This book was touted as the most autobiographical of John Irving's books, and if that's true, it explains why so many of them are so incredibly weird. I adored this book when I wasn't trying to read while simultaneously averting my eyes from it.

I loved what Irving had to say about the unreliability of memory, and how memory can be shaped by the stories others tell you (obviously not for me, as I remember everything in perfect detail and am a perfectly reliable narrator). For Jack, his memory is shaped by his mother, and she chooses a narrative that makes her look great and his father look like a complete lout.

Much of the joy is watching Jack unfold all the sideways information we'd been set up to believe across the beginning of the book, and collecting the tiny hints and shadows that might lead us to conclusions ahead of him. I felt rewarded for all the moments that I noticed didn't feel quite right, only to learn that they weren't quite right.

As much as the parade of tattoo artists, wrestlers, organists, and private school teachers entertained me, my favorite moment was during the book's depiction of the 2000 Oscars. Jack had gone to the Oscars previously in the book, and the winners were always real-world accurate. In this scene, I laughed out loud when I read that Michael Caine won for Best Supporting Actor; I ran to Google to make sure that this was for his role in The Cider House Rules. I was right. This twist of fact and fiction was just so fun for me, and it just got even better as Jack won the award that really went to his creator.

Wow. My friend bought me this book for Christmas 2007 as she felt sorry for taking so long with my copy of A Prayer for Owen Meany, and it took me a year to actually pick up the book and start it. At the beginning, I felt like I'd like the book a lot, but not close to how much I loved Owen Meany... But half-way through, I just couldn't stop reading. It was about five o'clock on a Sunday afternoon when I stopped putting the book down for more than five minutes between chapters (the first 300 or so pages had taken me about two weeks to read; I'd been busy). And even though my back hurt and my eyes were in pain, I couldn't stop until nine hours later, I finished the book.

The characters in the book, even though their lives are so radically different than my own, are so realistic. The book is entirely unpredictable. Even when I think I've figured things out, everything works out so differently than I'd expected. There were parts that shocked me, parts that scared me, parts that brought tears to my eyes, and parts where I couldn't help but smile.

I recommend this book to any mature reader. If the material in the book were given an MPAA rating, it'd no doubt be R. Does that take away from the quality of the book? Not at all. In fact, it just adds to how realistic it is. Nothing is held back. It seems like a story I can't picture a human writing. It is as if this book just exists--the story is that beautifully crafted. John Irving is amazing.

As for how big the book is? I do like long books, but somehow, I managed to let the 820 pages that this book is intimidate me. Don't let the size keep you from reading it! Every page is worth it.

I almost relented and gave this one two stars in honor of ' A Prayer for Owen Meany' but it was such a waste of too many hours time . In one word : Shite . I mainly picked it up because I was researching
' The Halifax Explosion ' , yes Rebecca ,McNutt , this one's on you . Anyway the pages on the tragedy was less than 1% of the book , which was tragically written to begin with . In the interest of transparency , I skimmed the 200+ pages after the Halifax chapter , but even that was painful .

John Irving is one of the most 'in-control' authors I've ever read, in terms of knowing exactly where he wants to go with plot and character development from the very first page. As lengthy and detailed as his books can get, there's not much wasted ink in them. This quality (along with his unique writing style and depth of imagination) is what sparked me to fall in love with his books from the first one I read (The World According to Garp).

Until I Find You falls in the same vein, though significant events don't feel as closely knit together as in his other novels, and there isn't quite that same resolution of high speed destiny I've come to expect from him. It is, however, one of his more heart-breaking plots, and it benefits from some very clever reconstructive story-telling.

The story itself recalls Garp and even Owen Meany to a certain extent, but the delivery is more along the lines of A Widow for One Year (not my favorite Irving novel). He also comes off as less familiar with the Hollywood scene (the context of a big chunk of the novel) than with his trusted settings of New England prep schools and European red-light districts, which also show up here. The Hollywood portion's not quite as believable as the other parts. (And one final complaint - too much disturbing sex!)

Still, it's John Irving, which means it's eloquent to the extreme, never dull, and more well-crafted than the vast majority of other books I've read, so...4 stars.

Un libro tan extensísimo, que me ha parecido que leía el guión de una película. Se me ha hecho pesado y tedioso esperaba un desenlace que justificara la trama tan extensa...no ha sido así.
Primera mala experiencia con John Irving.

No obstante, reconozco que escribe bien...muy bien , pero en esta novela se ha colado.

*Dos años más tarde edito mi valoración, ya que este libro me dejó un poso tremendo y quiero volver a experiencias con este autor.

"Until I Find You" is repetitious, overwritten, overlong and untrusting of the reader. Almost no important detail, key anecdote, phrase in a foreign language, or memorable line is used just once, and few are used just twice or even three times. Even the uninspired elements get repeated again and again. (Inexplicably, however, the occasional detail -- Emma's moustache, for example -- is heavily emphasized, and then completely dropped without being resolved or mentioned again.)

It's been a while since I've read a John Irving novel, but I don't remember him being this poor a writer. This must be an Irving book because all the typical Irving obsessions -- wrestling, cross-dressing, boarding schools, adultery and exceptional children -- are here, but I remember him being a better storyteller. Even the novel's point of view has problems, with Irving seemingly unsure whether to stay the whole time with the main character Jack Burns -- is it the third-person narrator or Jack, an Oscar-winning movie star and screenwriter, who doesn't remember the names of well-known Hollywood films? -- and whether Jack's view of the world is reliable. (There's a big reveal halfway through the book that Jack's early memories were incorrect, but what are we to make of the events we see through his eyes later in the book?)

It doesn't help that Jack is an incredibly bland character, with few opinions and little internal life. This is acknowledged in the course of the novel, but even such an acknowledgement doesn't make the book any easier to get through, as its main character is so uninteresting.

Perhaps Irving's previous books had better editors. I can think of no other reason why this one pales so miserably in comparison. Somewhere in this 850-page, flabby mess of a book, I suspect, is a good if not great 350-page novel.

令人惊叹的作品！细节和人物的丰满，让人明白上乘的小说是什么样：小说里的人物，绝不是“纸片人”、“脸谱人”。

John Irving 在国内出版的中译本小说至此就全部读完了。这本是集大成者。

You should always trust that John Irving knows what he’s doing. He’s a masterful storyteller!
For a rather large part of this book, I was a bit disappointed. I felt that the impossible might have happened, that John Irving had actually written a bad book. I got weary of reading about a little boy’s penis and how he was molested by girls and women. It went on and on.
But Jack grows up and the older he got, the more interested and invested in the story I became.

Normally, I probably would have given this book 4 stars. But on my Irving scale, I think it is a 3 stars book. It’s not as good as Garp, it’s not as good as Owen Meany - 3 stars it is. Which still means very good compared to other books - just keep going even though the first (several) hundred pages drag a bit.

John Irving has a new novel coming out in May, 2012: In One Person. Since I had fallen behind on his releases, I took the plunge on this long novel. The general consensus, according to readers' stars and critics, seems to be that Irving's last two novels were not up to snuff. I disagree.

Granted, it would be hard to top Cider House Rules or A Prayer From Owen Meany. Somehow, ever since I read The World According to Garp about 18 years ago, I have felt a kindred spirit in John Irving. I'm not confident I could even articulate it, but I always get what he is creating in his novels. In some ways he is as oriented to contemporary issues as Jodi Picoult (of whom I am NOT a fan), but no matter the issue, I feel John there in his novels. He is no mere spectator of modern life. He loves the odd misfit people as much as do Anne Tyler or Ann Patchett, while he writes like a modern Charles Dickens.

Jack Burns is a fatherless child. According to Alice, his mother, William Burns abandoned Alice and Jack; therefore he must never be forgiven. Amidst tattoo parlours and a long list of older sexually abusive women, Jack grows up deciding that no one can be forgiven. Although he becomes a famous actor, the guiding beacon for his existence is that missing father.

I agree with some that the story bogs down at times, though if it weren't for all the detail about tattoo artists, Scandinavia, whores, organists and Hollywood, I would have continued through life blissfully ignorant in those areas.

Basically I don't care about the flaws. This is an almost unbelievable story about lots of unbelievable stuff that does go on in the world. It is also a cautionary tale to parents as we commit unbelievably damaging sins against our children. John Irving has shown that the adult me is an unreliable narrator about my early life, that learning the truth about one's parents is painful but essential, and that forgiveness is the healing for unquiet hearts. I have learned these things in other ways, but being the fiction lover that I am, learning them again in Until I Find You was the best. The tears I shed at the end were as freeing as anything else I have tried.

When Irving is good he can be superlative. Alas, this bloated mess of a book is one of his weakest. Probably a decent 400 page book in here somewhere but even saying that, these are mostly weak characters and it’s missing his usual empathy and richness of tone.

Oof, this was not a pleasant read. I generally love John Irving, but this one made me deeply uncomfortable. Irving often deals with sexual curiosity, even sexual experimentation, among and between children, but this book is riddled with examples of child sexual abuse. What I found harder to stomach than the content itself was the tone -- very detached and non-judgmental. Like the author was simply describing these acts factually, with no hint of disgust or revulsion. Maybe I'm too sensitive, but I found it unnerving, and it's the reason why it took me more than three months to finish this book.

The abuse takes place largely in the first half, so after that it's a much more pleasant read, and is brilliant in typical Irving fashion.

⭐️⭐️

This is the first time I’ve been disappointed with a John Irving novel.

The storyline was interesting for about the first 50 or 60 pages and then it bogged down for the next 750 pages. A really long slog through a book that is largely the life history of Jack Burns beginning when he was four years old and ending when he was 38. Sexual innuendos and deviancy plus a mother who is a tattoo artist. I started this book in April and could not push myself past five or ten pages a day. John Irving really missed the boat this time around. I recommend you stay away from this one.

ATY Goodreads Challenge - 2022
Prompt #47- A book with handwriting on the cover