irving won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for The Cider House Rules—a Lasse Hallström film with seven Academy Award nominations. Tod Williams wrote and directed The Door in the Floor—the 2004 film adapted from Mr. Irving’s ninth novel, A Widow for One Year.

In One Person is John Irving’s thirteenth novel, which will be published by Simon & Schuster in May 2012. A compelling novel of desire, secrecy, and sexual identity, In One Person is a story of unfulfilled love — tormented, funny, and affecting — and an impassioned embrace of our sexual differences. Billy, the bisexual narrator and main character of In One Person, tells the tragicomic story (lasting more than half a century) of his life as a “sexual suspect,” a phrase first used by John Irving in 1978 — in his landmark novel of “terminal cases,” The World According to Garp.

His most political novel since The Cider House Rules and A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving’s In One Person is a poignant tribute to Billy’s friends and lovers — a theatrical cast of characters who defy category and convention. Not least, In One Person is an intimate and unforgettable portrait of the solitariness of a bisexual man who is dedicated to making himself “worthwhile.”

Born John Wallace Blunt, Jr., in Exeter, New Hampshire, in 1942, Mr. Irving’s name was changed to John Winslow Irving in 1948, when his mother remarried. (His mother’s maiden name was Winslow.) Mr. Irving named his first son, Colin, after his stepfather, Colin F.N. Irving, who taught in the History Department at Phillips Exeter Academy, where John Irving graduated in 1961; he was captain of the wrestling team at Exeter, and also wrestled at the University of Pittsburgh. Mr. Irving later attended the Institute for European Studies in Vienna, Austria. He has a B.A. from the University of New Hampshire and a M.F.A. from the Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa, where his mentor was Kurt Vonnegut.

Before the success of The World According to Garp enabled John Irving to become a full-time writer, he had several college teaching positions—not only at his alma mater in Iowa City, where he taught for three years, but also at Mt. Holyoke College and Brandeis University.

In the ‘80s, Mr. Irving lived in New York City and on eastern Long Island; since 1990, he has lived in Toronto and in southern Vermont. He has three sons—Colin, Brendan, and Everett—and four grandchildren. John Irving is married to Janet Turnbull Irving—formerly a Canadian publisher, who is now Mr. Irving’s literary agent in the U.S. His agent in Canada, and for the U.K., is Dean Cooke—at the Cooke Agency in Toronto. Mr. Irving is represented internationally by Nicki Kennedy at I.L.A. in London; his film agent is Robert Bookman at C.A.A. in Los Angeles.

In 2001, Mr. Irving was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. John Irving’s 70th birthday is March 2, 2012.(less)

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“In increments both measurable and not, our childhood is stolen from us -- not always in one momentous event but often in a series of small robberies, which add up to the same loss.” — 124 people liked it

“The desire to never leave your side, the desire to never see you again. The desire to see your face asleep on the pillow beside my face and to see your eyes open in the morning when I lie next to you—just watching you, waiting for you to wake up.” — 82 people liked it

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