I have been meaning to revisit John Irving lately. I’ve been re-reading War and Peace over this Easter break, but I wanted to take a break between each book within the novel and read something else. So I took a look at what the library had to offer for Irving, and I thought this would be a good time to re-re-read The World According to Garp. This is the first Irving novel I ever encountered. A somewhat imposing mass-market paperback of it lives somewhere in my dad’s house. It was one of that corpus of books that lives in your parents’ house before you’re even born, precedes you into the world and (with any luck) will survive your passage out of it. Such books tend to float around the house, surfacing at the oddest moments and in the weirdest places. And I know it’s my dad’s favourite Irving work.

I’ve read The World According to Garp twice before, once when I was young and once when I was younger than I am now. The complexity of the relationships and issues that Irving tackles in his books means that reading them at such different ages naturally leads to very different impressions. Reading it now for the third time, I reflected to my dad that it seemed much more absurd to me. Indeed, the situations and events that plague Garp throughout his life range from the simple and believable to incredible or even ludicrous. Some have compared this book to a soap opera, and I suppose there’s some truth to that. It’s more comedy than opera though.

Considering the depth of tragedy that happens in this book—car accidents, rape, assassination—calling it a comedy might seem … insensitive, at the very least. Yet it’s accurate, for comedy is the genre that, through the absurd, reveals very important truths that we might otherwise overlook in everyday life. The comic characters of this novel—Fat Stew Percy (all the various nicknamed Percys, in fact), the incorrigably likable Dean Bodger, the reluctant Jillsy Sloper, et al—balance out the brutal nature of the events that happen to Garp and his family. Both the comic and the tragic elements of the book are larger than life, as fiction tends to be. And the tragedy is not so much a punishment for the actions of Garp or others as it is a consequence of the inevitability of bad things happening to people (good and bad).

There are a lot of different routes this book might take to get into a reader’s heart. Parents might identify with Garp’s somewhat overbearing sense of worry, his desire to make the world safe. I can’t really remember what grabbed me the most about this book when I read it before (this is one reason I enjoy writing reviews these days), but I’m certain it wasn’t the feminism that stuck with me this time around.

The World According to Garp begins by recounting Garp’s conception and birth. It explains how Jenny Fields, a nurse and member of the rich New England Fields family, struggles to maintain her independence in the midst of a society and time that is suspicious of single, independent women. Jenny conceives Garp in an unorthodox manner and proceeds to raise him, defiantly, on her own. Later in life, when Garp is virtually an adult and verging upon independence himself, Jenny composes a memoir—A Sexual Suspect that transforms her into a feminist icon. Though Jenny opens her doors to women throughout her life, she herself remains reluctant to engage with that label or the discourse surrounding feminism. Though she has no quarrel with prostitution and liberal views on sexuality, Jenny consistently marvels at the phenomenon of lust and expresses bewilderment at how it operates (particularly in men).

Garp lives his life in the shadow of his mother’s fame and struggles with this in relation to his budding reputation as a writer. He isn’t just “T.S. Garp, the novelist” but “T.S. Garp, the son of noted feminist Jenny Fields”. Inevitably, his books get reviewed in this light. So when, in the prime of his life, an accident befalls his entire family and influences him to write a bizarre, semi-absurd soap opera treatment about rape and infidelity, it isn’t surprising that this polarizes critics. As is usually the case with such controversial works, there are feminist reactions on either side—just showing that there is seldom a universal reaction to anything as complex as literature. Some critics praise the novel as a deep and moving look at how rape affects a woman’s life, while others condemn it as paternalistic and insensitive.

Garp’s complicated relationship—familial and literary—with feminism is what lingers after I finished this book. Garp attends his mother’s memorial in drag, for it is more a rally for the women’s movement in memory of the icon they made out of Jenny Fields than it is a tribute to his mother, the person Jenny Fields—and at such an event, it is implied, the presence of a man would not be countenanced, and particularly not someone as despicable as T.S. Garp. Here, and at other points in the novel (such as the love life of Roberta Muldoon), Irving gently probes the edges of the idea that there are certain spaces reserved for particular expressions of gender, and those spaces—often in an attempt to make sure they remain safe—can be hostile to other genders.

This navigation of such spaces interests me. A friend on Facebook recently posted, “Can a man be a feminist and chivalrous, since chivalry is inherently sexist?” One woman replied, “Can a man be a feminist?” I would hope that most feminists, and some men, would answer in the affirmative—I identify as a man, and I also identify as a feminist! Yet the question articulates a very real issue within feminism. And it’s certainly true that those of us who perform gender as straight men have a different relationship with, and a different role in, feminism than would someone who performs gender differently.

So I look at the somewhat hostile and close-minded performances of feminism by some of the characters in this book (the Ellen Jamesians are, naturally, the major example) and reflect that similar issues persist in feminism today. It seems strange that in thirty years we haven’t made much progress in that respect. All this divisiveness and polarization seems so counterproductive; polemics and invectives against other feminists are a waste of time that could be better spent advancing gender equality. (And I’m not referring only to the inclusiveness of genders within feminism; there are also plenty of conflicts within the widely heterogeneous movement that is “feminism” with regards to its relationship to anti-colonialism, anti-racism, etc.)

The World According to Garp highlights how that essential aloneness that plagues us as individuals can conflict with our need to build institutions and -isms. The Ellen Jamesians think they are somehow paying tribute to Ellen James through their actions, even though she is mortified by them. Jenny’s various followers or admirers view her as a icon even though she doesn’t embrace the label “feminist” so much as allow others to label her. We have a need to interact with others, but we have to do it through something as clumsy and unwieldy as words. And sometimes, it’s just so hard to know what to say.

This theme reverberates through the writers and writing exhibited in this book. Garp is a writer, but his writing doesn’t seem to really go anywhere throughout his life. His first published short story, “The Pension Grillparzer” seems to be one of his best works, rivalled only perhaps by his unfinished novel. Writing constantly occupies him, even if the act of writing seems to elude him most of the time. And it seems to me that Garp is struggling—perhaps in vain—to finally figure out how to say what he wants to say (and perhaps this is all any writer is ever doing). “The Pension Grillparzer” is a way of communicating his experience of Vienna; it is also a deed done to prove his worthiness as a writer to the exacting Helen Holm. (I’d love to go on to analyze Helen and Garp’s marriage, but I’m not sure I’m up to the task. I suspect that anything I could say on the matter would ring unbelievably naive, considering my own lack of experience with such matters.) The World According to Bensenhaver is a reaction to a tragedy that inevitably revokes any feelings of safety he might have in the world.

Garp isn’t the only writer. Jenny publishes a memoir long before Garp publishes any work. Michael Milton, the only student to catch Helen’s eye, is also a writer. According to Garp, neither of these two have much ability as writers. Both, however, offer contrasts in terms of attitude towards their writing. Jenny is “done” with writing after she completes A Sexual Suspect. She undertakes the project because she feels like she has something to say, and she is equanimous about its controversial yet fervent reception after its publication. Milton is prolific but perhaps lacking in much raw talent. This confidence, in contrast to Garp’s wavering sense of purpose in his writing, is attractive to Helen at that time in their marriage; perhaps it reminds her of the confident Garp who sent her “The Pension Grillparzer” as a prelude to proposing.

Irving’s treatment of feminism and feminist politics stand out this time around, but I was also drawn to how he discusses writing. All in all, The World According to Garp has interesting portrayals of communication and the ways in which people succeed or fail to communicate with each other. We spend a great deal of our time attempting to make connections, to be together. We form families and friendships; we engage in intimacy and sex with people we know (or don’t know); we write and read and speak. At the end, though, we are still always individuals, always alone, always terminal. And when we do go, we leave behind us a great body of words, for others to read and examine and theorize about from now until the end of time. We can never control—and seldom can we predict—how people will interpret what we write. But when we do go, that’s a major part of what we leave behind.

n  n

Vienu metu pasidarė per daug veikėjų ir jų istorijų, lūkesčių, baimių, norų ir t.t., ir pan. Tada į knygą pradėjau žiūrėti kaip į Billy Joel - We Didn't Start the Fire ir viskas stojo į savo vietas.

Oh My ---I think I need to read this again........
Maybe I was on drugs the first time I read it.................(wait: I didn't do drugs --even during the 60's while living in Berkeley .....I was a straight arrow)! Maybe that was my problem........

Help.............I must read this book again!
I have my reasons --I'm leaving it at that!

Indeed there are enough freaks & sufficient eccentricity here to make this a SUPER enjoyable read. It lacks what the only other Irving novel I've read so far, "A Prayer for Owen Meany," has plenty of: principally melancholia. It deviates to a semibiography of a writer, from an incredible birth story involving a strictly asexual nurse and a vegetable (memento from the war) named Garp. The name is onomatopoeia. She becomes an early figure of the feminist movement. Hilarity ensues...

The son, Garp, is a writer who becomes one to "conquer the girl." Forgive my disgust for this Norman Rockwell portrait, this American fairy tale convention...

But wait a minute. This is like a distortion of a Rockwell American dreamscape, really. There are mutilations aplenty. Garp's life is one of self-awareness & inflated-to-the-point-of-exploding superego. There are poetic afterthoughts and wondrous threads of whimsy. But though I must admit parts read like my all-time-fave "Confederacy of Dunces" (keeping colloquialisms intact!), this is No masterpiece. But it IS a front runner in modern-day fiction... and I can't help but think that this one started all these moder-day melodramas rife with style (emblematic quirks in character, caricaturization of "serious" players...) over substance (...depth).

There are grand novels that are literary, and there are grand novels that are not literary, but they are cool and singular and have a freshness and uniqueness that transcends normal literature; they become something more than just good books with literary merit. This book is none of those things, but it feels as if John Irving was given an assignment to write a book that fits the above description: a cool, epic, tragic, sprawling novel. But he fails. This novel is not grand, cool, or literary. It is sprawling and tragic, but those are only good qualities if combined with those other, more important qualities.

The beginning, regarding Jenny Fields, is better than the bulk of the book about Garp. Like the novel that birthed him, Garp is not cool; he is not a person with whom I would like to spend time. He is literary, I guess. He's a writer, and he likes Dostoevsky and Conrad.

There is one incident, one event that is executed well: the moments before it utilized to add poignancy to the crushing occurrence. There is also some good fiction within the book. The first chapter of one of the novels that Garp writes is presented to us in full, and it is good. But these things do not save the novel from being below average; they only save it from being absolutely horrible.

The last third is too expository and almost unreadable. I didn't care for any of the characters, which is not a must for me; if the writing were better I wouldn't need to care about the characters' hopes and fears.

Irving seems to be piling up catastrophes because a creative writing professor once told him to do terrible things to his characters. He's too eager to rip a body part off a child or give someone a quick death. This is fine if there is a nice build up or it was a vital part of the story. But generally, throughout the book, things aren't executed well, and much of the tragedy seems gratuitous and even senseless.

A 600 page, cohesive novel is not easy to write, even if it is below average. Also, many people admire and love this book; evidently the author did something right. On the other hand, I am reminded, as I often am, of a great philosopher's words:

"The person who writes for fools is always sure of a large audience."

Well, I'm not sure if it's good or bad news that my tastes haven't changed much since middle school ;)

As a tween, I made an English teacher super, super angry by attempting to do some sort of book report on Garp--after simply attempting to retell just *part* of the first chapter, someone needed to get out the smelling salts for that woman! (side note: If you ever tell a kid a book is "banned," that's a surefire way to make sure they devour it...)

Way back then, I fell in love with Garp and John Irving, but it was probably mostly because of the shock value. At that point, it was hands down the most screwed up thing I had ever read. After reading a few "duds" in a row, I decided to return to Garp to see how I (hopefully!) would look at it differently much, much later.

The verdict? I still love Garp, and I still adore John Irving...but thankfully, my reasons for doing so have matured. I could write a novel about this novel, but I'll try to keep it brief!

(Before even getting to the text itself, Irving's screed against Trumpian politics in his new introduction made me want to give him a standing ovation!)

Without delving deeply into plot, I think the overall reason I *love* Garp and Irving is that the writing is both believable and unbelievable at the same time. I tend to like stories that are either very realistic or totally fanciful, and Irving is one of the few people whose writing manages to be both things at the same time.

On the surface, the things that happen to the characters are so ridiculous (and usually terrible) that the plot seems beyond belief. But after you sit with them, you realize that the events and the characters' actions are so messy, flawed, and imperfect that they seem incredibly real.

As one of the minor characters explains:

“A book feels true when it feels true,” she said to him, impatiently. “A book’s true when you can say, ‘Yeah! That’s just how damn people behave all the time.’ Then you know it’s true,” Jillsy said.

Garp is ridiculous, but it's real. To the horror of my middle school English teacher, I still give it seventy bajillion stars :)

Non è facile scrivere di questo libro perché, anche se non mi è particolarmente piaciuto, riconosco che i personaggi sono seducenti (Jenny Fields, Roberta Muldoon e le Ellen-Jamesiane) e la lettura è stata piacevole. Detto questo, la storia in sè appare grottesca, naif, e a volte sembra un esercizio creativo più che un romanzo. E' una scelta voluta, infatti, all'interno del romanzo si parla di un romanzo scritto dal protagonista, Garp, che non è altro che il romanzo che si sta leggendo. C'è un punto nella storia in cui Garp, il protagonista-scrittore, dice che un romanzo vale quando è vero. Beh, per me Il mondo secondo Garp non lo è. E' tutto finto, perché portato all'eccesso. Il grottesco funziona quando permette uno straniamento e un ricongiungimento con la realtà alla fine, come se si trattenesse il respiro per poi apprezzare, in seguito, l'ossigeno.
Qui non c'è ossigeno, è apnea dall'inizio alla fine. Si resta sott'acqua per tutto il libro e non si vede terra da raggiungere. Per carità, è un fondale interessante popolato da tanti bei pesciolini colorati, ognuno diverso dall'altro, ognuno bizzarro... e la cosa ti interessa, ma quando vedi che si rintanano in conchiglie o piccoli vascelli fasulli, capisci che non c'è terra perché ti sei tuffato in un acquario di un parco giochi e che l'ossigeno lo troverai concludendo il romanzo.
A proposito, ho odiato il personaggio di Garp dall'inizio alla fine.

This book is one of my favorites. Because I like it so much, I'm not going to say much, except that it's always worth reading, even if you have read it before.
There's a scene in this book it's a revealed that a high-up publisher gives all his manuscripts to his cleaning lady, and she's the one that tells him whether they're worth publishing or not. When he asks her why she read a particularly disturbing novel, she answers "To find out what happens next." Later, she adds, "A book's true when you can say "yeah! That's how damn people behave all the time."
This says a lot about John Irving. I love John Irving in particular, partly because I'm always wondering what's always going to happen next, and partly because, despite all the outrageousness of his characters, they behave the way real people behave.
Of course, I wouldn't want to be a John Irving character,because terrible things are always happening to them. They're orphaned, abandoned, stranded, confused or unhappily pregnant. They're the victims of rape, car accidents, and infidelity. They're a mess (and Garp may get the worst lot of all) but that's why I like them. Some authors fade to black when things get gruesome, messy, or explicit, but John Irving never does (and life never does). Some authors use disasters or deaths or drama to end their novels, but John Irving understands that those things aren't really closure, they don't really end anything; they just force you to get up and continue, wounded or not.
I could continue for a while, about John Irving, and why I love him, but as they said on Reading Rainbow, "Don't take my word for it..."

THE GREAT COMPLETIST CHALLENGE: In which I revisit older authors and attempt to read every book they ever wrote

Currently‌ ‌in‌ ‌the‌ ‌challenge:‌ ‌Isaac‌ ‌Asimov's‌ ‌Robot/Empire/Foundation‌ |‌ ‌Margaret‌ Atwood‌ |‌ ‌JG‌ ‌Ballard‌ |‌ Clive‌ ‌Barker‌ |‌ Christopher‌ Buckley‌ |‌ ‌Jim Butcher's Dresden Files | ‌Lee Child's Jack Reacher | ‌Philip‌ ‌K‌ ‌Dick‌ |‌ ‌Ian Fleming | William‌ ‌Gibson‌ |‌ ‌Michel‌ Houellebecq‌ |‌ John‌ ‌Irving‌ |‌ ‌Kazuo‌ ‌Ishiguro‌ |‌ Shirley‌ Jackson‌ | ‌John‌ ‌Le‌ ‌Carre‌ |‌ Bernard‌ ‌Malamud‌ |‌ Cormac McCarthy | China‌ ‌Mieville‌ |‌ Toni Morrison | ‌VS‌ Naipaul‌ |‌ Chuck‌ ‌Palahniuk‌ |‌ ‌Tim‌ ‌Powers‌ |‌ ‌Terry‌ ‌Pratchett's‌ ‌Discworld‌ |‌ Philip‌ ‌Roth‌ |‌ Neal‌ Stephenson‌ |‌ ‌Jim‌ ‌Thompson‌ |‌ John‌ ‌Updike‌ |‌ Kurt‌ ‌Vonnegut‌ |‌ Jeanette Winterson | PG‌ ‌Wodehouse‌ ‌

To kick off my career-long look at Postmodernist master John Irving, someone I'm particularly excited to read because of owning first printings of most of his books now (which I buy and sell at my eBay store), I thought I'd start by ironically re-reading the one and only novel of his I've actually read before, 1978's The World According to Garp. Arguably his most famous book (but that can be debated), and certainly the first of his then-four novels to break through to a mainstream commercial hit, it holds a soft spot in my heart because of the 1982 movie version starring Robin Williams, which came out right in the same years that my Midwestern suburb got cable for the first time, which makes it one of the movies on heavy rotation back then that had such a profound impact on me as a pre- and early-teen, back before the proliferation of video rental stores.

For those who don't know, it's a famously Postmodernist "metafictional" book, in an age when metafiction was suddenly very hot in the literary world; it's not just a look at a writer's life, and seeing the complex ways that the things that happen to him end up trickling down into his fiction in sometimes sideways fashion (including big chunks of the protagonist's actual fiction embedded within the novel we're reading), but the whole thing is loosely autobiographical to Irving's real life as well (including Irving actually having written various novels and stories before this one that correlate loosely to the novels and stories that Garp writes), making it a story about a writer whose odd real life regularly gets semi-translated into his work, that work being a story about a writer whose odd real life regularly gets semi-translated into his work. And perhaps most cleverly of all, the "world according to Garp" of the book's title refers to Garp's opinion that it's often the most bizarre things that happen in our lives that we take most for granted; and so the novel we're reading about him and his life is actually filled with all these crazy, bizarre moments that never actually make it into Garp's fiction, which makes it both a metafictional statement about literature and a straightforward zany dramedy about one man's endearingly dysfunctional family and friends.

That's a lot to digest, even when I summarize it in a single long paragraph, and the Postmodernist era is littered with artsy-fartsy metafictional projects like this that are an agonizing slog to get through; so that's perhaps the most remarkable thing about Garp, and makes it easy to see why it immediately vaulted Irving from an almost unknown academic writer into National Book Award-winning international stardom, because he makes light and deft work out of such a daunting academic exercise, bringing such a beautifully entertaining touch to the proceedings that you don't even realize it's accomplishing so many things until long after you're done and you're thinking back on the experience. It's the rare academic novel that flows with the speed and grace of a throwaway beach read; and it's no surprise, I think, that this is generally the reputation that Irving has continued to maintain in the 40 years and 15 books since, and also no surprise that his three novels pre-Garp remain terminally obscure and hard to track down.

At this point I plan on doing a straight chronological run through the rest; so next up will be his Garp follow-up, 1981's The Hotel New Hampshire, also made into a Hollywood adaptation in its day (starring no less than Jodie Foster and Rob Lowe), but at the time generally considered a let-down that didn't hit nearly the kinds of peaks that Garp managed. It'll be really interesting, I think, to take it on 35 years later, when all the initial hype over expectations is now long-gone.

John Irving books being reviewed in this series: Setting Free the Bears (1968) | The Water-Method Man (1972) | The 158-Pound Marriage (1974) | The World According to Garp (1978) | The Hotel New Hampshire (1981) | The Cider House Rules (1985) | A Prayer for Owen Meany (1989) | A Son of the Circus (1994) | A Widow for One Year (1998) | The Fourth Hand (2001) | Until I Find You (2005) | Last Night in Twisted River (2009) | In One Person (2012) | Avenue of Mysteries (2015)

Irvingo knygas labiausiai pamenu dėka močiutės - prieš gerą dešimtį, o gal ir daugiau metų ji be atvangos skaitė vieną po kitos, didžiules, naujas ir nepatraukliai storas - Sidro namų taisykles, Našlę vieneriems metams, Oveną Minį... Tačiau būtent Garpas, ironiškai, lentynoje gulėjo senas ir nepritampantis, keistu nemoderniu viršeliu (melsva, nuoga moteris juodame fone ir šlykštokos rožinės raidės). Šią knygą, skirtingai nuo naujai perleistųjų, kurios močiutės lentynoje atsirado kone vienu metu, pamenu visą vaikystę. Tas keistas, kažkuo baugus viršelis lentynoje, atrodė, sėdėjo per amžius ir visai manęs nekvietė jo paimti. Ten buvo tokia Suaugusiųjų knyga.
Šiaip ar taip močiutė yra žmogus, iš esmės išmokęs mane skaityti, tad nei tada, nei vėliau, jau suaugusi, nenuvertinau jos literatūrinio skonio ar išprusimo, bet, mąsčiau tai turbūt esant brandžių moterių literatūra - lėti ir ramūs, laiką žudantys, fantazijas kurstantys romanai, kuomet aš skaičiau Bulgakovą, Dostojevskį ir Becket'ą (didžiausia dvidešimtkeleriamečio yda - manymas, kad supranti viską geriau už visus aplinkui).

Ir štai šitaip, visai neplanuotai, net nežinau kodėl, sugalvojau, kad metas išbandytį tą Suaugusių moterų rašytoją. Gan simboliška, kad rankose pirmas atsidūrė Garpas (tik leidimas kitas: keistas, amerikoniškas minkštais viršeliais, delno dydžio, skausmingai mažo šrifto). Ir po 10 dienų jį, o tiksliau autoriaus Afterword kūrinio 20-mečio sukakties proga, skaityti baigiu su ašaromis akyse. Štai va šitaip atradau, ko gero, jei ne pačią, tai vieną iš absoliučiai galingiausių ir tiesiog mėgstamiausių knygų skaitytų per visą gyvenimą. Vo taip.
Ir tikrai natūralu skaityti atsiliepimus žmonių, kurie jos nesupranta, nesuprato ir niekad turbūt nesupras. Man tai tik dar labiau reiškia, kad ji mano. Man. Apie mane.

O kiek ten ji apie mane, aš niekam neprivalau aiškinti(s). Ji apie vyrus ir moteris. Apie aistrą ir pražūtį. Apie feminizmą ir antifeminizmą. Apie tėvystę (turiu omeny parenting. Paradoksalu, kad lietuviškai skamba kažkaip nefeministiškai :) ). Apie toleranciją netoleruojančiam. Apie rašytoją ir rašymą... galėčiau vardinti, bet nenoriu, nes vardijant, skamba kažkaip bukai. Ši knyga kur kas giliau, nei tiesiog APIE. Man ji APIE mane ir viskas.

Net labai norėdama, neprikibčiau prie nė vieno žodžio, nė vieno skyriaus, sakinio, puslapio. Man tai knygų knyga. Tik džiaugiuosi skaičiusi originalo kalba, nes, nors lietuviškai tikrai perskaitysiu, mano manymu, tai vienas iš tų neišverčiamų kūrinių. Tarp eilučių tūnančio UnderToad išversti negalima.
Ir tesupranta tai tik skaitę.

P.S. Pažadau sau: gauti būtent tą, keistą leidimą su žalsva moterimi nuogomis krūtimis (gal net iš močiutės?) ir saugoti amžinai.

Really liked it, malo je falilo za amazing. Totalno spaljena knjiga.

Premetto che in questa recensione sarò di parte , sto parlando di uno dei miei scrittori preferiti, lo scrittore che ha scritto uno dei libri che io abbia più riletto in assoluto , un libro che ha stravolto totalmente il mio modo di vedere...Ma adesso passiamo ad "Il mondo secondo Garp" .
Il mondo secondo Garp è il terzo Irving che leggo ,dopo le regole della casa del Sidro (mio grande amore)e Hotel New Hampshire , e sapevo già più o meno cosa aspettarmi, una prosa meravigliosa , scorrevole ,eppure accurata, c' è chi paragona Irving a Dickens , e io sono totalmente d' accordo , Dickens ha molto in comune con Irving; senza altro il potere di raccontare vicende al apparenza irreali che diventano grandi storie , più reali della vita stessa , e penso che la grande narrativa debba essere così, Dickens come Irving è fissato con i "tipi umani" che poi alla fine non si rivelano poi così eccentrici, ma solo portati a vivere diversamente, a vivere secondo le "proprie" idee e non secondo quelle degli altri, ma sopratutto hanno il potere di farti affezionare ai propri personaggi per le loro debolezze più che per i loro punti forti... E sono proprio queste cose che accadono nel mondo secondo Garp "Nel mondo secondo Garp siamo tutti casi disperati " , Jenny Fields, Suo figlio Garp , Helen , Roberta , Ellen James , Duncan , Walt e Jenny sono tutti casi disperati ognuno a suo modo , ognuno con le sue mutilazioni , ognuno con le sue diversità, e Irving ce li incastra insieme come sempre con incredibile perfezione... Come dicevo prima , sapevo già cosa aspettarmi , nel senso che ci sono molte delle ambientazioni care ad Irving , la Vienna di metà secolo scorso e il New Hampshire , c' è la guerra che come sempre riveste un ruolo importante ( Garp sarà figlio di quella guerra ), ma c' è anche la sapiente maestria di Irving di tenerti totalmente avvinto alla pagina con la mirabolante avventura ,che poi è la vita stessa, dei suo personaggi, pagina dopo pagina questa vita ti diventa sempre più familiare e per certi versi somiglia anche alla tua , impossibile non riconoscersi almeno in uno degli spaccati famigliari che Irving ci presenta (fra l' altro Irving sembra avere una predilezione per i labrador neri , c' è da chiedersi se ne abbia uno , qua c' è Bill ,in Hotel New Hampshire c' era Sorrow <3 , oke notizia Irrilevante ,solo una semplice pensiero ). Come sempre in ogni romanzo di Irving c' è una tematica cardine , ce ne sono sempre , più di una in realtà , ma qui più che altro c' è il femminismo, o meglio l' indipendenza sessuale. Bisognerebbe leggere questo libro non fosse altro che per Jenny Fields , è un personaggio unico, non ne incontrerete mai uno così , e proprio per questo sembra tanto reale che aspetti di vedertela comparire davanti per darti incoraggianti consiglia a proposito della vita , e per me sarebbe l' ideale, perché voglio una Jenny Fields personalizzata...Anzi dove posso trovarla?? Ma come sempre Irving fa ,non mette mai in evidenza qualcosa senza evidenziarne anche la parte oscura , e qui di certo non si smentisce nello svelare poi le estreme conseguenze del fenomeno trattato... Oltre ai personaggi principali c' è tutto un corollario di personaggi secondari che a mio parere sono irresistibili quanto quelli principali , come non ridere per il salvataggio del piccione del Dean Bodger , o non considerare con una certa quel sorta di ironia dolce/amara la signora Ralph, ogni cosa ha il suo posto in questo romanzo ,ogni personaggio è stato messo li apposta per dimostrarvi qualcosa , strappandovi un sorriso o una lacrima....
Maledetto Irving!! Hai creato un altro capolavoro dal quale è difficile staccarsi ,mi mancherà Garp, e mi mancherà il suo mondo , mi mancheranno Roberta, Helen ,Janny ,Ellen James (Qusta in maniera particolare , sebbene compaia poco, è capace di farti tanta tenerezza , che non te la dimentichi facilmente)Duncan ecc ( mi scusino tutti quelli non nominati , stò pensando a voi uno per uno, sorridendo sotto i baffi, e scrivendo questa recensione).Non dico altro , se volete veramente capire perché Irving e così speciale , ma sopratutto perché i suoi personaggi lo sono, leggetelo perché altrimenti non coglierete appieno ciò che intendo ...
P.S. Guardatevi le spalle dal sotto rospo mi raccomando ;)