The World According to Garp [Mass Market Paperback]

I have several friends with whom I have argued passionately about Irving over the years. Why is it that we love some authors and hate others? For me, Irving is the most plastic and shallow writer I have ever encountered, with the most contrived characters I have ever met. I have wondered about the process of the creation of some of the bizarrely unbelievable characters. "Well, I need a character here, and I will make him a former NFL star tight end who has had a sex change operation." Even to his fans, Irving's characters are a bit on the different side (well, OK, a lot on the different side). I find them utterly hollow and unbelievable. This falsity I find running throughout all of Irving's books. But THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP was the first one that I read, and therefore the one I hold in lowest regard. My friends and others are going to go on reading what I consider to be Irving's abominable books. I recommend reading something by A. S. Byatt or David Lodge or Robertson Davies instead.

Garp hooks you right from the start, when you meet his fiercely independent-minded mother, Jenny Fields, a nurse who slashes a leering soldier in a movie theater in the WWII era. Poor Jenny has no interest whatsoever in men (she is not gay...she just has no sexual interest in anyone). But the irony is, her wealthy, conservative family believes that she is rutting like a rabbit.
Jenny may not be promiscuous, but she definitely has some unconventional ideas. She wants a baby, but does not want to become involved with a man to get one. Since artificial insemination was not yet mainstream in the 1940s, she finds a vegetative soldier with whom to perform her insemination.

T. S. Garp is the result (he has no first name, just initials, in honor of the fact that his father was a Technical Sergeant). Most of the story is his, but Jenny still plays a prominent role throughout. Garp's life is unconventional, and that's putting it mildly. I won't go into detail, because I don't want to ruin the delight of reading the book and discovering it for yourself.
It becomes even more confusing when Jenny writes a book called "A Sexual Suspect," detailing her unusual life and views. It becomes a best seller, and now Garp not only knows the truth about how he was conceived, but everyone else in America knows too because the book is a best seller.

Garp is surrounded with an entertaining (and sometimes frightening) cast of supporting characters, including his wife Helen, the snobbish Percy family whose members go by nicknames such as "Cushie" and "Pooh" (his intimate relationship with one member will play a major role in his undoing at the hands of another), the horny neighbor "Mrs. Ralph," a trio of prostitutes in Vienna (one of whom wants to both mother him and have sex with him), and the lovelorn ex-football-player-turned-transexual named Robert Muldoon.

Crazy things happen to Garp throughout the book, but interestingly enough, there isn't a major point or a build-up to some sort of moral. It's more like "Seinfeld"...a book about nothing. Yet it's also a book about everything...feminism, sexuality, adultry, ambition, and even death. It's about the life of Garp, and isn't that pretty much how anyone's life is? Maybe the things that happen to most of us aren't as surreal as what happens to Irving's characters, but life is truly just a series of events and that's why Garp's world is, too.

There are some sad and disturbing parts, like the fate of Garp's youngest son. This book is loaded with humor, but it's black comedy to be sure. If you're looking for cheerily upbeat reading, this isn't the place to find it.

But I urge you to give it a try...and please, for the love of God, DO NOT watch the movie beforehand (or even afterwards). Some things are perfect as-is, and this book is one of them. But try it for yourself. Pick up a copy! Another book I need to recommend -- very much on my mind since I purchased a "used" copy off Amazon is "The Losers' Club: Complete Restored Edition," a funny, highly entertaining little novel I can't stop thinking about.

THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP by John Irving, is the story of an ordinary man with an extraordinary life. This man is T. S. Garp, illegitimate son of famous feminist Jenny Fields and Technical Sergeant Garp (hence the 'T. S.'), a severely wounded American soldier. Before Ms. Fields was famous, she was a feminist by nature, and though she wished to have a child, she did not wish to have any sort of relationship with a man. So when Technical Sergeant Garp is brought into the hospital where she works as a nurse with shrapnel in his brain, Jenny realizes that she has found the perfect father for her son. The rest of the story is as amazing as the manner in which Garp is conceived. It chronicles his life as a struggling writer living in the shadow of his mother's fame. The only true immortality is the written word in "The World According to Garp." Garp spends most of the novel attempting to write his classic, the book that will make him famous and thus immortal. I was reminded at time of the work of Jackson McCrae, especially his BARK OF THE DOGWOOD or his CHILDREN'S CORNER --the writing is just that good, deep, and well constructed. Irving helps convey the theme to the readers by constantly using foreshadowing. There is little that happens in this novel that the reader does not have at least a slight inkling about prior to its occurrence. Whereas with other authors this may have made the story boring and predictable, Irving utilizes this element in a way that keeps the reader guessing, occasionally hinting at things that do not actually happen or things unrelated to the main story. Overall, the theme is expressed clearly but not blatantly.