Well, I must have liked SOMETHING about this book. I just kept reading it & reading it... and it is lo-o-ong! The plot was almost non-existent, every relationship a sordid one, and Irving's digressions could drive me crazy - but I think I was lulled by "being told a long story." I WAS SURE THAT SOMETHING JUST HAD TO HAPPEN!

Actually, some things did happen, and there was more of a "resolution" to Irving's rambling than say those of Tom Robbins', but I would never describe the plot as gripping or even intriguing. In truth, the first part of the book - when 4-year-old Jack was traveling through Europe - was really the only interesting part to me, and Emma Ostler - who was killed off somewhere near halfway through the book - was the only really interesting character. I should have quit reading the book when I was still laughing at the nap-time stories she told little Jack!

Did I care to have wrestling holds or every bit of tattoo on William's body explained, for example? No. How Irving could think things like this advanced his story, I have no idea. I intensely disliked all the digressions ( as well as Irving's overuse of italics) yet I stuck with the book to the bitter end.

I challenge someone to tell me WHY!

Help! Some hack has kidnapped John Irving and is publishing novels under his name! As so many, many have said: I've loved John Irving's work for years, but this book is a mess (were there no editors? Or - and here's a scary thought - is this actually the edited version?). Irving is getting up there in years (he was 63 when Until I Find You was published), but one still wouldn't have imagined he'd be capable of writing such a joyless, tic-ridden, self-indulgent, slightly icky-minded shambles of a novel. And not even early-onset Alzheimer's could explain the endless repetition of catch phrases and character details (I'll say it again -- were there no editors?) that become so freaking irritating you want to scream. Why was Irving not embarrassed to write such clumsy attributions as "'Blah blah blah,' Alice said, maybe." As if that "maybe" was supposed to make us go all mushy inside because of his amateur, cloddish attempt to limn the transient nature of memory. I mean, come on, John. I didn't go to Exeter like you, but I managed to figure out a thing or two in life. All of this is a shame, most of all. Much of the press around the book seems to focus on its autobiographical nature and on Irving's effort to mine personal experiences, a strategy that has served him well in his previous novels but which falters miserably here. This is the sort of book Irving should have written for therapy (if he needed to) and then burned; it's nothing strangers needed to read. I hope he's got more books in him, but I pray to god that work like Until I Find You is out of his system for good.

Ok. I'm not really sure how I feel about this book. I like John Irving's writing style. I think it is just that the characters were a bit quirky. It was kind of annoying how the mother kept secrets from her son, and he had to go to such lengths to find out the truth. In the end, all seemed to turn out well for Jack. He found his father and discovered that his dad had seen him throughout his life, even if he had no direct contact with him for all those years. It was just sad that Jack spent most of his life not even knowing much about his dad because his mom kept him away.

I can't say it any better than my friend Jean Carlton did. I too quit reading it as a waste of my time, for me at page 215. Worse yet, I bought it (used), with the intention of passing it along to friends when I was done, but I don't even want to do that. Perhaps back to the library book sale?

Jack Burns!

I can't hear the name without the exclamation point in my head. He leads an interesting life. John Irving weaves his childhood, teen years, and adult life into a strange and fascinating tale. Much of what John Irving writes about revolves around sex, especially for Jack Burns. I've read two of Irving's novels, the other being A Widow For One Year and he has a few consistencies. Taboo sex is a major factor in the lives of the main characters, for instance, a middle aged woman and a teenage boy. He follows the life of the main character (or characters) from their formative years well into their adult life, and he shows the change and growth the character goes through, especially in relation to the strange experiences they went through as children. Families are dysfunctional in a very refreshingly unique sort of way. And there is a love of stories.

In both novels, there is at least one creative character who writes books, or movies. He tells these stories within his own story as well. In A Widow For One Year, there are four writers, and he gives details about the plots to each of their books. One of the authors, Ted Cole, writes children's books, and he actually tells the full stories of three of them. He has since published one of these children's stories, A Sound Like Someone Trying Not To Make A Sound, which I look forward to reading.

In Until I Find You, the main characters best friend writes screenplays, and the main character is an actor in movies, and he goes into detail about the plots of these films as well.

In both books, Irving also goes off into tangents. It is especially in prevalent in Until I Find You, where he seems unable to finish a sentence without being reminded of some event in the characters future or past, or some interesting tidbit about the place where the current scene is taking place. He goes into detail on these tangents to the point where you forget what story he was originally telling, and then he brings you right back into it without whiplash to your brain and sinks you right back into his fascinating story. I don't know how he does this without making me want to put the book down...I've rather grown to like this ability he has. It's bad story telling, put to a very good use. I wouldn't trust anyone else to be able to pull it off, but he does so splendidly.

Read John Irving, unless you're morally uptight, and be enriched.

Also, see A Door In The floor, the Focus Film adaptation of A Widow For One Year. It is the best book-to-film I've ever seen. It completely captures the spirit and feel of the novel, though it only covers the first half of the book, when the main characters are young. The second half of the novel goes into their adult life, which is not addressed in the movie...sequel?...I doubt it, but would love it.

John Irving is now of one of my top favorite authors.

Пенис (1702 раза)
Интуиции надо слушаться. моя читательская говорила мне, что больше одной книги Джона Ирвинга перебор. Были "Правила Дома Сидра", чье место в личной табели о рангах терялось в заоблачных высотах и, вопреки обыкновению проглатывать у полюбившегося писателя все,до чего смогу дотянуться, продолжать знакомства не рвалась. Внутренний голос говорил: "Хватит". "Человека воды" взяла для игры, хмыкнула понимающе: ага,вот тут, значит, истоки; "Мир глазами Гарпа" - потому что стыдно не знать главного произведения совершенно своего автора - восхитилась, кивала со значением: ах, многотемье, ах поразительная откровенность. А для чего "Покуда я тебя не обрету"? Тщеславие, батенька, чистой воды выпендреж, как это, у кого-то есть топовая пятерка Ирвинга, а у меня нет. За него и была наказана.

Книга показалась невыносимой. Точнее всего ощущение от нее передаст аналогия с прошлогодним чтением "Ады" Набокова: поначалу страшно радовалась, потому что Владимир Владимирович мое все и априори знак качества, игровое задание сулило упоительные читательские впечатления; по ходу чтения радость истаивала, уступая место чувству, что на сей раз вкус и чувство меры в стремлении повторить раз достигнутый с "Лолитой" успех отказали мастеру, а количество непристойностей, вываленное на беззащитную читательскую голову, приближается к критическому порогу.

То же с "Покуда..." Ирвингу словно бы не дает дышать зависть к самому себе, создавшему "Правила" и "Гарпа": отчего один роман стал манифестом феминизма (хм, сомнительной красоты словосочетание, но так есть, потому оставлю), а фильм по второму взял "Оскара" (и не суть, что от романа в фильме остались рожки да ножки). Значит если написать что-нибудь, еще более шокирующее и сентиментальное, успех можно повторить и упрочить? Нельзя. Потому что изначально должна быть история, которой пришло время поведать себя миру. Она выбрала тебя в качестве посредника, и твоими устами (твоим пером, шариковой ручкой, пишущей машинкой, компьютером, мобильным телефоном) рассказала себя. Гордись, они выбирают в симбиоты лучших.

"Покуда..." - книга иного рода. Закамуфлированная под автобиографию, под завязку набитая шокирующими и сентиментальными подробностями многословная муть, высосанная из пальца (хотя больше в качестве источника вдохновения хочется назвать то слово, которое автор повторит на протяжении повествования тысячу семьсот два раз, "пенис", кто еще не догадался). А на закуску, осведомленный о читательской благосклонности к тем, кто рассеивает мрак невежества в какой-то из областей, Ирвинг предложит массу сведений о... татуировках. Почему нет, об этом. кажется, еще никто не писал беллетристики?

Периоды, когда хотелось бросить (долгие) перемежались признанием "далан, ничего так" (короткими), но в целом я рада. что додавила шедевру до победного. Главным образом потому, что не в чем себя упрекнуть. Но читать девятисотстраничную книгу о том, как сначала мама мальчика таскала его по борделям,потом его бедную пипиську тискали старшие девочки в школе, после насиловали все тетки, появлявшиеся в поле зрения. А потом он вырос большой, стал знаменитым актером и научился, наконец, отбиваться от тех, с кем спать не хотел. Так вот,читать никому не посоветую.

Los familiarizados con el autor de El mundo según Garp y Hotel New Hampshire reconocerán acá sus temas y obsesiones: la iniciación sexual, el ambiente universitario, la lucha libre, el padre ausente, pasados familiares oscuros e innombrados. Tiene la gigantesca Hasta que... algo de cierre de todos ellos, y si bien el río de personajes que rodea a Jack Burns puede hacer floja la larguísima trama, creo que el cierre compensa buenamente. Lo fascinante del Burns que busca a su padre, a quien no conoce, es el peso que la madre tiene en lo que él cree recordar, y cómo a medida que recorre en reversa las ciudades de las que antes huyó, la historia de abandono puede leerse totalmente de otra forma. Rabiosamente autobiográfica.

On a cold day in 2014, I walked into a local establishment, ordered something warm for lunch, and began reading "A Prayer for Owen Meany." So began one of the greatest reads of my life, and a lifelong affection for John Irving.

Which is mostly why I finished this long, rambling, decent-in-places, problematic, complicated book.

This is actually the first review I've written for GoodReads (at least, in awhile.) I don't plan to write lengthy ones usually, but this one may be a little longer because the book, and my feelings about it, were so complex.

The main character is Jack Burns, who is born to a woman named Alice. Jack's father, William, has left before their marriage, and Alice and Jack  appear to  spend the first part of the book wandering about Europe to find Jack's father. When they can't  seem to  find him, they head to Toronto.

The first part -- wandering around Europe -- was repetitive and dull. Ultimately quite important, but repetitive and dull. I would have quit on page 50 but for the fact it was written by John Irving, and seriously quitting around the 100th page, but then realized that part one was almost over and maybe there would be hope Part II would get better.

And it did. In the next chunk of the book, we follow Jack through elementary, middle and high school. Irving's narrative soars. I laughed! I turned pages! I hurled!

Wait, what?

So, in addition to the spoiler warning, I'm going to provide a trigger warning for child sexual abuse, a courtesy Irving never really does.  Jack embarks on a childhood filled with being molested by numerous older girls and women, from the girl who ultimately becomes his best friend, Emma (yeah...) to a woman he meets while learning how to wrestle, to the school dishwasher. Among a host of others.

In some ways, Irving's reporting of these molestations (which are never physically aggressive nor appearing particularly unwelcome) is much as a child would receive them. But, at the end of the day, there is a scant acknowledgment once or twice that he had been molested. While we will spend much of the rest of the book watching Jack deal with the fallout from this, "showing and not telling" is doing an awful lot of work here.

Unsurprisingly, Jack's life is full of ramifications. He  blows his chance to consummate a relationship with his high school girlfriend. He and his mother's girlfriend (who happens to be Emma's mother (who they now live with (yeahhhhhhhhhhhh...)) can barely be in a room together without sexual tension crackling.  When he moves to California to become a movie star,  Emma and he live together and she continues one of her major pastimes in life, holding his penis. It's like that.

Rampant.

I was thinking maybe I was not sophisticated enough to deal with all this. Perhaps Irving just needed to put his hero, and his audience, through all of this, in relatively graphic detail, to explain to us why Jack has such a hard time coping with life. Then, I noticed that "Publisher's Weekly" described the "incessant, graphic sexual abuses [as] gratuitous."

What they said. Seriously.

It was literally so much I chose to deduct a full star. And my giving of stars is not some Olympic-criteria thing...it's usually all based on the narrative. But, seriously. One whole star deducted for the gratuitous, incessant, graphic, sexual abuse.

But wait! There's another deduction! And though this was somewhat shorter, it was no less offensive, and required me to remove ANOTHER star.

Full disclosure: My wife and sister-in-law are both blind. I have a lot of blind friends. John Irving clearly doesn't.

I'm putting this in shouty caps for a reason.

NO BLIND PERSON. I HAVE EVER MET. FEELS. OTHER. PEOPLE'S. FACES.

Seriously.

I'm not saying no one ever has. I'm not saying no one ever will. I'm just saying that I've met a lot of blind people, and not one of them has ever said, "Hi, Michael! Nice to meet you! Mind if I feel your face?" Literally not one.

So, when a minor blind character, upon meeting Jack's girlfriend, starts feeling around her hips, waist and breasts, yeah, I had a problem with that. The following it up with the gratuitous line of "a blind woman's audacity is like no other's, maybe" was what made me decide to deduct YET ANOTHER star. Second star I've ever deducted, right after the first.

Say what you will about that John Irving, the man does things others can't.

The narrative moves on. Remember, Jack still doesn't know where his father is, and we can't just leave that thread hanging, can we? So now,  following Jack's mother's death and Emma's death (oh, by the way...)  he embarks in search of his father in...Europe.

Well, not quite. There's another problematic twist. It turns out -- I have to spoiler this one because it's kind of a major plot twist --  that Jack's father was never really on the lam. He was there all the time as Jack and Alice meandered through Europe, nearly leaving me running to the next book. He wanted to be around Jack, but Jack's shrew of a mother refused to let him have Jack in his life if he wouldn't be with her. So, he took what he could, settling for seeing Jack in public places.

This is a good theme to have in literature, because a lot of mothers like to alienate their kids from their fathers and they are totally shrews and dads get a bad shake on the whole parenting deal and the court system deals with this well and if you aren't hearing this read in a sarcastic tone of voice yet, hi, I'm Michael Bassett, we really should meet and I can tell you about my life's work.

I wanted to throw things. I really did. The only reason I didn't throw the book was that, by this point, I was within 120 pages of the ending and I had a morbid curiosity about it. I also wanted to deduct another star, but couldn't quite bring myself to do it, so I convinced myself the two stars for three fairly mortal sins would have to do.

Jack, in pursuit of his father, will have to revisit the haunts in Europe and I, perhaps unsurprisingly, found the narrative slowing and it harder to move through. However, by now, I was reminded of a high school teacher's description of Wuthering Heights: "It's not particularly good, but the characters are so screwed up, you kind of want to know what happens to them, so you suffer through it." In this case, 845 pages of it.

If you are planning to read this, perhaps this review will convince you not to. If it hasn't, do me a favor, and please read "A Prayer for Owen Meany" at least first, and preferably instead. That one was so good, it almost makes this one forgivable.

Almost.

There are some John Irving novels I like (‘The World According to Garp’; ‘A Prayer for Owen Meany’) but there are others I just see as over-long, self indulgent and ultimately pointless.

This is one of the latter.

It’s the most penis obsessed novel I’ve encountered in a long while and concerns Jack Burns, a young man who grows up a single-parent family in Canada and the USA. As a four year old his mother takes him on a quest for his absentee father across various port cities of Northern Europe. This is actually a strong opening, and has a nice counterpoint later on when – as an adult – Jack tracks down the truth about that trip and ultimately about his father.

In-between though there is a seemingly endless section where Jack becomes a major Hollywood star. It’s not funny enough or angry enough to be satire, and instead seems to be some warmly affectionate – if racy – tribute. It all builds up to the moment when Jack wins Best Adapted Screenplay at the 1999 Academy Awards. Now the person who actually won the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar that year was John Irving for ‘The Cider House Rules’ (another of his novels I actually like) and so we get a fictionalised account of the winner’s experience at the ceremony. (Yes Mr Irving, have another pat on the back for your achievement!) What I couldn’t happen wondering though, was whether the crow-barring in of that evening was the entire raison d’être of the character’s Hollywood career? Yes it helps the plot at points that Jack is so rich and famous, but that could easily have been achieved by making him an author or a sports star or a whizz-kid businessman. I know one shouldn’t second guess an author’s intentions, but it does feel like Irving wanted to say Thank You to the movies by paying this fictional tribute.

There are numerous sex scenes in this book, with Jack an object of female desire from before the age of ten (a detail which will no doubt make some readers feel queasy); there are characters who seem to be important parts of the unfolding narrative but die off abruptly (and a lot of them have great secrets which they never hint of to anyone, a trait fictional characters are so skilled at); and there are of course numerous references to wrestling. But it never really feels like it’s actually about anything. It reads more like Irving taking a few ideas for a walk without really knowing where they were going to end up.

In short this is a very irritating novel. However it is a very long novel and I did read it all the way through, so there had to be something in these pages to hold my attention. And it's also, I have to admit, an occasionally very funny novel. Indeed the confusion which arises from the Christian protestors inadvertently picketing Paul Schrader’s ‘Mishima’ should make you guffaw even if you’re reading on a train (which I was). So it’s for those reasons that I’ll give what should have been a two star book, a slightly grudging three stars.

“Penis, penis, penis—” Jack chanted
“That about covers it”
(pg.312)

Seriously, this book has much more to offer than penises, although, I have to admit, that penis is probably the one word that sticks out the most… oh, and tattoo too.

Can't blame any reader if they throw in the towel sometime in the first half. The life and story of Jack Burns can get under your skin pretty fast. From the books I read by John Irving this is probably the most lugubrious one. It was my second reading and I realized what little I remembered of the plot from my first encounter, or remembered falsely.

Funny old thing: memory.


n  n
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Yes, I gave it 3 stars. What I read was beautifully written.

Alas, I am far more sensitive than you, my loved ones, may realize. The graphic detail of the years of intense sexual abuse to which our boy protagonist was victim, starting at the age of 4, was just too much for me. It was horrifying, in fact. I made it to age 10 (not even halfway through the book) and returned it to the library between my thumb and forefinger.

How could someone even write this detail without first-hand victim experience? Or for that matter, epic bouts of weeping? I would hate to have been a fly on his writing studio wall while this was penned. I would have drowned myself in Irving's liquor of choice.

I saw someone reading this on the bus yesterday with a horrified look on his face, by the way, hence this review: my penance for not grabbing my fellow rider by the wrist and gently saying, "Just put it down and walk away. It's okay, it's okay, it's okay..."

This is quite a departure from Irving's better known novels. The World According to Garp and A Prayer for Owen Meany are both light-hearted and funny. This book has a much darker tone and deals with some very somber issues. That in of itself is okay, but I also got the feeling that Irving wasn't quite sure where the story was going as it progressed. I would only recommend this for hardcore Irving fans.