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The World According to Garp
by John Irving

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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7069.The_World_According_to_Garp?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="The World According to Garp" border="0" src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/photo.goodreads.com/books/1210680957m/7069.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7069.The_World_According_to_Garp?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">The World According to Garp</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3075.John_Irving">John Irving</a> 
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/16500961?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a>
 rating: 3 of 5 stars 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, the headstrong and self-assured nurse Jenny Fields. Jenny Fields decides she wants one baby but has no desire for sex or male companionship-she is not infected by lust, the theme of lust being one this book beats you over the head with. This unlikely beginning has got to be my favorite part of the whole book. Jenny Fields is an intriguing and at least initially likeable character. The first few chapters nicely set the tone of storytelling, another of the book's dominant themes. Moments of lighthearted irony abound.
 
 So Jenny Fields comes by her one baby in a resourceful and innovative, albeit bizarre, manner, and never tells anyone the details. The book continues from the perspective of Jenny, now a school nurse at a prestigious boys' school, as little T.S. Garp grows up. Jenny and Garp go to Vienna after he graduates from high school, to write - for Jenny, her autobiography, for Garp, a novel. Jenny publishes her wildly popular memoir, which instigates, or at least capitalizes on, a political movement. From this point forward, the book spirals downward for me.
 
 I wasn't drawn to any of the characters after the initial connection with Jenny Fields. Most are cliche, farfetched, or actively annoy me. I never liked Garp's wife, the stuck-up, bookish and brilliant yet strikingly beautiful Helen Holm. The post-operation transgendered football player, Roberta, bored met to tears. After the narrative switched to Garp-centric, I lost my connection to Jenny, too, though I still enjoyed her presence and looked forward to her opinions on various things.
 
 The book contains large chunks of Garp's writing, set off in a different font. This technique is necessary to illustrate the distinctions and similarities between Garp's truth and his craft, without which it's not possible to really know what Irving wants you to know about Garp. I came around to the intermittent excerpts by the end, but the first few times I was irritated by the distraction.
 
 In the latter half, Irving exchanges the whimsical irony of the first chapters for a dark, beat you over the head version that dangerously approaches "if you do this bad thing, HORRIBLE things will happen including mutilation and DEATH."
 
 And speaking of irony, I must mention the "Ellen Jamesians," those tortured women who cut off their tongues in solidary with a young rape victim named Ellen James, whose perpetrator did that to her. This group of women is, of course, a blatant example of the fervor for a noble cause gotten out of hand. Neither Garp nor Ellen James herself can muster any sympathy for the Ellen Jamesians, and this rather high-profile conflict is what ultimately brings the book to a resolution. The problem for me was that this was just too caricatured. First, I had trouble accepting that the rapist would cut out the girl's tongue thinking that would prevent her from identifying him (even though the book ridiculed the rapist for his stupidity in doing so). Even accepting that, it seemed beyond even the most extreme versions of reality to think that any notable number of people would cut off their tongues for this reason (even though the book alternatively ridiculed and felt sorry for them for doing so). 
 
 But maybe the book, with all its excerpted fiction-within-fiction, was intended as a caricature. I am reminded of the chapter where Helen guesses which parts of the story Garp had just told his young son were embellished. In translating reality, Garp has the control to manipulate any detail, which may improve it, intensify it, or change its goal entirely. In the latter half of the book we see Garp lose control over that truth/fiction distinction, interestingly producing a work that is shocking but feels "real." Perhaps The World According to Garp is the other kind of story - one containing carefully buried truth that isn't supposed to feel "real." 
 
 The book kept my interest in spite of my negative impression of its trajectory. This, too, occurs in the story - as one character, in reacting to Garp's third novel, says (not verbatim): "Like it? What's to like about it?! It's horrible! can I have a copy?"
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/65700?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>

bonnie's review
rating:

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, the headstrong and self-assured nurse Jenny Fields. Jenny Fields decides she wants one baby but has no desire for sex or male companionship-she is not infected by lust, the theme of lust being one this book beats you over the head with. This unlikely beginning has got to be my favorite part of the whole book. Jenny Fields is an intriguing and at least initially likeable character. The first few chapters nicely set the tone of storytelling, another of the book's dominant themes. Moments of lighthearted...more 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, the headstrong and self-assured nurse Jenny Fields. Jenny Fields decides she wants one baby but has no desire for sex or male companionship-she is not infected by lust, the theme of lust being one this book beats you over the head with. This unlikely beginning has got to be my favorite part of the whole book. Jenny Fields is an intriguing and at least initially likeable character. The first few chapters nicely set the tone of storytelling, another of the book's dominant themes. Moments of lighthearted irony abound.

So Jenny Fields comes by her one baby in a resourceful and innovative, albeit bizarre, manner, and never tells anyone the details. The book continues from the perspective of Jenny, now a school nurse at a prestigious boys' school, as little T.S. Garp grows up. Jenny and Garp go to Vienna after he graduates from high school, to write - for Jenny, her autobiography, for Garp, a novel. Jenny publishes her wildly popular memoir, which instigates, or at least capitalizes on, a political movement. From this point forward, the book spirals downward for me.

I wasn't drawn to any of the characters after the initial connection with Jenny Fields. Most are cliche, farfetched, or actively annoy me. I never liked Garp's wife, the stuck-up, bookish and brilliant yet strikingly beautiful Helen Holm. The post-operation transgendered football player, Roberta, bored met to tears. After the narrative switched to Garp-centric, I lost my connection to Jenny, too, though I still enjoyed her presence and looked forward to her opinions on various things.

The book contains large chunks of Garp's writing, set off in a different font. This technique is necessary to illustrate the distinctions and similarities between Garp's truth and his craft, without which it's not possible to really know what Irving wants you to know about Garp. I came around to the intermittent excerpts by the end, but the first few times I was irritated by the distraction.

In the latter half, Irving exchanges the whimsical irony of the first chapters for a dark, beat you over the head version that dangerously approaches "if you do this bad thing, HORRIBLE things will happen including mutilation and DEATH."

And speaking of irony, I must mention the "Ellen Jamesians," those tortured women who cut off their tongues in solidary with a young rape victim named Ellen James, whose perpetrator did that to her. This group of women is, of course, a blatant example of the fervor for a noble cause gotten out of hand. Neither Garp nor Ellen James herself can muster any sympathy for the Ellen Jamesians, and this rather high-profile conflict is what ultimately brings the book to a resolution. The problem for me was that this was just too caricatured. First, I had trouble accepting that the rapist would cut out the girl's tongue thinking that would prevent her from identifying him (even though the book ridiculed the rapist for his stupidity in doing so). Even accepting that, it seemed beyond even the most extreme versions of reality to think that any notable number of people would cut off their tongues for this reason (even though the book alternatively ridiculed and felt sorry for them for doing so).

But maybe the book, with all its excerpted fiction-within-fiction, was intended as a caricature. I am reminded of the chapter where Helen guesses which parts of the story Garp had just told his young son were embellished. In translating reality, Garp has the control to manipulate any detail, which may improve it, intensify it, or change its goal entirely. In the latter half of the book we see Garp lose control over that truth/fiction distinction, interestingly producing a work that is shocking but feels "real." Perhaps The World According to Garp is the other kind of story - one containing carefully buried truth that isn't supposed to feel "real."

The book kept my interest in spite of my negative impression of its trajectory. This, too, occurs in the story - as one character, in reacting to Garp's third novel, says (not verbatim): "Like it? What's to like about it?! It's horrible! can I have a copy?"...less

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message 1: by Adam

04/22/2008 10:15AM

you should update your 'review' of this because in my opinion you explain A LOT about the book that may take away from a prospective readers enjoyment of it. also there are even a few spoilers in your review. when you post a review of a book you can, i'm sure you know, click off the box that says 'contains spoilers' or something like that. just some words of warning and caution. thank you for your time. -adam c.-