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The World According to Garp

john irving

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This is the life and times of T. S. Garp, the bastard son of Jenny Fields—a feminist leader ahead of her times. This is the life and death of a famous mother and her almost-famous son; theirs is a world of sexual extremes—even of sexual assassinations. It is a novel rich with "lunacy and sorrow"; yet the dark, violent events of the story do not undermine a comedy both ribald and robust. In more than thirty languages, in more than forty countries—with more than ten million copies in print—this novel provides almost cheerful, even hilarious evidence of its famous last line: "In the world according to Garp, we are all terminal cases."

610 pages, Hardcover

First published April 24,1978
Literary awards
national book award, national book critics circle award, national book award finalist, 
Places
vienna, new england, boston massachusetts, austria, massachusetts, 

This edition

Format
610 pages, Hardcover
Published
April 1, 1999 by Ballantine Books
ISBN
9780345915597
ASIN
0345915593
Language
English
Characters More characters

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About the author

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john irving

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JOHN IRVING was born in Exeter, New Hampshire, in 1942. His first novel, Setting Free the Bears, was published in 1968, when he was twenty-six. He competed as a wrestler for twenty years, and coached wrestling until he was forty-seven.
Mr. Irving has been nominated for a National Book Award three times—winning once, in 1980, for his novel The World According to Garp. He received an O. Henry Award in 1981 for his short story “Interior Space.” In 2000, Mr. Irving won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for The Cider House Rules. In 2013, he won a Lambda Literary Award for his novel In One Person.
An international writer—his novels have been translated into more than thirty-five languages—John Irving lives in Toronto. His all-time best-selling novel, in every language, is A Prayer for Owen Meany.
Avenue of Mysteries is his fourteenth novel.

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Community Reviews

Rating(4 / 5.0, 98 votes)
5 stars
33(34%)
4 stars
28(29%)
3 stars
37(38%)
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98 reviews All reviews
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yali12
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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Spoilers ahead. You've been warned.

So, apparently, this is supposed to be funny. Which I didn't know way back when I read this, thankfully, or I'd've been scratching my head even more than I already was at the time. Imagine my surprise though when, years later, I heard this described as a hilarious book.
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HajimeAmamori
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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"Sempre soube que a procura da perfeição é um hábito letal."

No Estranho Mundo de Garp há de tudo um pouco: escritores, feministas loucas, mães solteiras, transexuais, enfermeiras, ursos ciclistas,...
Um mundo surreal de gente excêntrica e alucinante que ama, odeia, trai,...; mutila, mata, morre,...
Episódios delirantes, divertidos e dramáticos, narrados com tal arte que, muitas vezes, chorei do que devia rir e ri do que devia chorar.

Uma saga familiar que, segundo John Irving, trata do medo dos pais de perder os filhos mas que, em meu entender, vai mais além: trata da necessidade do ser humano de criar e manter uma família, seja ela de sangue ou somente de amor.
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skthegreat
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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Aunque la parte del cuento se puede hacer algo pesada, me encanta este libro y no me canso nunca de recomendarlo.
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KuroChu
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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Every time I read a serious literary novel, I ask myself: what is the author trying to say? Of course, he/ she is telling a story, but it must have a point. Otherwise how does the reader stay hooked, without getting lost in a rambling narrative that goes nowhere?

In The World According to Garp, there appears to be no central theme or premise. The story jumps from happening to happening, some fantastical, some hilarious, and some extremely disturbing. But we keep on reading, because from page one onwards (where Garp's mother Jenny Fields stabs a promiscuous soldier in a movie theatre with a scalpel), we want to know what happens next. As Jillsy Sloper says later in the novel:
'But you read it,' John Wolf said. 'Why'd you read it?'

'Lawd,' Jillsy said, as if she were sorry for John Wolf- that he was so hopelessly stupid. 'I sometimes wonder if you know the first thing about all these books you're makin',' she said; she shook her head. 'I sometimes wonder why
you're the one who's makin' the books and I'm the one who's cleanin' the bathrooms. Except I'd rather clean the bathrooms than read most of them,' Jillsy said. 'Lawd, Lawd.'

'If you hated it, why'd you read it, Jillsy? John Wolf asked her.

'Same reason I read anythin' for,' Jillsy said. 'To find out what happens.'
Yes. John Irving has appropriated the technique of all the good storytellers of yore - that of telling an absorbing yarn which keeps his audience riveted. It is just the experience. The interpretation can come later.

***

And there can be any number of interpretations, if one digs deep into this tale with the eyes of a literary critic. Love, lust, pain, pleasure, feminism, gender issues, parenting... so many things mix and meld together in both politically correct and incorrect ways. The superimposition of sex with physical impairment starts when Jenny has sex with a brain-impaired sergeant to produce Garp - because she wants only a baby, and nothing to do with men. The theme of mutilation continues with Garp's ear getting bitten off by a dog, which he retaliates later by biting off the dog's ear; until about two-thirds of the way in, we are treated to a scene of such distressing gore that a less skilled writer would have lost his audience there.

(Psychiatrists say that the pain/ pleasure centres of the brain are very near one another, which is one of the reasons behind sadomasochism. The World According to Garp, in that sense, reminds me of those posters of Hindu hell which were very common during my childhood - where the stark-naked "souls" were cut, sawed and impaled in a variety of ways. Very frightening, but there was a certain element of sexual excitement to it.)

Garp's life is a juxtaposition of improbable happenings, like the stories he writes. There is an underlying sense of dread in both his fictional world and the real - the feeling of a monster lying in wait just behind the next blind corner, licking its lips in anticipation. Both Garp and Irving call it the "Under Toad" - a corruption of the word undertow, as coined by a child. Garp's younger son Walt, while warned of the undertow in a creek which can suck him under, imagines it to be a monstrous toad which lies in wait beneath the still waters. As Garp's life moves on, it becomes one continuous fight against this boogeyman.
...in the world according to Garp, we are all terminal cases.
Five stars, all the way.
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Pinkaminks
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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Bellissimo. L’ho adorato. Uno di quei libri che non vorresti mai finire. Il mondo poetico di Irving è unico e totalmente affascinante nella sua grottesca tragicità che cela le difficoltà umane sempre più insormontabili. “La fantasia deve superare la vita reale” fa dire a T.S. Garp, e Irving ci riesce da fuoriclasse qual’è. Fra i miei top ten.
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deagosane
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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A book full of quirky characters, most of whom were most unlikeable. There were plenty of story lines, deviations and connections. It has some good themes of lust, the relationships between men and women, the dangers of any type of fanaticism. Being a John Irving book there is unusual sexual stories, bears, wrestling, Vienna and family relationships.

What bugged me was the stories that Garp wrote making a big part of the narrative and especially the story which paralleled the book I was reading. Then there was a long section at the end which traces the life of each character in AG (After Garp). It was altogether quite annoying.
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Lean_Tsubasa20
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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Can John Irving do wrong?

This is the third book I've read by him, and I've yet to be let down. The World According to Garp is a sensational story about the titular Garp, his famous feminist mother, and a wide array of other interesting characters. Herein Irving explores the art of writing, sexuality/sexual identity, loss, redemption, and so much more. His prose and elegant and refined; his sense of story is keen. While I am not sure this one quite reaches the heights of A Prayer for Owen Meany, it is still . . . dare I say, almost perfect. The epilogue is a little too tidy for my tastes, but I suppose it's better than being left with loose ends. I have to give this one five stars.

I loved the character of Garp, and the world he lives in. I wish I could stay there some more . . . but there are other books that demand my attention. Highly recommended to anyone who loves an enthralling literary novel.
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MatiasErrador
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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Ne mogu da uobličim smislen komentar.
Ambivalentan odnos osećam prema ovoj knjizi. Sa jedne strane, osećam odvratnost, a sa druge, osećam nešto što bi se moglo opisati kao blaga simpatija. Opet, ta simpatija nije klasična simpatija, pre je plod (urođenog) osećaja empatije za druge i/ili drugačije..
Možda nekad dopunim komentar. Za sada je i ovo previše.
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