Irving's typical acerbic wit is on display here. I only got about 20% of the way through the book before I was like, I think I get the idea. It's eminently readable, and fun, but it got a bit repetitive for me, and I feel like maybe I've read enough tales of youth in the '60s for the immediate future, at least.

Having read now some of your most popular works, I thought it only right to return to the source. And what a rich outpouring of ideas and insanity did I find! This was like Irving without a filter. All the experimentation of a new author is so darn clear, and I love it. Some of the historical sections in the middle lacked a tether I felt, and needed to be slightly more cohesive and story backed, but the first and last sections were brilliant. As always Irving manages to make ordinary situations absolutely extraordinary through his brilliant craft.

I don't really know what to say about this book. It was well-written, but just so strange, especially at the end. The beginning was interesting, where the two main characters take a motorcycle trip through the Austrian countryside. The middle part, the diaries, were interesting but a bit stranger. Then the last part was just kind of crazy.

This was Irving’s debut, and although you can see seeds of the Dickensian characterization at which he excels in his best work, it was just not good overall. Neither Siggy nor Graff held my interest, and the dialogue feels stiff and unrealistic. There’s also some downright strange wording: “I could peek how the helmet nearly covered her eyes”; “the rain still puddled the courtyard”; “When his spongy ribs whomped the cobbles, the horse said, ‘Gnif!’” I couldn’t decide if this was Irving trying to show that the story is set abroad or if it was just evidence of bad writing. My husband is enough of an Irving fan to have gobbled the book up by the time we reached Austria, but I decided it wasn’t going to get much better. That’s a shame, as I would have liked to get to them, you know, actually setting free the bears at the Vienna Zoo. [Read the first 75 pages out of 384.]

I had high hopes for this book because I've loved everything else by John Irving. This book is bad, really bad. It was so bad I couldn't even finish it.

Reilu viikko meni, luin tätä aina iltaisin ennen nukkumaanmenoa. Aikaisemminkin on tullut Irvingiä luettua, tämä ei ehkä ihan lemppariksi kivunnut, Irvingille tuttuja teemoja kuten karhuja ja moottoripyöriä oli jo tässä ensiteoksessa. Kirjan rakenne oli paikoin raivostuttava varsinkin toisesta osasta eteenpäin ja olen huono muistamaan henkilöhahmojen nimiä niin ne meinasi unohtua loppupäässä lukukokemusta.

As a treat, I started my 11th! book by John Irving. And.just.couldn't.get.into.it! Which breaks my heart. It's because his voice that I love so much isn't there yet, it's like a poorly written Vonnegut and lacks the character development that is usually there. After nearly 100 pages, I just couldn't care about Siggy and Graff and thought, well frot this!

I selected Setting Free the Bears as part of my local library's "20in2016" reading challenge. The category for this one was A Popular Author's First Book. John Irving has written several well-known books, my favorite being "A Prayer For Owen Meany."
This one, while showcasing Irving's ability to create quirky characters and an almost unbelievable story premise, didn't grab me like a couple others have. Siggy and Graff plot to ride off on a motorbike to the Vienna Zoo and set the animals free. Most of my chuckles came during their plotting.
Siggy is the more interesting character to me and I'm sorry he became so ... dull in 'notebook' section. At any rate, I found it dull. His late night watches at the zoo were much more readable than the life history. I began to wonder why it was included.
Could be I was missing the point. I've been known to do that.
All in all, I liked the story but it's not a repeater for me. I'm glad Irving's writing seemed promising to publishers after this effort. He went on to write (and my hope is he's still writing) excellent fiction.

It's been more than 20 years since I first read this book and I'm happy I did the re-read.

This is John Irving's debut novel, and right from the start it's clear he is a major talent. His inventiveness, his ability to engage the reader, and his ability to bring the reader into the characters' world is amazing.

Hannes and Siggy start out on a late-60's motorcycle road trip, leaving Vienna behind, but somewhat obsessed about the plight of the animals in the Vienna Zoo. After a few misadventures, Siggy leaves this earth and Hannes inherits his notebooks, filled with reconnaissance of the zoo and inspiration for liberating the animals. After hooking up with young and bright-eyed Gallen, Hannes brings his new girlfriend to Vienna, and they execute a zoo-break that heads in a direction they couldn't foresee.

Irving uses the device of Siggy's notebooks to take the reader on an adventure of zoo liberation, but also gives an extensive history of the German-Austrian Anschluss, as experienced by Siggy and his family. Again, it is a testimony to Irving's talent how he manages to weave together these story lines and keeps you turning pages to the end. If you're an Irving fan, be sure to check out this debut novel - it's worth the read!

Een heel fantasierijk verhaal over twee jongemannen die in 1967 zonder plannen op roadtrip vertrekken maar gaandeweg het plan opvatten om de dieren in de Weense dierentuin te laten ontsnappen. Het verhaal kon me maar matig boeien. Ik vond het te chaotisch en er zijn thema's waar ik liever over lees dan oorlog, politiek en motoren.

My first John Irving book. I read The World According to Garp later and didn’t like it as much. Takes place in Vienna one generation after World War II. Written in three parts.

I. Graff meets Siggy, and they leave Vienna on a motorcycle to travel without a plan. They visit a zoo, and Siggy gets the notion to set free all the animals. They continue on their journey and meet a girl named Gallen. Graff burns himself on the motorcycle and has to stay in Gallen’s aunt’s hotel to recover, where he falls in love with Gallen. A milkman comes by the hotel, and Siggy sees him abuse his horse. He responds by getting naked and violently beating the man. Gallen’s aunt thinks he’s crazy and calls the police, but Siggy escapes to the zoo and hides there. To pay the hotel bill, Graff gets a job collecting beehives and stacking them in rows on a flatbed truck. He hears Siggy’s motorcycle and runs to meet him. They ride together, but the truck with the bees blocks their path. Siggy tries to clear the truck, but Graff flies into the bees, and Siggy gets trapped under the truck and dies.

II. The history of Siggy’s family from before he was born interspersed with notes Siggy takes while hiding at the zoo watching the Nazi guard torture animals. Siggy’s mother falls in love with a man named Zahn, who stays in Vienna after Hitler crosses the border to attempt resistance. Her family leaves, and she never knows what happened to Zahn. Siggy’s father is hired by a terrorist group to kill a man who works in a motorcycle shop but ends up befriending him and hiding in the mountains with him. At a bar one night, his friend is brutally murdered in a bathroom stall, and he pretends not to know him and remains haunted by the betrayal for the rest of his life. Siggy’s parents meet after the war, and their relationship is described as shy and quiet. On the night of Siggy’s birth, his grandmother yells to a neighbor that it’s a boy and is shot to death by a Soviet Russian guard. The one survivor of the terrorist group murders his father, his mother leaves and he never sees her again, and his grandfather commits suicide by skiing downslope in the dark. The family friend Trummer, true hero of the novel, raises Siggy.

III. Graff begins to go insane after Siggy’s death and his own near-death. He escapes Gallen’s aunt’s hotel without paying and rides away with Gallen on the motorcycle. They return to the zoo, and Graff traps the evil zoo guard in an animal cage and sets all the animals free. The police hunt and kill them all to prevent them from harming people. Graff realizes his attempt to liberate the animals instead results in their death.

“Her back against a naked trellis, she lolls in a Grinzing wine garden; some miles below her, the sun is melting its way to the snow’s last, Baroque hiding places in downtown Vienna; above her, the meltwater trickles through the Vienna Woods, and the treetops are bobbing in a ground fog as intricate as the lacework in the downtown lingerie. Melt, says the day, and my mother melts.”

How did this book get published? I love John Irving. The novel A Prayer for Owen Meany is my favorite book of all time. How in the world was that book written by the same author as this book? It boggles my mind! This book was honestly one of the worst books I’ve ever read. It has no redeeming qualities. I didn’t like any of the characters. The plot was ridiculous. This book was a complete waste of my time. I do not recommend it to anyone. Go read some of his other novels, but this one should be gathering dust at the bottom of a recycling pile.