Seth's review

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://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/782477?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a>
 rating: 4 of 5 stars 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 wife Helen, his transgendered friend Roberta, and his many indiscretions along the way). 
 
 I first read it as a book about feminism, with my mother asking "Is it a pro-feminist or anti-feminist book?" Well, it was the early 80s. 
 
 That isn't the best way to read Garp (and it has some nasty presuppositions, including that the book must be one of those two), but I decided it was pro-feminist. Not everyone agrees. At its heart, though, it's mostly anti-extremes. Garp spends his life trying tearing away from extremism: his mother embraces it as a way to define herself and he fears his own sexual and artistic urges can overwhelm everything else in his life. 
 
 It isn't a heady book, though, and it certainly isn't intellectual (in the sense that "intellectual" means "inaccessable"). 
 
 From a writing standpoint, Garp does some interesting and risky things. It tells a person's story from conception to death, as opposed to skipping to "the good parts."(2) It switches focus from Garp's mother to Garp himself, leaving a protagonist dangling (and it's so well done that we barely notice). And 2/3 of the way through he take an extended break to read an engrossing chapter from one of Garp's books, making the entirety of Garp's life a frame story for that chapter (and in some sense for his writing).
 
 So take that last part. Garp is a frame around his writing, and that writing culminates with that chapter, condensing his whole understanding of his life into that. So what is that chapter? We could argue about that longer than we would about Garp's meaning as a whole. And Garp lets us ask ourselves the question: can one writer's life be summed-up in his writing, or does that miss something important.
 
 When you get to the last line, pay attention. If you find it sad, remember that he was a father and a writer and he connected (in both pleasant and unpleasant ways) with many people. Then re-read the line again.
 
 It bears re-reading.
 
 1) I also re-read Little Women annually, usually right before or after Garp. I don't know what the connection between the two is.
 
 2) Irving likes this technique. When it's handled well, it's extremely effective. If you like it, check out <a href="/search/search?q=The+Ass+Saw+the+Angel&t=title">The Ass Saw the Angel</a> by [Nick Cave:]
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/63444?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>

Seth's review
rating:

bookshelves: books-that-built-me, other-fiction
status: Read in October, 1983

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 wife Helen, his transgendered friend Roberta, and his many indiscretions along the way).

I first read it as a book about feminism, with my mother asking "Is it a pro-feminist or anti-feminist book?" Well, it was the early 80s.

That isn't the best way to read Garp (and it has some nasty presuppositions, including that the book must be one of those two), but I decided it was pro-feminist. Not everyone agrees. At its heart, though, it's mostly anti-extremes. Garp spends...more

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message 1: by Becky

07/24/2008 10:18PM

Little Women also plays with the line between fiction and autobiography; the protagonist is also a writer who struggles with the whole writing thing - writing something meaningful, making money, autobiography...