I just slogged through this book. I generally think even if I hate a book it’s probably a good read if it made me think about it, if it made me feel strongly. However I feel Garp was simply a voyeuristic way of attracting the kinds of reders that enjoyed that sort of thing.
I walked away with a deep disgust of every character in the book. True, I didn’t expect much, but when Garp’s son Walt dies I felt only a little sympathy for Walt - he just hadn’t been fleshed out enough as a character - and downright rage and fury at his ignorant, petty, simplistic parents. Garp drove like that up the driveway every day. He was angry for her cheating, when he had already cheated several times with the babysitter. Garp angered me at every turn, what with his inneffectual irritating worrying.
And was I supposed to cheer on Jenny Garp? She essentially raped a retarded man; granted he had been turned that way due to shrapnel, but am I supposed to be happy she created a child in such an irresponsible way?
And Helen, who marries an insecure boy who woos her with his writing instead of any real love…sure seems like she married him so she could control him.
The Pension Grillparzer was a truly awful story and yet it was the best in the book. Shows what the rest was like! The rape scene described in one of the later stories still creeps me out. Not the one in the cab, but the one in the laundromat.
A young woman is raped by three men in the laundromat. They sit her ass on the edge of the dryer and lay her back in her clothes. I’m not sure as I was skimming the damn story but I think her husband, the cop, was right outside in the car. Anyway, they weren’t going to kill her but she either suffocates in the clothes or chokes on her own vomit. The story has been preying on my mind as I do the laundry, mostly alone, and sometimes it’s after dark when I go to pick up the clothes out of the dryer.
All in all it seemed sensationalist and gory. Does anyone know what I was supposed to get out of it? I’ve heard rumors of how it was a great feminist novel. This is feminism?
Upon re-reading, I do take it back - there was one character whom I liked. The transsexual, Roberta Muldoon, was a great character and I did actually root for her.
I read it years ago and thought it was all right…back in high school, so it’s all a little fuzzy. I didn’t hate it but wasn’t wowed either. I’m going to continue with unbox spoilers.
It was very strange and unusual in places–I think that appealed to me at that age. But I do agree, Jenny Garp did essentially rape the father of her child. I was a bit hazy on why we were meant to like her but feel bad for the other victims of rape.
The one thing that does stand out–this little girl is raped and her tongue cut out so that she can’t identify her rapist. And then a bunch of women who identify with her “cause” all cut out their tongues in solidarity. Eventually, one of the characters (Garp?) meets the original girl (can’t remember her name) who thinks it’s pretty stupid that the other women intentionally cut off their tongues. I remember liking that scene and thinking it was a pretty good commentary on the generally stupid things that humans do.
Apart from that, I’ve never had much need to read anything else by Irving.
It’s been quite some time since I read the book. My lingering impression of the book is that it lingers far too long. There’s the scene where Garp is transported by helicopter after whatsername…Poochy? The freaky neighbor girl I mean, shoots him which (perhaps because that’s where the film ends) I’m expecting to be the end, but then it goes off into another however many pages going into fairly extensive detail as to how everyone ends up dead, or something.
I liked the film quite a lot, which I saw when I was in my early teens, and which was rooted in the presence of Glenn Close, John Lithgow, Swoosie Kurtz and Amanda Plummer, the fact that I hadn’t developed my distaste for Robin Williams and his shtick yet and the nude scene with several members of the school wrestling team in various states of undress (male nudity was infrequent in those days).
I am prepared to acknowledge, by the way, that perhaps the reason I didn’t feel any connection to it was because I was born in 1975 and grew up in an era where woman’s lib was pretty much considered a done deal. I mean, we have a distance to go yet, but I know we can go that distance.
But just because I never grew up in a society where women were that oppressed doesn’t mean I don’t understand it, or don’t have familiarity with it. Two of my aunts’ marriages and my mother’s reputation were destroyed because I was born illegitamately, and I am forever grateful to be in this country for it. So it’s not that I am unfamiliar with the way women were treated (and still are in many parts of the world) I just can’t have any sympathy with most of the women in this world.
Zoggie, you are thinking of Ellen James, and yes, that is a commentary on people’s behavior, but I don’t even see that as any kind of brainstorm. People sre stupid. Is that news, I want to ask John Irving?
ETA: I forgot to mention Michael Milton’s fate. If that isn’t voyeuristic and gratituous, I don’t know what is.
Otto and Anaamika, yup, that’s who I meant. I didn’t think it was necessarily a great commentary. It’s honestly the only thing that impacted me enough. (Okay, and the car crash in the driveway scene where Helen ends up biting through the guy’s…special part. Because come on, how can you forget that?)
Plus, I’m getting the feeling that the only reason I remember those things so well is because they were so intense or bizarre or gross, and not so much due to their literary merit. I know a lot of other people love the book, but I’m basically with you. Annoying people, for the most part.
(inexact Roberta Muldoon quote) “I mean, I had mine removed surgically under general anaesthetic, but to have it bitten off in a Buick!”
I read “The Hotel New Hampshire” too, becasue I liked the film so much, and was also disappointed. I haven’t picked up another Irving book since then, despite having them recommended to me repeatedly by the woman who used to run my favorite (and now closed) used book store.
I think most of Irving’s books are similar: wacky, interesting things happen but there’s a cold distance from almost unlikeable characters. FWIW, I thought Garp was one of the warmest and fuzziest of Irving’s novels, his other charaters are even less likeable. They’re still good books but they’re not comfort reading.
Not so much from the book, Sean, but from some of the reviews I read on it.
And I’ll grant right away that I am the unusual one in that I generally don’t like realistic, flawed characters. I’ll take some flaws but downright stupid and/or vindictive people really get my goat, and I generally try to avoid books with them in it.
Garp, once I started, bothered me more for the lovingly rendered scenes of gore than anything else. Every rape was lovingly & graphically recounted and all scenes of violence also. It really seemed like an orgy of nastiness. And I generally don’t stand on this point , but…
Does anyone remember Little Women? The scene where Mr Baer scolds Jo for writing sensationalist literature? When I read it I thought it was charmingly silly and old-fashioned to have those views. But Garp strikes me as one of those novels, written only to shock and offend.
I’m a big John Irving fan, but Garp isn’t one of my favorites. It’s definitely interesting, I think, but you’re right that there aren’t necessarily a lot of likeable characters. But that’s one of the things that appeals to me: these people are so flawed, in so many ways, but I think they have their good (or at least interesting) points about them, too. Re: Walt’s death, I don’t think we’re necessarily supposed to grieve, ourselves (because you’re right, the character hasn’t been fleshed out much), but we’re supposed to see the impact of his death on the rest of the extended family.
The whole feminism aspect doesn’t really speak to me, either – but I’m with you, Anaamika, and I think it’s because I was born in 1978 and that particular battle hasn’t been my own.
I think Irving’s writing has improved over the years – each book he puts out (with the exception of The Fourth Hand) is better than the last. I love his newest, Until I Find You; it’s his most redemptive work yet. That said, he’s never shied away from unattractive stories and/or characters, and much of his humor is very dark. And there is a distance there, usually – Irving is just telling the story, not commenting on the goings-on. I find his stories and main characters fascinating, but his style is obviously not to everyone’s liking.
If you want to try more Irving, I’d recommend Until I Find You or A Widow for One Year. They’re definitely my favorites!
I don’t think you’re necessarily supposed to like the characters either . . . I’m a John Irving fan just because you never know what weird shit is going to happen next.
I missed this originally, and it’s a really good point. If the situation were revresed; if a man had raped a woman who came back from a war little more than a vegetable, imagine the outrage. Because it was a woman raping a man it was considered OK? Disgusting.
The thing about Walt’s death, stargazer, is everyone deserved Walt’s death excpet poor Walt. I never even felt Garp loved his kids much, he loved what they represented and he loved worrying about them, but I never had the impression he loved them as people or even was aware of what they were like as people.
ETA: Goddamn, I have made so many typos in this thread. What on earth is wrong with me?
Hey, I know how little reviews are worth. I write them myself.
Stick to the source material and make your own decision. I thought, like some of the other posters, that it was an interesting book, but not a greeat one. I read it when it first came out in paperback.
I love John Irving. I particularly loved “Garp” but I know lots of people didn’t. My rather prim-and-proper aunt got to the blow job scene and threw the book into the fireplace!
I like it (and Irving) because it shows humans and all their flaws. Parents are stupid and mean and self-centered. Mothers *are * overbearing. The world is an ugly place at times. And yet love tends to prevail in most families.
I didn’t dig the wrestling stuff at all. It just didn’t hit the mark with me.
I was not a fan of the book, and I lump it in with books such as A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius - books that don’t make me give a damn about any of the characters. Nor did I find any appreciation for its literary merits, or lack thereof.
