John Irving - October 2007 Author of the Month

[mehastings]

**WARNING** This thread may contain spoilers.

From Wikipedia

John Winslow Irving (born March 2, 1942 as John Wallace Blunt, Jr.) is a bestselling American novelist and Academy Award-winning screenwriter.

Irving achieved critical and popular acclaim after the international success of The World According to Garp in 1978. All of Irving's novels, such as The Cider House Rules and A Prayer for Owen Meany, have been bestsellers and many have been made into movies. Several of Irving's books (Garp, Meany, Widow) and short stories have been set in and around Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire where Irving grew up as the son ("fac brat") of an Exeter faculty member, Colin F.N. Irving (1941), and nephew of another, H. Hamilton "Hammy" Bissell (1929). (Both Irving and Bissell, and other members of the Exeter community, appear somewhat disguised in many of his novels.)

Irving was in the Exeter wrestling program under Coach Ted Seabrooke and wrestling features prominently in his books, stories and life.

He also won the 2000 Best Adapted Screenplay Academy Award for his script The Cider House Rules.

Members are encouraged to read as much or as little of Irving's work as they would like. If you are only able to read one book for the discussion, the "suggested" reading is The World According to Garp.

Wikipedia
The World According to Garp is John Irving's fourth novel. Published in 1978, the book was a bestseller for years.

A movie adaptation starring Robin Williams was released in 1982.

From the Publisher
The World According to Garp is a comic and compassionate coming-of-age novel that established John Irving as one of the most imaginative writers of his generation. A worldwide bestseller since its publication in 1978, Irving's classic is filled with stories inside stories about the life and times of T. S. Garp, novelist and bastard son of Jenny Fields--a feminist leader ahead of her time. Beyond that, The World According to Garp virtually defies synopsis.

 

[mehastings]

I thought I would open this up early to give people a chance to extend the discussion in addition to extending the reading time. Don't feel pressured to start early if you don't want to!

I'm reading A Widow for One Year right now and really enjoying it. I'm looking forward to the chance to discuss it, but I'm going to wait until I have it finished and I'm at least partway into Garp.

 

[Ronny]

I just finished a Prayer For Owen Meany and started the Cider House Rules, I read Garp about a year ago and I did notice something similar in Owen & Garp so I'm interested to see how the Cider House Rules goes.

 

[Gilgamesh]

Earlier posts don't mention a book I read by the author, Hotel New Hampshire. It also turned into a movie with Rob Lowe and Jodie Foster. I think I read that in my high school years. Very funny and touching. Later down the line, I rented the movie, but, did not enjoy it much as the book. The book was much better. Possibly due to my imagination of the protagonist being nothing like Rob Lowe - I despise the preppy look of Rob, while I am infatuated with Jodie Foster, wierd combo of movie stars in my opionion. Anyways, I just wanted to say that book is great too. Check it out.

 

[Fantasy Moon]

I would like to read The Cider House Rules. I started reading it years ago, but got too busy with school to finish it before it was due back to the library. I did like what I read though, and I liked the film adaptation.

 

[Ronny]

Earlier posts don't mention a book I read by the author, Hotel New Hampshire. It also turned into a movie with Rob Lowe and Jodie Foster. I think I read that in my high school years. Very funny and touching. Later down the line, I rented the movie, but, did not enjoy it much as the book. The book was much better. Possibly due to my imagination of the protagonist being nothing like Rob Lowe - I despise the preppy look of Rob, while I am infatuated with Jodie Foster, wierd combo of movie stars in my opionion. Anyways, I just wanted to say that book is great too. Check it out.

I watched the movies for the two books I've read and felt the same, while they had good actors and were Ok movies they did not come close to the books. I think that there is too much detail that must be cut out and in the case of Owen Meany/Simon Birch changed(some changes I understood and others I was not sure of, like why they changed the names of the characters and town).

 

[Ronny]

I just finished The Cider House Rules and of the three I've read so far I liked it best. All three have had some recurring themes, but I liked the characters best in Cider House and found it the most believable/easy to picture. I think the characters (while still a little different) acted more real than they did in Garp or Owen Meany.

 

[mehastings]

I just finished A Widow for One Year, and it was fantastic, possibly the best book I've read this year. It would seem that this book also has a movie, The Door in the Floor, which is based on only the first of three sections. I'll have to get it and see how it goes.

I'll write up a nice review for anyone interested in the next week or so. In the meantime, has anyone else read this one? If not, I certainly suggest it. I'm going to pick Garp up soon (so I have something to compare to), but know I won't get to it for at least a week.

 

[Ronny]

I have it but probably will wait a book or two before I start it, I like to space out my books by an author just a bit I didn't know that one had a movie too.

 

[regen]

I just started with The Fourth Hand. Has anyone read it?

 

[Baddie]

I just started with The Fourth Hand. Has anyone read it?

Read it when it came out in Norwegian in 2002. Doesn't remember the entier story. I enjoyed it but, it wasn't among John Irving's best books.

Of those I have read i rate them as followed;

A Widow for One Year
The Cider House Rules
The Hotel New Hampshire
The Fourth Hand

I've only seen the movie of The World According to Garp,
Must tray to read this one and A Prayer For Owen Meany soon.

Enjoy your read Regen.

 

[regen]

Thanks ..
I have A Widow for One Year lined up for the next read.

 

[nomadic myth]

I read The Cider House Rules and The World According to Garp. Irving's scope and vision is astounding. Just the extent of his story-telling imagination makes his stories pleasant to settle into. Comparing him to Dickens is not inappropriate, and especially so since Dickens' work appears in The Cider House Rules.

The tragedy of The World According to Garp is what struck me the most. I found the accident scene to be especially poignant concerning Garp's son (I don't have the book with me. Was it Walt?). Fortunately it was rather comical concerning the penile severing incident (Michael Milton?). Nothing like a good chomping off of a wife-stealer's manhood to lighten the mood of a book. Wouldn't have been so funny if it were me, or if the guy wasn't with Garp's wife.

 

[Ronny]

One of the things I noticed in Garp & Meany was the single mother with son, even in the Cider House Rules the mothers were talked about much more than the fathers, until Homer and Garp became fathers and then were active parents there is not much male parenting going on.

I also noticed there was a celibate character in both the Cider House Rules and Owen Meany referred to as a nonpracticing homosexual, I don't remember if that term was used in Garp now but will have to go back and look.

 

[Baddie]

One of the things I noticed in Garp & Meany was the single mother with son, even in the Cider House Rules the mothers were talked about much more than the fathers, until Homer and Garp became fathers and then were active parents there is not much male parenting going on.

I also noticed there was a celibate character in both the Cider House Rules and Owen Meany referred to as a nonpracticing homosexual, I don't remember if that term was used in Garp now but will have to go back and look.

This might be because John's parents got divorced when he was only two years old (1944). He grew up without ever meeting his biological father. When his mother re-married in 1948 he was renamed John Winslow Irving.

During the writing of Until I Find You (2004), Irving was contacted for the first time by a half-brother he had never met, and at last learned something of the life and character of the father he never knew.

This is just a guess, but it could have inflected on Irving's stories.

 

[Ronny]

This might be because John's parents got divorced when he was only two years old (1944). He grew up without ever meeting his biological father. When his mother re-married in 1948 he was renamed John Winslow Irving.

During the writing of Until I Find You (2004), Irving was contacted for the first time by a half-brother he had never met, and at last learned something of the life and character of the father he never knew.

This is just a guess, but it could have inflected on Irving's stories.

Interesting, thank you.

 

[The waveguide]

The Hotel New Hampshire

I read "The Hotel New Hampshire " about 5-6 years ago, and ever since then I am carefully avoiding Irving. I simply did not understand the book. I was not ready for people dressing like bears (hm, what' s the point?!), and for dwarfs typing stories and then committing a suicide, and for brother willing to slip with his sister.

It seemed to me that Irving took many different characters, mixed them all in one book and a result was what my mother calls a "Russian borscht" - one huge mix of everything and no taste. I mean, it was clear to me that Irving spent lots of time to make every character an individual like it appeared in a book, and you could really see a living soul behind each of them.

But I simply did not get what was the point. So I read and waited for something to happen, page after page after page. But nothing came...

It was different with Nabokov's Lolita - I did not expect anything to happen but every page was either funny or sad or just made me very angry. I was "living" the book. It managed to evoke many emotions - and this is what I would actually expect from any (good) book now. "The Hotel New Hampshire" just did not do that.

May be I read the book incorrectly? May be I did not decipher the irony/jokes that the writer aimed to tell the reader? What was the message, anyway?

 

[Ronny]

I remember at first after reading the World According to Garp, I was not sure if I liked it. It took me through many emotions and odd characters as Waveguide mentioned the Hotel New Hampshire did. I closed it and thought that was weird, as the weeks went by it stuck with me though and I liked it better for that. I read so many books that just fade out of mind after I finish them but so far Irving's characters and stories seem to stick, I like that.

 

[domani]

I've only recently started reading Irving; I began with The World According to Garp. The early section focusing on Jenny Fields is the best part of the book - an excellent black comedy. Once the focus switches to Garp, the story is more patchy, though it manages to gather momentum again later in the novel. When I reached the car-crash scene, I realised how carefully every element had been set up - how Garp habitually coasts into the driveway, the broken gearstick, Garp's wife's boyfriend; all the elements come together in a blending of tragedy and comedy. Also, the story-within-the-story, "The Pension Grillparzer", is a great tale; its evocation of atmosphere is so strong.

I'm now partway through The Hotel New Hampshire. In a way, it's like an expanded version of the ideas in "The Pension Grillparzer"; Vienna and bears seem to be recurring Irving interests.

In both Garp and Hotel New Hampshire, character definition is very strong. I particularly noticed this as I've recently read a novel (Joseph Kanon's The Good German) where there were so many characters that seemed to have little difference between them that it became hard to keep track of them all. In Irving's novels this never happens, despite the large number of characters; he finds the right way to make even minor characters stay memorable and individual. The sheer oddness of both novels is very appealing, too.

 

[nomadic myth]

When I reached the car-crash scene, I realised how carefully every element had been set up....

---


Also, the story-within-the-story, "The Pension Grillparzer", is a great tale; its evocation of atmosphere is so strong.

It's truly amazing how he pulls everything off. The brilliance is discouraging to any want-to-be writers. I know I couldn't do it like he does it.