0072 | The World According to Garp ~ John Irving

Book in Context:
The wife was making Christmas cards in the room when I finished this.

REVIEW
A readable social commentary with occasional witty moments, this was a book I’d seen around since I was a child.

I knew that my parents had a copy and it was curious to think that they had trodden over the same storyline as I was taking.

The book focusses a lot on sexuality and questions what that is, exploring the issue from a number of different viewpoints. This I think would be better if I read it a second time and focussed on this instead of the straightforward storyline.

I liked the fact that the book is not just a vehicle for Irving’s own writing but also his character’s writing. There was an intriguing sense of metaphysics about that.

In a similar but far less intense way to Herzog, Irving creates a man battling with all the usual angst we westerners seem to face in our brief lives. Overall though, it was good but not great. Worth reading but not a book I’d buy for anyone.

OPENING LINE
Garp’s mother, Jenny Fields, was arrested in Boston in 1942 for wounding a man in a movie theater.

WORDS
gravid

QUOTES

she recognised the need in boys to devote themselves, mindlessly, to a repetitious physical act. It seemed to relax them.

CLOSING LINE
But in the world according to Garp, we are all terminal cases.

RATING:
terrible > poor > mediocre > okay > good > very good> excellent > superb