Book Description
The main character of John Irving's second novel, written when the author was twenty-nine, is a perpetual graduate student with a birth defect in his urinary tract--and a man on the threshold of committing himself to a second marriage that bears remarkable resemblance to his first....
"Three or four times as funny as most novels."
THE NEW YORKER


From the Paperback edition. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (41)

Dear John
This, my first John Irving Novel, has resurrected the rare feeling one gets from well written novels (the `good reading' feeling). This feeling is hard to bring about these days. It makes me wonder whether I should be looking for good novels written twenty and even thirty years ago. Are the authors of today writing for the sake of the buck, requiring only tenth grade reading comprehension? Why insult our intelligence? Why the cruelty against the sophisticated reader?

Where can one find today the same feelings of richness of words, meaningful dialogs and a story that keeps coming again and again with an unprecedented uniqueness the caliber of Delillo, Franzen and Auster? Where can one discover characters with the likes of Bogus and Biggie, Tulpin and Ralf Packer? Did they only exist in the books written before the turbulent 80's?

Here is a recommendation. Why not have a special shelf in the public libraries dedicated only to the likes of Irving, Delillo,Franzen and Auster? Why not call this shelf `The Greatest Authors of our generation' to make it easier for readers hungry to immerse themselves in the `good reading' feeling?

John, I thank you. I thank you for the patience that carried you through the process of writing, for the incredibly creative mind that pieced together this astonishing book.
Keep writing John, keep writing and I promise - I'll keep reading you.

I highly recommend this book. If you are searching for other gems of creativity try: Don Delillo's `The Body Artist', Jonathan Franzen's `The Correction' and Paul Auster's `The Brooklyn Follies'

By Simon Cleveland

As Refreshing As Water
The Water-Method is John Irving's second book, written when he was 29 years old, but it certainly doesn't sound like it.This is, in fact, one of the funniest books I've read in a long time.It isn't too hard for me to find a book that will make me smile, but it is a rare pleasure to find one that will make me laugh out loud.

The story follows the stalled and frustrated life of Fred Trumper (alternately known as Thump-Thump and Bogus), a 29 year-old graduate student who can't seem to pay bills, finish his thesis, or maintain a healthy relationship with a woman.In addition to these fairly normal problems, Fred also has to deal with a twisted urinary tract that causes him no end of problems.Given the choice between corrective surgery and something called the water-method, well, you can guess which one he opts for.

In spite of some peculiar, interesting, and hilarious scenes, the basic plot of this story is nothing new.Marriage and dating struggles, infidelity, raising children, and love triangles are all problems dealt with in the book, but even if the subject matter tends towards the mundane, Irving's stylish and clever writing makes it enjoyable to read about.Especially clever are the various allusions to the Old Low Norse manuscript that Fred is attempting to translate for his thesis paper, and how its dramatic and epic elements mirror those more realistic experiences through which Fred must struggle.

I think even Irving was aware of the rather stunted nature of the premise.Fred is friends and co-workers with an independent film-maker named Ralph Packer who ends up making a movie about Fred (the film's title is not really appropriate for this website, however).Various reviews and comments on the film actually mirror what negative things one might have to say about the novel itself, so on that score, I give Irving points for his tongue-in-cheek humility (and for the subtle and witty self-mockery).

Although, much like water itself, this book is certainly thirst-quenching, there isn't too much substance here.It is refreshing nonetheless, and is a delight to read.

Early Irving, similar in style to Setting Free the Bears
I've just read this and was surprised at how much it felt like reading 'Setting Free the Bears'. I liked this better and Irving's talent for an entertaining plot seems to be starting to emerge here but the writing style is a bit awkward at times. Not my favourite John Irving by a long way but his talent for sucking you into the characters is clearly evident.

I'd recommend this to a Irving fan but would hesistate to recommend it to friends quite as freely as I would Owen Meany or Garp.

And they all lived happily ever after

This is John Irving's farcical comedy about a man whose life is a series of loose ends, until he decides to change his ways and shape up. Bogus Trumper drops out of graduate school before completion, leaves his wife and son, and goes to New York. He goes to a urologist with a blocked urinary tract and is told to choose between two treatments: an operation or the "water-method" (basically just drink lots of fluids). He opts for the latter, which like his name, is bogus.

He takes a job with an off-the-wall art filmmaker; a woman (Tulpen) who also works there falls in love with Trumper and wants to have his child. Trumper is not up to that, and when she becomes pregnant he flees to Europe. There, he searches for his old fiend Merrill Overturf, but learns he died a few years earlier in a drowning while searching for a submerged WW II tank. He gets involved in a drug deal, is caught, and sent back to the US. During his chauffeured limo drive from the airport he talks the driver into taking him to Maine, again to see an old friend. (This part really stretches the imagination.) When he gets there he finds his ex-wife and son there, and this is when he experiences an epiphany of some kind and decides to straighten out his crazy life. He goes back to graduate school and finishes and then returns to Tulpen, who has had their child. In fact, just about everybody in the book has something to be happy about as the story comes to a close.

Irving says he wanted to write a book with a happy ending and that he surely did. Much of the humor is symbolic (Trumper's first name, his urinary tract "blockage" which causes him great pain in lovemaking as well as in "eliminating waste," his doctoral dissertation which involves a dead language [Old Low Norse] that nobody else knows) or comes across in bold, lavish strokes. Until his change near the end, Trumper is not a sympathetic character: he lies, cheats on his wife, acts the cad. But after the change, it's not too hard to imagine him turning out fairly decently. And the novel, too, is fairly decent. The comedy is rich, the characters well drawn (even if a bit ditzy at times). A good novel.

Okay, okay, it's not "Garp" or "Owen." But it's VERY funny.
I love to read but I'm not an intellectual, so my review will be brief.

I read this book in college (1984) and have kept it over the years, re-reading it whenever the urge for a little "Bogus" appears. I laughed so hard in my dorm room that my friend (a non-fiction-reading geology major) asked to borrow the book when I was through. Twenty years later, we still reference parts of the book when we're together.

Though I'm not a huge movie buff, I've always wondered why this didn't get made into a motion picture. Of course, John Cusack is too old now to play Bogus, but I've always thought he had a kind of vacancy in his face that would be perfect for the role; he also has the charm, which Bogus obviously must have to attract the women he does.

John Irving writes about flawed men in a way that makes me think he was once a woman, or (surprise) he's a man who's very in touch with his own weaknesses. Being a woman, I appreciate the honesty (and the humor).
... Read more

Book Description
Here is a treat for John Irving addicts and a perfect introduction to his work for the uninitiated.  To open this spirited collection, Irving explains how he became a writer.  There follow six scintillating stories written over the last twenty years ending with a homage to Charles Dickens.  This irresistible collection cannot fail to delight and charm. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (23)

Nice Memoir.Funny observations.Tragic.
How in the world I discovered this book at the local Dollar Tree for a mere buck is beyond me.This is some good reading from John Irving's life including his childhood.I did enjoy Vonnegut's memoir "A Man Without A Country" a little better.I still recommend this as much as any for anyone looking for a laugh out loud myriad of stories, observations, and tragic events.Yes - you might come to tears laughing, but also from some sad events as well.

Irving's first - and only - book of stories
This is a fine collection of short stories, the only problem being that most people don't like short stories.

This is a particular problem for Irving since readers associate him with huge, emotional roller-coaster novels such as A Prayer for Owen Meany or The World According to Garp.

Also the selection here is a little odd: a mixture of the kind of fiction you might find in The New Yorker plus some non-fiction: autobiographical essays of childhood plus an introduction to a Dickens novel. Since I always thought Irving was more of a Hardy fan, I found this a little bemusing.

Overall, fans of Irving's longer work will tend to a little disappointed with this outing, though this is perhaps no fault of the author.

A Writer's Memoir
I love John Irving. When I first read Garp 25 years ago it knocked me out. Mr. Irving was truly an original voice. In "Piggy Sneed" he has given us a memoir, some short stories and essays. The memoir, "The Imaginary Girlfriend", is the best piece in the book. I enjoyed the fusion of his wrestling career and his writing career.I enjoyed the short stories and his attempt to share with us his some of the craft of writing. The homage to Dickens was enlightening and inspiring. I found the final piece of the collection (the one on Gunter Grass) the most difficult to read (perhaps because I haven't read any of his work but the piece has not inspired me). All in all if you love John Irving, you will find this book an excellent companion.

not Irving's best, but..
Although certainly not Irving's best work, PIGGY SNEED is definitely a great vacation book to bring with you.The stories are faily quick to go through, and if you stop in the middle of one of them, it is pretty easy to pcik it back up again.Some of the stories are rather interesting, while others are a throwback to his days as a wrestler/wrestling coach, which doesn't particularly interest me, but might interest another reader.

John Irving's Garage Sale
Take "Trying to Save Piggy Sneed" for what it is, a mismatched collection of "memoirs", short stories, and "homages" to Charles Dickens and Gunter Grass.Unless you like to read about wrestling, the memoirs provide very little true insight into Irving.Do not waste your time buying "The Imaginary Girlfriend" as that comes from this book and is mostly dedicated to Irving's lackluster wrestling career.I think I learned more about Irving in the notes after the short stories than I did by reading the memoirs.

The short stories range in quality."Weary Kingdom" was Irving's first published work and is a long, dull story (not even the author really likes it)."Interior Space" is my favorite, but even it is not as good as some of Irving's novels.

The homages to Dickens and Grass are somewhat interesting.I decided to give "Great Expectations" a try since Irving said that's the book that really made him want to write.I doubt it will have the same effect on me.

The biggest flaw in my opinion was that the publisher put the notes AFTER the various pieces of writing.I always read those first just to get the background of the story before I read it.For example, it helped me tolerate "Weary Kingdom" when I saw that it was really Irving's first piece of published writing.

At any rate, I recommend skipping this garage sale and sticking with Irving's novels.If you read this in the hope of understanding the author better, you will be disappointed as I was. ... Read more

Book Description
“The Imaginary Girlfriend is a miniature autobiography detailing Irving’s parallel careers of writing and wrestling. . . . Tales of encounters with writers (John Cheever, Nelson Algren, Kurt Vonnegut) are intertwined with those about his wrestling teammates and coaches. With humor and compassion, [Irving] details the few truly important lessons he learned about writing. . . . And in beefing up his narrative with anecdotes that are every bit as hilarious as the antics in his novels, Irving combines the lessons of both obsessions (wrestling and writing) . . . into a somber reflection on the importance of living well.”
–The Denver Post ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

An Unimagined Girlfriend
I am a tremendous fan of John Irving but I found this slight writing about those who inspired him uninspiring.

Not Irving's best work.
I expected more from this book.Irving's memoir is sorely disappointing in comparison to his novels.It's not BAD, it's just not written with the same level of complexity and interest found in his fiction.

Not one of Irving's best
I am a big John Irving fan and have read almost all of his novels.This book was a big disappointment for me, though.Rather than deeply delve into the events and people who shaped his writing, Irving provides perfunctory descriptions of the major events in his life as a writer and wrestler.He devotes much more attention to the scores of every wrestling match he ever took part in than to details regarding the process of crafting his novels.For wrestling fans, this book might be just what you are looking for; for others, I would skip it and re-read Garp.

Don't buy this book
Buy "Trying to Save Piggy Sneed" instead, since it includes this work and several other pieces.It's just my stupid opinion, but I think the publisher deserves a big dope slap for republishing this seperately.

Great Story, but buy Trying to Save Piggy Sneed
The Imaginary Girlfriend is a terrific memoir. Irving, while taking a break from writing novels, decided to pen a short autobiography, but he brought his usual sense of humor, ability to develop characters, and readable style to the project. The story does an excellent job of explaining the life events and people who have shaped his character and writing, which I think is very useful when trying to understand and appreciate his other books. I think this story itself is some of Irving's best writing and is certainly worth the short time it takes to read. I would recommend, however, instead of paying for the memoir alone, you purchase Trying to Save Piggy Sneed which includes this memoir as well as several short stories. You will not be disappointed if you are an Irving fan or just enjoy good, entertaining writing. ... Read more

Amazon.com's Best of 2001
Like anything newsworthy, miracles of medicine and technology inevitably make their way out of the headlines and become the stuff of fiction. In recent years readers have been absorbed by media accounts of a transplanted hand, an experiment that ultimately ended in amputation. Medical ethicists reason that a hand, unlike a heart or a liver--essential organs conveniently housed out of sight--is in full view and one of a pair, arguably dispensable. In his 10th novel, however, John Irving undertakes to imagine just such a transplant, which involves a donor, a recipient, a surgeon, a particular Green Bay Packer fan, and the remarkable left hand that brings them together.

Television reporter Patrick Wallingford becomes a story himself when he loses his hand to a caged lion while in India covering a circus. The moment is captured live on film, and Patrick (who wears a "perpetual but dismaying smile--the look of someone who knows he's met you before but can't recall the exact occasion") is henceforth known as the lion guy. Before long, plans are made to equip Patrick with a new hand. Doctor Nicholas M. Zajac, superstar surgeon, indefatigable dog-poop scooper, runner, and part-time father, is poised to perform the operation. But the donor--or rather the widow of the donor--has a few stipulations. Doris Clausen wants to meet the one-handed reporter before the procedure, and insists on visitation rights afterward. Irving weaves these characters and a panoply of others together in a smart, funny, readable narrative. Often farcical, The Fourth Hand is ultimately something more: a tender chronicle of the redemptive power of love. --Victoria JenkinsBook Description
The Fourth Hand asks an interesting question: “How can anyone identify a dream of the future?” The answer: “Destiny is not imaginable, except in dreams or to those in love."

While reporting a story from India, a New York television journalist has his left hand eaten by a lion; millions of TV viewers witness the accident. In Boston, a renowned hand surgeon awaits the opportunity to perform the nation’s first hand transplant; meanwhile, in the distracting aftermath of an acrimonious divorce, the surgeon is seduced by his housekeeper. A married woman in Wisconsin wants to give the one-handed reporter her husband’s left hand – that is, after her husband dies. But the husband is alive, relatively young, and healthy.

This is how John Irving’s tenth novel begins; it seems, at first, to be a comedy, perhaps a satire, almost certainly a sexual farce. Yet, in the end, The Fourth Hand is as realistic and emotionally moving as any of Mr. Irving’s previous novels – including The World According to Garp, A Prayer for Owen Meany, and A Widow for One Year – or his Oscar-winning screenplay of The Cider House Rules.

The Fourth Hand is characteristic of John Irving’s seamless storytelling and further explores some of the author’s recurring themes – loss, grief, love as redemption. But this novel also breaks new ground; it offers a penetrating look at the power of second chances and the will to change.


From the Trade Paperback edition.Download Description
While reporting a story from India, a New York television journalist has his left hand eaten by a lion; millions of TV viewers witness the accident. What happens next is the subject of Irving's tenth novel, which offers a penetrating look at the power of second chances and the will to change. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (276)

Another impressive novel by John Irving
If you look at all the quotes and reviews on the cover and in the first pages of the novel itself, you'll see more words than are in this newsletter. All filled with praise, all accurate, and yet. Part of Irving's greatness is that all that verbiage can't even sum up why he's so damn good. Neither can I. It's sharp, it's clever, it's perceptive, it's literate, and I devoured it like the page turner it is. If you've never read this guy, you are sorely deprived.

Not so good, really
Maybe the mistake was to read this book after reading both The World According to Garp (wonderful) and A Widow for One Year (very enjoyable, but with plot charactersitics oddly similar to Garp's). Maybe if this had been the first time I read Irving's novels, and met his truly bizarre characters, I would have enjoyed this book more.

But so it happens that I didn't like much this book, because in it I ONLY found weirdness and, yes, good writing, but not for a good purpose. There isn't a single character I cared about in this book. Not the main character, the hand-less "lion guy", who enjoy professional success for no clear reasons and who has an immensely varied sex life just because no woman, of any age, profession or ideological views can't help wanting to sleep with him, or even have his babies (even with no father included in the deal). The main character mostly spends his time simply being there when things happen to him. Nor I cared much for the wife of the hand's donor, not for any one of the women he has sex with, and I cared even less for the dog who eats his turds. Overall, I found this book just mildly entertaining, no more than a good airplane book (as long as you purchase it second-hand, as I did).

So, a bit of a let-down. My next Irving will likely be The Cider House Rules, for which I have higher expectations.

Irving comes through
One of John Irving's best endeavors, with an un-Irving like ending.Irving's descriptions are vivid and his storytelling becomes nearly poetic in much of this prose, however - I agree with others that this is an extremely readable encounter with Irving and would be good for first time Irving readers as well as those of us who persevered through thick and thin along the way.

Not quite there.
I really like a lot of John Irving's early work like "The world according to Garp" and "The Ciderhouse rules".
Sadly this book is more simirlar to his recent book "Until I find you". Similar in that the characters are not believable and the whole plot centres around a man who is(again not believably)irresistible to women and thus has lots of graphically boring sex.Sadly because it confirms that Irving's best work is long behind him.
Skip this book and read Irving's earlier work.

Great Concept, Scattered Delivery
I am a big fan of John Irving, his unique characters and his raw sense of humor. I loved A Prayer for Owen Meany and The Hotel New Hampshire and recommend these books HIGHLY. However, this book was all over the map for me. The novel takes us, in the beginning, through the lives of Dr. Zajac and Patrick Wallingford, and I had the expectation that there would be some kind of meaninful collision between their worlds. While there is their obvious interaction (the hand surgery), it seems Dr. Zajac's character was used perhaps to contrast the meandering and listless Wallingford character; We have a man who struggles to connect and one who can't seem to connect. But I was surprised to meet the last page of this novel and find that Dr. Zajac was fairly insignificant in the last half of the book.

I felt that the wandering thoughts and parenthetical statements were gratuitous in this novel, as was the foretelling. These are thing that I usually like about Irving's style, but it was overdone in this particular work.

That being said, Irving had some elegant prose, as usual. I admire the concept of this novel, which beyond the quirky circumstances, addresses the reality that our news is filtered through marketing hacks, is trunkated into soundbytes and selected for visual appeal to an inattentive audience. The more provocative stories are left in the wake of the grandiose.

For this, and for his amazing talent, my hat's off to John Irving.

... Read more

Amazon.com
At over 800 pages, John Irving's Until I Find You is a daunting proposition at best.Anyone who finishes it will have acquired forearm muscles, sore shoulders, and not much else. The story is self-indulgent, repetitive and, ultimately, boring, that cardinal sin that readers can't forgive. Longtime Irving readers have stayed with him through a few hits and a miss or two, but this is an all-time low. We are accustomed to Irving's work as quirky, bizarre, and off-the-wall and have forgiven all by calling such high-jinks and characters "imaginative" or "absolutely original."The only thing original about this tome is the descent into soft porn.

Jack Burns, the hero ofthe tale, is four years old when it all begins.He is the illegitimate son of Daughter Alice, a tattoo artist and, guess what, daughter of a tattoo artist. She takes Jack on a pilgrimage to find his womanizing father, William, a church organist and "ink addict."By seeking out church organs and tattoo parlors, she expects to find him. She doesn't, and by now we have spent more than a hundred pages in Northern European cities doing an imitation of Groundhog Day. Same story, different day: a little prostitution for Alice, a few questions asked; alas, no daddy.

Alice and Jack return to Toronto so that Jack may enter a previously all-girls school, which will admit little boys for the first time.There begins another 200 pages of the girls and the teachers abusing Jack, over and over again.By now, he is five and is, for some unfathomable reason, eminently interesting to girls and women.His "friend" Emma keeps careful track of "the little guy," as she calls Jack's penis, looking for signs of life. The worst part of all this is that none of it is funny or sad or even clever.There are wrestling vignettes, of course, and prep school tedium, but no bears.Maybe bears would have saved it.There were funny parts in The World According to Garp and The Cider House Rules as well as poignant, horrific parts in both of those and other Irving novels. This story is flat. The voice never changes; it just drones on.

Jack becomes an actor. First, he is a boy in drag because he is so pretty, then he takes transvestite parts. He and Emma, now a published novelist, live together in LA, which provides endless opportunity for name-dropping.His career eventually takes off and he gets recognition and awards, but still no daddy.Irving, it turns out, never knew his father, either. Perhaps this exercise will exorcise that demon once and for all and Irving's next book will be about something more compelling than a little boy's penis and his trashy mother's antics. If you do make it through to the book's snapper of an ending, you deserve to find out what it is on your own.Call it a reward.--Valerie RyanBook Description
Until I Find You is the story of the actor Jack Burns – his life, loves, celebrity and astonishing search for the truth about his parents.

When he is four years old, Jack travels with his mother Alice, a tattoo artist, to several North Sea ports in search of his father, William Burns. From Copenhagen to Amsterdam, William, a brilliant church organist and profligate womanizer, is always a step ahead – has always just departed in a wave of scandal, with a new tattoo somewhere on his body from a local master or “scratcher.”

Alice and Jack abandon their quest, and Jack is educated at schools in Canada and New England – including, tellingly, a girls’ school in Toronto. His real education consists of his relationships with older women – from Emma Oastler, who initiates him into erotic life, to the girls of St. Hilda’s, with whom he first appears on stage, to the abusive Mrs. Machado, whom he first meets when sent to learn wrestling at a local gym.

Too much happens in this expansive, eventful novel to possibly summarize it all. Emma and Jack move to Los Angeles, where Emma becomes a successful novelist and Jack a promising actor. A host of eccentric minor characters memorably come and go, including Jack’s hilariously confused teacher the Wurtz; Michelle Maher, the girlfriend he will never forget; and a precocious child Jack finds in the back of an Audi in a restaurant parking lot. We learn about tattoo addiction and movie cross-dressing, “sleeping in the needles” and the cure for cauliflower ears. And John Irving renders his protagonist’s unusual rise through Hollywood with the same vivid detail and range of emotions he gives to the organ music Jack hears as a child in European churches. This is an absorbing and moving book about obsession and loss, truth and storytelling, the signs we carry on us and inside us, the traces we can’t get rid of.

Jack has always lived in the shadow of his absent father. But as he grows older – and when his mother dies – he starts to doubt the portrait of his father’s character she painted for him when he was a child. This is the cue for a second journey around Europe in search of his father, from Edinburgh to Switzerland, towards a conclusion of great emotional force.

A melancholy tale of deception, Until I Find You is also a swaggering comic novel, a giant tapestry of life’s hopes. It is a masterpiece to compare with John Irving’s great novels, and restates the author’s claim to be considered the most glorious, comic, moving novelist at work today.


From the Hardcover edition.Download Description
John Irving has won an O. Henry Award, a National Book Award, and an Oscar. Until I Find You is his eleventh novel. He lives in Vermont and Toronto.


From the Hardcover edition. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (246)

A book to endure
I wanted to like "Until I Find You".I've read and enjoyed: "Setting Free the Bears", "Hotel New Hampshire", "The Water-Method Man", and "The World According to Garp".Of those, I connected most with Garp.His use of foreshadowing and irony are often awe-inspiring, emotional and bittersweet.

Reading "Until I Find You" was like taking a trip around the world on a freighter...in steerage.I felt like I endured 800 pages, and I was relieved to finish it, albeit disappointed that there was no payback.No crescendo.

The wrestling references, a mainstay of Irving novels, seemed tired. I found it difficult to like or identify with Jack Burns, the main character.

On the whole I felt that this book was really a front, an opportunity for Irving to travel the world doing background research.His references to locales seemed fabricated and a bit heavy-handed, as if he built the novel around his trip itinerary.Pausing in Helsinki, Copenhagen or Amsterdam long enough to capture some local flair before moving on.

Not to sound too harsh.Irving weaves an intricate thread, and there are twists and turns that occasionally surprise.It's okay - hence my three star rating, but it's not up to his best.

-jeff

Wonderful
Irving continues to prove himself the rightful heir to Dickens. With wonderfully drawn characters and entwining plots, the ride...while long and circuitous...is always worth the ride.

I have to give a bad review, but...
I read about 5 Irving books when I was in college a few years ago and loved them so finally I picked up 'Until I Find You.'I read the first page or two and I was hooked.I thought I had found an excellent book.But then, slowly, over the course of a whopping 820 pages, I was let down.This book had a TON of potential but it just all went to waste.There was just nothing in this book that kept me hooked.Don't get me wrong - Iriving's writing is very poetic and he expresses himself pretty well but the plot of the book was pretty bad (which, after reading the book jacket, I thought was impossible to screw up) and Jack Burns is just impossible to empathize with.I didn't even care how things would turn out in the end.I should have given up on this book after a while but I stayed through to the end and - I hate to say this - it wasn't worth it.I think John Irving might have lost his touch.If you want to read a good Irving book, read Cider House Rules or A Prayer for Owen Meany.

I still love John Irving, but I didn't read this all the way through
I gave such a positive and heartfelt review to THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP that I rushed right out and bought two more. Many moons later, I read one. THE FOURTH HAND. Another glowing review. And now I tackle this 1040-page monster. When a book is great, I always feel it ends too soon. But I've been dreading this one for size alone, and isn't that irrational? Let's read!

I decided to bring back my 10% rule out of respect for the author. That means over 100 pages. Like Garp, we have an unusual boy with eccentric parents. Mom's a tattoo artist chasing Dad, an organist who's running across the world getting tattooed. That's eccentric. But after those 108 pages, he just hadn't hooked me yet. The other two books had such great hooks, too. Ah well. Could be my loss -- that's what all the cover blurbs would have me believe -- but I just gave up. On this book. Certainly not on John Irving. I'm going back to the bookstore to find something a little older. Or newer. Whatever. He is one of the masters.

"Until I Find You"
This is the first John Irving book I've ever read and needless to say, I was captivated.This HUGE book, which I've lugged around for nearly a month, held my interest and continued to make me laugh, smile and sigh.I do think that this is a book for avid readers, not for someone that's looking to just pick up a book for a flight, or a weekend (partly because of the length).I gave this book 4 stars and not 5 because at times I felt lost, there are areas of the book that you should pay more attention to and unfortunately, you don't realize that until after you've passed them.Overall, this is a wonderful book! ... Read more

catalog copy and individual title synopsis
This collection features the first three novels of this highly acclaimed New York Times bestselling author. Compassionate, satirical, deeply insightful and humorous, these compelling novels have gained him millions of fans.

Setting Free the Bears: Siggy and Hannes were disenchanted students and fellow conspirators. Astride a 700cc royal Enfield motorcycle, they roamed the Austrian countryside. When Gallen, a lovely hitchhiker, joined them, they zeroed in on the Vienna Zoo--and Siggy's dream: setting free the bears!

The Water-Method Man: The acclaimed second novel by the author of the #1 international bestseller, A Prayer for Owen Meany. Fred "Bogus" Trumper is a wayward knight-errant in the battle of the sexes, and the pursuit of happiness. Yet, he stubbornly clings to the notion he'll make something of his life.

The 158 Pound Marriage: Sometimes they looked at each other, aroused half out of their minds by the thought that each had just been making love with another, and it would be enough to make them want to do it--together--all over again. Well, almost enough.

... Read more

Book Description
A Hindi film star and an American missionary are twins separated at birth; a dwarf — a former circus clown — mistakes the missionary for the movie star. And stalking one of them is a serial killer... ... Read more

Customer Reviews (97)

One of the best John Irving books!
My first exposure to John Irving was predictably, The World According to Garp (read out loud with a dear friend as we traveled up the Pacific coast.Garp was a complex story, and I still think I should read it again.

But I haven't.

I went on to other books by Irving, such as The Hotel New Hampshire and A Prayer for Owen Meany.Winners, all.I even read Until I Find You and finished it, even though this was painful to finish.

And then there was A Son of the Circus.I'm finishing it for the third time.

This book is worth it.

There is Indian culture (India), mystery, intrigue, and more in A Son of the Circus.If you've never read a book by John Irving, avoid Until I Find You and find The World According to Garp and A Son of the Circus.

And prepare yourself for an adventure!

Cleverly spun, wonderful character development
Irving is an extremely talented writer.This is apparent in all the books I've read of his so far (Garp, Owen Meany, Son of the Circus) and he is a master at developing characters that are lively and really have human personalities.In fact, I hated A Prayer for Owen Meany because Owen was so incredibly annoying, I couldn't stand the book anytime that Owen was speaking.But A Son of the Circus has fun characters- Dhar, Daruwalla, and I really liked Daruwalla's wife as well, and I love the way Irving connects the characters and the transitions are very smooth between scenes, characters, and time gaps.The writing is very clever, and admittedly the beginning is slow, but the book is worth pushing past it.

Best Irving novel ever written
I'm going to be honest, I'm partial to this book. I'm Indian, so anything related to India catches my eye. But I'm a stickler for good literature, and here, again, Irving shines. Regardless of the 600+ pages, I couldn't put this book down. Some say it is a little slow and dry, but that's India! Irving does a fantastic job on his research, this story is very true to life. The plot is gripping and exciting: dwarves, transvestites, actors, doctors, murder, suspense, intrigue. It has it all. I would definately recommend this book for the serious reader with an open mind concerning other cultures. It's also a great insight into Indian life as well. Five stars!

New to Irving?? --> try another one first.
John Irving remains one of my most favorite and respected authors, in spite of, not because of this book.After reading Garp, Cider House, and a few others, perhaps it is my own lofty expectations for consistent greatness that led to my genuine disengagement with this particular text. Many of the classic `Irving' traits (sub-plots, interior dialogue, overt sexuality) encompassed the novel but the most important aspect was missing.Even at the conclusion of the story I could not make myself care for or truly understand Dr. Daruwalla (protagonist).After 700-something odd pages, (usually an aspect of Irving's style that I appreciate and embrace), I was ready for the novel to end.And it did, rather expectedly and unceremoniously.This is not to say that the novel should not be read, it was mildly enjoyable (perhaps because I read the majority of it on the beach), but as for John Irving's potential, it pales in comparison to `his greats'.Hesitantly recommended for the veteran Irving reader is the best rating I can give this book.

Editor wanted?
I typically find Irving's books to be good, and swift, reads, but this book was an exception--it took me over a month to get through A Son of the Circus.The first half of the book takes its sweet time setting up probably dozens of subplots; the second half goes faster, as various loose ends are tied up.

It was very enjoyable in spite of the slowness, with wonderful characters and great settings.The depiction of Bombay was fabulous; I don't know if Bombay is anything like that, but certainly the picture was imaginatively complete.

So I think it's worth reading, as long as you're not expecting a page-turner. ... Read more

Amazon.com
Owen Meany is a dwarfish boy with a strange voice who accidentally kills his best friend's mom with a baseball and believes--accurately--that he is an instrument of God, to be redeemed by martyrdom. John Irving's novel, which inspired the 1998 Jim Carrey movie Simon Birch, is his most popular book in Britain, and perhaps the oddest Christian mystic novel since Flannery O'Connor's work. Irving fans will find much that is familiar: the New England prep-school-town setting, symbolic amputations of man and beast, the Garp-like unknown father of the narrator (Owen's orphaned best friend), the rough comedy. The scene of doltish the doltish headmaster driving a trashed VW down the school's marble staircase is a marvelous set piece. So are the Christmas pageants Owen stars in. But it's all, as Highlights magazine used to put it, "fun with a purpose."When Owen plays baby Jesus in the pageants, and glimpses a tombstone with his death date while enacting A Christmas Carol, the slapstick doesn't cancel the fact that he was born to be martyred. The book's countless subplots add up to a moral argument, specifically an indictment of American foreign policy--from Vietnam to the Contras.

The book's mystic religiosity is steeped in Robertson Davies's Deptford trilogy, and the fatal baseball relates to the fatefully misdirected snowball in the first Deptford novel, Fifth Business. Tiny, symbolic Owen echoes the hero of Irving's teacher Günter Grass's The Tin Drum--the two characters share the same initials. A rollicking entertainment, Owen Meany is also a meditation on literature, history, and God. --Tim AppeloBook Description
In the summer of 1953, two eleven-year-old boys—best friends—are playing in a Little League baseball game in Gravesend, New Hampshire. One of the boys hits a foul ball that kills the other boy’s mother. The boy who hits the ball doesn’t believe in accidents; Owen Meany believes he is God’s instrument. What happens to Owen, after that 1953 foul ball, is extraordinary and terrifying.

A Prayer for Owen Meany was first published in 1989. This Modern Library edition includes a new Introduction by the author. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1050)

All about friendship
A Prayer for Owen Meany is about many things: religion, politics, small town America, the 60s, and more -- but most of all, it's about friendship. While I agree with some other critics that this novel could have done with a bit of judicious editing for length, by the time I had reached page 500, I couldn't put it down and had to carve out the time to finish it off. Some might find the ending contrived but I have to admit that by the end I felt I missed Owen as much as narrator John Wheelwright.

Better With Age
Almost 20 years ago, when I was the tender age of 19, I bought and read "A Prayer for Owen Meany."It was the first new hardcover release I ever bought.At that age, this seemed an extravagance.After years of a reading diet consisting of popular fiction in the romance and horror genre's, Irving's work was rich literary cuisine.I was entirely unprepared for the book's climactic end, at which I sobbed uncontrollably.As moved as I was, I declared "Owen Meany" my "favorite book of all time" (at age 19, this isn't saying much), and from that moment, left genre fiction behind, vowing to only read literature forever after.

When the book club group I currently lead insisted we read "Owen Meany" for our January pick, I was nervous.They were responding to my 18-year-old declaration of that book's favored status.But honestly, after that much time, I didn't remember much about it.With some trepidation, several weeks ago, I picked up my copy of "Owen Meany" and began anew.

Though I remembered some things, in many ways, my rereading was like experiencing "Owen Meany" for the first time.How could I have so totally forgotten the Vietnam War-themes?How could I have absolutely no memory of the second half of the book, with the exception of the last five pages?Such was the case with many parts of the book.Thinking occasionally:"Oh yeah, I remember this."But, more often: "I don't remember THIS at all."

Really, at age 19, what stuck with me most were the themes of faith and friendship; the comic-tragedy of one's best friend causing one's mother's death.

Now, at age 37, after having four kids, after tucking a bit more life into my belt (not to mention my waistline), after watching our world move in frightening directions, "A Prayer for Owen Meany" unfurls in undreamed of ways.Now, more than ever, I can confidently claim this IS my favorite book of all time.Complex, deft, prescient, wise, I have rediscovered a modern classic; one that is more relevant today than it was 20 years ago; one that I am delighted to introduce to my book club friends.

If you haven't already, read this book.

Engaging, sometimes remarkable.
This is a very long tale, yet the detail and intimate anecdotes stay engaging throughout.The story centers on the diminutive Owen Meany whose personality inspires awe in everyone he meets and especially the novel's narrator, although it's a stretch for this reader to see why. He sometimes seems as annoying as the all-capital letters one has to read every time he speaks.But he is intriguing on some level, not the least of which is his precognitive dreams and visions which play out dramatically in the last portion of the novel.

The plot is outlined often, so I will only point out one remarkable thing about this novel.Owen Meany's precognitive ability is central to this book, and the book itself is genuinely precognitive!For example, this passage Irving wrote in the 1980s, in Owen's diary:"That is where this country is headed--it is headed toward oversimplification.You want to see a president of the future?Turn on any television on any Sunday morning--find one of those holy rollers: that's him, that's the new Mister President!And do you want to see the future of all those kids who are going to fall in the cracks of this great, big, sloppy society of ours?...What's wrong with him is not unlike what's wrong with the TV Evangelist--Our Future President.What's wrong with both of them is that they're so sure they're right!That's pretty scary..." This novel is very persuasive regarding the existence of precognition in more ways than one.

My no. 1 favorite book
This is my favorite book.I recommend it to everyone.The symbolism is amazing.John Irving must have put so much work into making everything fit just so.Wonderfully crafted for our reading pleasure.

The condition of universal disappointment
This is my introduction to the work of John Irvin, and if his other books are anywhere near as entertaining as this one, I am in for some very enjoyable reading.This is the story of the great friendship between Johnny Wheelwright, offspring of one of the most prominent families in Gravesend, New Hampshire, and Owen Meany, the diminutive son of the owner of a struggling granite quarry and tombstone shop.Owen is one of the smallest lads you would ever meet.He never grows to five feet tall.And his voice, his vocal box is defective and to be heard he has to shout, almost scream, in figurative all upper case letters.It's his chief characteristic, and he furthers it by writing in caps, too.And what he SHOUTS and WRITES!Owen is very opinionated and doesn't hesitate in sharing his views on everything from the annual Christmas pageant to the breasts of Johnny's mother to Vietnam.The episode where his church presents the annual living nativity is several pages of laugh-out-loud funny.The book is set in time before, during, and after the Vietnam War years, the years when Johnny and Owen become of military age.This is a time when "we are a civilization careening toward a succession of anticlimaxes...a conditional of universal disappointment."In addition to Johnny and Owen, this book is peopled with many interesting characters, all vividly created by Irving.The author also displays a fascinating writing style of layering information upon information.Once you think he has described all there is to tell about a scene or a character, he adds on more interesting and vivid detail, and then tops that with more.About two-thirds through the book, Irving foretells what is coming, but I wasstill anxious to read on to find out how Johnny and Owen arrive at this conclusion.It is masterful story telling and I can't wait to get my hands on my next John Irving book. ... Read more

Book Description
It is 1967 and two Viennese university students want to liberate the Vienna Zoo, as was done after World War II. But their good intentions have both comic and gruesome consequences, in this first novel written by a twenty-five year old John Irving, already a master storyteller.


From the Paperback edition. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (30)

The beginning...
Everytime I read a John Irving book I love this author a little bit more. Though there are better books that he has written it is still a wonderful story and worth the time to read.

an introduction
A local boy, who went to school and returned as a teacher and book store part owner clued me into this book when I was in grade 10 (he was my Geography teacher, more was more interested in novels).I read it and along with Irving Stone's Passions of the Mind,(John Irving Stone I thought would be a heck of a writer)I flipped about Vienna.

Later on, reading a Nervous Splendor and finally visiting Vienna, I became convinced that re-incarnation may be somewhat factual, ....

or was it Setting Free the Bears?

A good story, well crafted by a young writer...

Hard to read - for true Irving fans only
I've never before been pretentious enough to think I could see an author developing through their work but I think I'm starting to with John Irving. This is his first book I believe and has some strong characters and an interesting plot but it very hard to read. Obsenities in the story are weakened into something unintelligable and the whole thing is hard to get through.

I read his second book, 'The Water Method Man', right after this, and it is similar in style but a nicer story and easier to read (a bit).

If you are just starting out with John Irving, don't start here! 'A Prayer for Owen Meany' and 'The World According to Garp' are delightful - start there!

From the beginning, a novelist of the first rank
I really can't understand the head-up-the-assedness of many of these reviews.I loved this book when I first read it and I still love it now, having just finished it again.

If John Irving believes that Setting Free the Bears would not be published as a first novel today, then that is more an indictment of the publishing industry than any reflection on the book.

This multi-layered story is involving, illuminating, touching and shocking.Perhaps it is not as rich and polished as his later novels, but since those later works must rank as some of the best ever written in the English language, I think we can cut the guy a little slack.As a first novel, it is simply outstanding.

So yes, contrary to a rather bizarre opinion found here, I did finish it.

early John Irving material confuses, bores...
'Setting Free the Bears' is an early work by John Irving that would have been normally out of print, and deservedly so, if it were not for his later fame from 'The World According to Garp'.In some ways the book is similar to 'The New Hotel Hampshire', a book I actually didn't care for, but lacks the humor or the huggable characters (or the curious incest sub-plot, thank goodness).So what exactly is wrong with 'Setting Free the Bears'?

Well the plot itself is rather strange and somewhat incomprehensible.A young Austrian college student bumps into a very quirky fellow, and together the tour Austria on motorcycle.Just when you think the book will turn into a funny road story with an Austrian twist the author decides to split the story in two, with the a narrative of the main character camped out at a zoo and his strange friend narrating his (pre-war) family history.Very disappointing, and very dull.The ending concludes in comical fashion back at the zoo.But this fun ending is too little, too late.

Bottom line: a very amateurish effort by the often outstanding John Irving.A definite miss. ... Read more

Book Description
It is 1967 and two Viennese university students want to liberate the Vienna Zoo, as was done after World War II. But their good intentions have both comic and gruesome consequences, in this first novel written by a twenty-five year old John Irving, already a master storyteller.


From the Paperback edition. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (30)

The beginning...
Everytime I read a John Irving book I love this author a little bit more. Though there are better books that he has written it is still a wonderful story and worth the time to read.

an introduction
A local boy, who went to school and returned as a teacher and book store part owner clued me into this book when I was in grade 10 (he was my Geography teacher, more was more interested in novels).I read it and along with Irving Stone's Passions of the Mind,(John Irving Stone I thought would be a heck of a writer)I flipped about Vienna.

Later on, reading a Nervous Splendor and finally visiting Vienna, I became convinced that re-incarnation may be somewhat factual, ....

or was it Setting Free the Bears?

A good story, well crafted by a young writer...

Hard to read - for true Irving fans only
I've never before been pretentious enough to think I could see an author developing through their work but I think I'm starting to with John Irving. This is his first book I believe and has some strong characters and an interesting plot but it very hard to read. Obsenities in the story are weakened into something unintelligable and the whole thing is hard to get through.

I read his second book, 'The Water Method Man', right after this, and it is similar in style but a nicer story and easier to read (a bit).

If you are just starting out with John Irving, don't start here! 'A Prayer for Owen Meany' and 'The World According to Garp' are delightful - start there!

From the beginning, a novelist of the first rank
I really can't understand the head-up-the-assedness of many of these reviews.I loved this book when I first read it and I still love it now, having just finished it again.

If John Irving believes that Setting Free the Bears would not be published as a first novel today, then that is more an indictment of the publishing industry than any reflection on the book.

This multi-layered story is involving, illuminating, touching and shocking.Perhaps it is not as rich and polished as his later novels, but since those later works must rank as some of the best ever written in the English language, I think we can cut the guy a little slack.As a first novel, it is simply outstanding.

So yes, contrary to a rather bizarre opinion found here, I did finish it.

early John Irving material confuses, bores...
'Setting Free the Bears' is an early work by John Irving that would have been normally out of print, and deservedly so, if it were not for his later fame from 'The World According to Garp'.In some ways the book is similar to 'The New Hotel Hampshire', a book I actually didn't care for, but lacks the humor or the huggable characters (or the curious incest sub-plot, thank goodness).So what exactly is wrong with 'Setting Free the Bears'?

Well the plot itself is rather strange and somewhat incomprehensible.A young Austrian college student bumps into a very quirky fellow, and together the tour Austria on motorcycle.Just when you think the book will turn into a funny road story with an Austrian twist the author decides to split the story in two, with the a narrative of the main character camped out at a zoo and his strange friend narrating his (pre-war) family history.Very disappointing, and very dull.The ending concludes in comical fashion back at the zoo.But this fun ending is too little, too late.

Bottom line: a very amateurish effort by the often outstanding John Irving.A definite miss. ... Read more

Amazon.com
John Irving's A Widow For One Year is the epic story of a family, dysfunctional at best, unable to cope with tragedy--or with each other. The unabridged audiobook, narrated by George Guidall (The Cat Who Sang for the Birds, The Inner Sanctum, The Legacy) draws the listener in with a crisp, methodical vocal presentation. Guidall portrays each character with a convincingly distinct voice, accurately impersonating the characters' intonations and verbal habits. The interaction between characters is both conversational and believable.

We first meet Ruth Cole in the summer of 1958 when she walks in on her mother having sex with 16-year-old Eddie O'Hare, the assistant to Ruth's alcoholic father. The death of Ruth's older brothers (years before she was born) turns her mother, Marion, into a zombie who is unable to love her surviving daughter. Ted Cole is a semisuccessful writer and illustrator of disturbingly creepy children's novels. His womanizing habits prove he's "as deceitful as a damaged condom," but he remains the only stable figure in Ruth's life. The tempestuous tale fast-forwards to the year 1990 when Ruth's soaring writing career is faring far better than her lackluster love life. The final segment of the novel ends in 1995 when 41-year-old Ruth is ready to fall in love for the first time.

This profoundly absorbing story expresses the depths of misery and the healing power of love. Irving writes as a true storyteller, and Guidall executes the narrative with vigor and enthusiasm. (Running time: 24.5 hours, 14 cassettes) --Gina Kaysen Book Description
Ruth Cole is a complex, often self-contradictory character--a "difficult" woman.By no means is she conventionally "nice," but she will never be forgotten.

Ruth's story is told in three parts, each focusing on a crucial time in her life.When we first meet her--on Long Island, in the summer of 1958--Ruth is only four.

The second window into Ruth's life opens in the fall of 1990, when Ruth is an unmarried woman whose personal life is not nearly as successful as her literary career.She distrusts her judgment in men, for good reason.

A Widow for One Year closes in the autumn of 1995, when Ruth Cole is a forty-one-year-old widow and mother.She's about to fall in love for the first time.

Richly comic, as well as deeply disturbing A Widow for One Year is a multilayered love story of astonishing emotional force.Both ribald and erotic, it is also a brilliant novel about the passage of time and the relentlessness of grief.Download Description
Twenty years after The World According to Garp, John Irving gives us a new novel about a family marked by tragedy and the "difficult" women who survive.

Ruth Cole is a complex, often self-contradictory character. By no means is she conventionally "nice", but she will never be forgotten. Ruth's story is told in three parts, each focusing on a critical time in her life. When we first meet her -- in the Hamptons in the summer of 1958 -- Ruth is only four. Her parents, having suffered the loss of two children before Ruth was born, are still haunted by their memories of these unspeakable deaths; now Ruth's mother is having an affair with a sixteen-year-old boy, while her father sleeping with someone else's wife.

The second window into Ruth's life opens in the fall of 1990, when Ruth is a renowned author -- and an unmarried woman whose personal life is not nearly as successful as her literary career. Ruth distrusts her judgment in men, for good reason.

A Widow for One Year closes in tile autumn of 1995, when Ruth Cole is a widow and a mother. She's about to fall in love for the first time.

Richly comic as well as deeply disturbing, A Widow for One Year is a multilayered love story of astonishing emotional force. Both ribald and erotic, it is also a brilliant novel about the passage of time and the relentlessness of grief. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (576)

One of Irving's Best
When John Irving stumbles, his books can be overly pretentious and a touch too cute with the coincidences.When he hits the mark, Irving can produce some of the best American literature has to offer.A WIDOW FOR ONE YEAR is Irving at his best.The book, in my opinion, is superior to Irving's earlier THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP, which put the author on the radar.

The book takes place in three different years.In 1958, we meet Ruth, who is four years old and who walks in on her mother Marion having sex with sixteen year old Eddie.We soon discover the true tragedy of Ruth's family.Her two older brothers died horribly before she was born and Marion, her mother, has become so emotionally damaged as to be unable to connect with her single living child.Although Marion abandons her family during this time, her impact on both Ruth and Eddie is profound enough to change both their lives.Despite the fact that Marion disappears from the book early and does not reappear until a few pages from the end, A WIDOW FOR ONE YEAR revolves just as much around her as it does around the other characters.Her pull is just that strong.

In 1990, Ruth and Eddie are now both writers but of widely different talents.Whereas Ruth's writing transcends her self and touches upon larger human issues, Eddie's books are mostly biographical and usually reflect his sexual encounters with Marion those many years ago.It is in this middle section that the readers really come to know and understand Ruth and Eddie.Ruth's success in her career is matched by her lack of such success in her personal life, while Eddie never really gets over the hole left by Marion abandoning everyone else's life.Much of this time is spent in Amsterdam, which Irving brings to life.Irving's portrayal of the characters is also more realistic, and therefore more emotionally accessible to the reader, than in some of his lesser works.By the end of this period of the book, the reader is emotionally attached to these people and really cares what happens to them.

Five years later, in 1995, Irving ties together loose ends and produces probably his most powerful ending for any of his novels.Marion's reappearance is not flashy, indeed it is subdued.Yet her presence is so powerful throughout the book that the emotional impact of her return is difficult to overstate.Irving touches upon major issues in A WIDOW FOR ONE YEAR, including loss, abandonment, responsibility, and embodies them in believable and sympathetic characters.If one is not really a John Irving fan but likes to sample his best works, this book should be on the list.

Avoid it.
There are some Irving books I would give 5 starts to but I couldn't finish this one.

Good book, but over rated
While reading this book I was thinking, wow this is a really good book.By the end however I was getting a bit tired of it.The characters began by being well-developed by sadly I felt by the end of the novel their characteristics had been exaggerated to the point that they no longer rang true.The span of time was interesting although a bit over repeated.If you haven't figured out how old marion is and how long it's been you must have skipped a lot of pages.It did get a bit tedious at times with some repetitive details but I was able to the most part let that glide right on by.

It's a solid read.My only complaint would really be the exaggeration of the characters.It felt by the end of the book as if the writer was afraid that you would have some how missed the character traits and thus felt the need to point them out a bit more blatantly so that you wouldn't miss the overall connecting themes and overlaps.I found it took a great deal away from the reality of the book as the characters began to be one-dimensional by the end.A quote from the book that sums up a great deal... "What mattered was that the details seemed real, and that it was absolutely the best detail for the circumstances"

Enjoyable Read
No question that this is an enjoyable read.At times, Irving can be repetitive, going over the same things until you just want to skip over portions (his descriptions of photographs comes to mind).

As in Garp, Irving punishes certain characters for sexual transgressions, and knowing that Irving likes to do this, you expect this familiar device to appear.Knowing that Irving fully believes in "What goes around, comes around" tarnishes the experience of reading the novel, because you know what surprises to expect (no longer a surprise if you expect it).

This book is not comparable to Garp, but an enjoyable read, nevertheless.

hilarious, sad, rich with meaning
I chose to read this because part of it is set in Amsterdam where I was travelling and because I rhink so highly of John Irving. I was not disappointed. It was completely involving and evoked and wide panoply of emotions. It gave an unusually intimate view of the Red Light district of Amsterdam that enriched my trip to that city. This book has much to offer many kinds of readers. ... Read more

Amazon.com
"Garp was a natural storyteller," says the narrator of John Irving's incandescent novel, referring to the book's hero, the novelist Garp, who has much in common with Irving himself. "He could make things up one right after the other, and they seemed to fit."

Irving packs wild characters and weird events into his classic--officially recognized as such in a Modern Library edition with a new introduction by the author--while amazingly maintaining the rough feel of realism in every scene and the pulse of life in every heart.Many novelists of his time might have populated a novel with a novelist protagonist whose life and books comment on each other and the novel we're reading. Transsexual football players, ball turret gunners lobotomized in battle, multiple adultery, unicycling bears, mad feminists who amputate their tongues in sympathy with the celebrated victim of a horrifying rape--Irving made them all people. Even the bear is a fitting character.

In a crucial episode, Garp's wife's seduction of a young man coincidentally occurs at the moment when Garp is delighting their young sons with a reckless car trick (one of the few scenes beautifully, eerily, heartbreakingly captured in the film version as well). Many authors would have been content with the harsh comedy of the scene, but Irving respects its integrity, and he builds the rest of the book on the consequences of the event. How does he get away with his killer cocktail of slapstick and horror? Because it's simply what we all face daily, rearranged into soul-satisfying art. "Life is an X-rated soap opera," according to Garp, and who can contradict him?

Rereading Garp 20 years later, one is struck by how elegantly Irving structures his bizarre and complex story. Take the two most celebrated bits in the book, the Under Toad and Garp's story "The Pension Grillparzer," which shimmers like an exquisite Kafkaesque insect in the amber of the novel. When Garp warns his son about the "undertow" at the beach, the boy imagines a monster out of Beowulf who lurks beneath the waves to suck you under: the "Under Toad." It's funny at first, but we soon find that the Under Toad is a metaphor with teeth--he connects with a prophetic dream of death in "The Pension Grillparzer," set in Vienna. Garp's son's last words are, "It's like a dream!" And as Irving--who studied at the University of Vienna--can certainly tell you, the German word for "death" sounds precisely like the English word "toad."

All that death, and yet Garp is mainly exuberant. This story is, as Garp's stuttering writing teacher puts it, "rich with lu-lu-lunacy and sorrow." It enriches literature, and our lives. --Tim AppeloBook Description
                                          


The World According to Garp is a comic  and compassionate coming-of-age novel that established John Irving as one of the most imaginative writers of his generation. A worldwide bestseller
since its publication in 1978, Irving's classic is filled with stories inside stories about the life and times of T. S. Garp, novelist and bastard son of Jenny Fields--a feminist leader ahead of her time. Beyond that, The World According to Garp virtually defies
synopsis.
----"Nothing in contemporary fiction matches it," said critic Terrence Des Pres. "Irving's blend of gravity and play is unique, audacious, almost blasphemous. . . . Friendship, marriage and family are his primary themes, but at that blundering level of life where mishap and folly--something close to joyful malice--perpetually intrude and disrupt, often fatally. Life, in Irving's fiction, is always under siege." Time magazine commented: "Irving's popularity is not hard to understand. His world is really the world according to nearly everyone."
----This Modern Library edition includes a new Introduction by the author.

The Modern Library has played a significant role in American cultural life for the better part of a century. The series was founded in 1917 by the publishers Boni and Liveright and eight years later acquired by Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer. It provided the foundation for their next publishing venture, Random House. The Modern Library has been a staple of the American book trade, providing readers with affordable hardbound editons of impor-tant works of literature and thought. For the Modern Library's seventy-fifth anniversary, Random House
redesigned the series, restoring
as its emblem the running torchbearer created by Lucian Bernhard in 1925 and refurbishing jackets, bindings, and type, as well as inaugurating a new program of selecting titles. The Modern Library continues to provide the world's best books, at the best prices. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (280)

Inspirational
I've mentioned this novel teaching classes in the past, but I've just realized that in many ways this book was my own inspiration to become a novelist. I can't think of a better review.

One of John Irving finest...
John Irving has mastered the craft of finding humor in just about any situation.T.S. Garp leaps onto the pages with a curiousity for life - as well as - a concern for death.Irving's often fluid story will easily pull it's reader beyond the surface like an undertow might on the ocean shore.I could drown in this good of writing.Jenny Fields, Garp's mother, is bold and passionate -- with an equally unique take on life's situations, tragedies, and moral choices.A wonderful find for any mature reader.

A wide-ranging classic
The World According to Garp is a sweeping biography of a young man born of an independently minded mother when such a thing was supposed to be unheard of. We get to experience society's reactions to this interesting family, and the wonderful cast of characters who come to surround them. Both mother and son go into writing, and both find themselves being used in political ways that neither imagined initially. Some reviewers have complained of some of the stark happenings in the book. Yes, there are rapes and child molestations, dismemberings and murders, marital infidelity (consensual and otherwise) and the ultimate horror of burying your own child. Through it all, however, Iriving's incredible prose carries you along. You may find yourself on the brink of tears one moment and laughing out loud soon after. Individual readers will find personal chords struck within the book, as there are many themes and images. For me, the most interesting sub-plot was that of Ellen James and the Ellen Jamesian's. Raped and her tongue cut out as a child, James is horrified that grown women begin to protest this act by engaging in self-mutilation in her name. Irving takes us on a very powerful journey, exploring how and why someone would do this to themselves, and whether it is a sincere act or merely a mindless act of protest born of needing to have an enemy and needing to belong to some group or other. In fact, this is the only thing I would have liked Irving to do in the book that he did not. He makes reference to the essay "Why I am not an Ellen Jamesian" (by Ellen James). He does not provide us with the essay, however, in contrast to other pieces written by Garp himself. Perhaps it is just better to envision the essay, but I believe Irving could have pulled it off. Running through much of the narrative is also Roberta Muldoon, a transgender woman who used to be a tight end for the Philadelphia Eagles (John Lithgow was perfect as the character in the movie version of the book). Roberta's journey and perspective are also fascinating, and show Irving's artistry as an author.The image of Roberta reading Ellen's poetry while Ellen sits by, clearly wishing she could read her own poetry, is truly arresting. Garp is a book that will justifiably be considered a clasic. Whenever you feel the presence of the Undertoad, think of Garp.

Excellent!
I read this book along with A Prayer For Owen Meany and both books are excellent studies in tragic characters.Garp, a school teacher seems to finally get his life together only to be undone by an obsessed woman (she reminded me of the character in Fatal Attraction).

The book never gets boring and is difficult to put down!

Wonderfully written
Character development is wonderful; I finished this book several weeks ago and Garp is still on my mind daily. ... Read more

Book Description
"The first of my father's illusions was that bears could survive the life lived by human beings, and the second was that human beings could survive a life led in hotels."

So says John Berry, son of a hapless dreamer, brother to a cadre of eccentric siblings, and chronicler of the lives lived, the loves experienced, the deaths met, and the myriad strange and wonderful times encountered by the family Berry. Hoteliers, pet-bear owners, friends of Freud (the animal trainer and vaudevillian, that is), and playthings of mad fate, they "dream on" in a funny, sad, outrageous, and moving novel by the remarkable author of A Widow for One Year and The Cider House Rules.

... Read more

Customer Reviews (91)

Sorrow Floats
John Irving is a master of his craft.The Hotel New Hampshire is easily one of his greatest works.Your feelings will be going through a roller coaster.One moment the story is hilarious and at the next it's sad.Then we're treated to heartfelt moments.The book has everything.From a dysfunctional family to all the strange and bizarre happenings that occurs throughout their lives.

The Hotel New Hampshire is told from the perspective of John Barry.The son of a hapless dreamer and laid back mother.John is the middle child in a series of five children.There's his brother, Frank, a homosexual.His attractive sister Franny who he becomes attracted to, and then there's Lilly, his younger talented sister and then there's Egg.To compliment the cast of characters are also a handful of supporting characters.From Freud (not THAT Freud) to a series of prostitutes.The story is told from the view point of John Barry.Who chronicles the lives of his family as they live in three hotels throughout their lives.

There's nothing quite so complicated about The Hotel New Hampshire.Despite the bizarre happenings in the novel, Irving manages to make all his characters entirely believable and lovable in their own way.Each character is distinct.The novel is filled to the brim with humor, both light and dark.When characters meet their end or when something terrible happens to them, you care.

In the midst of his excellent character development, the narrative flow of the story is just right.Because of how bizarre some of the events in the novel are, you won't be able to put it down.It is not a book, however, for those easily shocked or offended by sexual themes.The book has it all.

Never the less, John Irving's "The Hotel New Hampshire" is a fantastic story filled with just about every emotion possible.But most of all, it's full of heart.When you're finished with the book, you'll find it hard not to flip to the very first page and begin reading it again.

Favorite Irving -- quite possibly favorite novel
I love this book.I've read about 1/2 of Irving's novels and this is my favorite, though I haven't been disappointed by any.This book is entertaining, compelling, devastating... I could go on and on.He mercilessly kills off characters the reader has developed a fondness for, but somehow keeps us reading.Irving writes with an often dry sense of humor and treads some odd line between realism and absurdity, and it simply works.

Common Irving obsessions pop up -- rape, prositutes, bears, motorcycles, Vienna.A lot of the same stuff from Setting Free the Bears, but he is a more experienced writer here and not afraid to be American and doesn't have the same young man's individualistic bravado that characterized that novel (my least favorite).He writes about the glory and the tragedy of the (inevitably thoroughly dysfunctional) family, which is really what he excels at, I think.

In short, read it.But don't see the movie if you loved the book; despite some perfect casting (e.g. Jodi Foster as Franny), it is horrid.

An absurd look at life
"Hotel New Hampshire" a great read. It looks at the life of an anything but normal family. An impulsive often harebrained yet passionate father, an incestuous brother and sister, etc. The story also contains several family friends like Susie who runs around in a bear suit, the old man Freud who is blind and uses a Louisville Slugger as a cane, and whores and bomb-chucking revolutionaries. Since it is a lengthy story that covers practicallythe entire histroy of a family, to describe the plot would be too much for here. However, it is a beautiful story of a family and their honorary members.
At times is seems to drag a bit due to it being a lengthy tale, later you'll probably find that it is necessary to set up the next part of the story. Some of the symbolism is heavy-handed and some of the changes that happen come across as abrupt and jarring. For some reason though, this works. It was frustrating, but when it comes down to it, it brought a uniqueness and charm to the writing. It almost seems like Irving reigned in his editors, instead of the other way around.
It is absurd, surreal, hilarious and most of all full of love and has passion for life. It looks at all the things that make us human, love friendship, loss, failure and joy.

Decent Read
I was first introduced to John Irving when my mom recommended me "The World According to Garp." I absolutely loved it, and still do. I kept saying to myself, "This is one of the best books I've ever read." Next, I read "Setting Free the Bears," which, while it was nowhere near as great as Garp, I still liked, overall. The third John Irving book I read was this one, "The Hotel New Hampshire."

I absolutely loved the first half. There's bears, rape, death, Halloween, and school bullies. It really took me back to the magic that was Garp.

But, about halfway through the novel, a couple of characters die rather unexpectedly. I don't know why Irving chose to kill off the characters there and then, but it really threw me out of the story. Just two chapters, and a few months in the book's chronology, before a main character was killed unexpectedly. I don't know why, but it just didn't feel "natural" and it made me realize that I was reading a novel, something made up. It just felt contrived.

After that, though, the book started gathering a little more steam. That is, until it randomly skipped ahead seven years. The family stays in Vienna for seven years, and nothing ever changes. They know the same whores, the same "radicals", and we never even get to meet their school buddies. That's part of what I liked the most about the first half, the people they met at school.

And the way they "deal with" Chipper Dove seemed a little ridiculous, even for John Irving. And after the deaths in the middle, I really couldn't care about any of the characters anymore. None of the deaths in the second half made me in the least bit sad. (I did like the terrorist plot, though.)

In the end, its merits outweigh its faults, and I DID enjoy reading it. But it could have been so much better.

Another delightful tale
The Hotel New Hampshire is a story of love, family, absurdity, and solidarity.Win Berry graduates from his small New Hampshire high school and goes to work at a resort in Maine to save money to attend Harvard.Mary Bates, also from Dairy, New Hampshire, found herself working at this same resort and the two fell in love over the course of that summer.That summer also brought them Freud, a small German man who had trained a bear and provided entertainment at the resort.He became a life-long friend to the couple and at the end of the summer sold Win the bear.What unfolds is a life's story, told from the perspective of Win and Mary's 3rd child, John, that is as bizzare as it is touching and moving.

The Berry family opens The Hotel New Hampshire in Dairy and the novel chronicles the out of the ordinary experiences that occur in this unlikely hotel.The next stage of the family's life takes them to Vienna to open The Second Hotel New Hampshire.The family experiences a dark period in Austria with tragedy and sadness mixed in to the family's trademark weirdness.Finally, life brings them back to America where each finds their place in life all the while remaining a tight unit, each person a necessary part in the other's life.

Completely unable to describe accurately, John Irving has written another masterpiece.The characters are alive and wonderful and their experiences unpredictable.What makes Irving's novels so fantastic is that the stories are completely fantastic, yet completely realistic all at the same time.If you have read one, you know exactly what I mean.You find yourself falling in love with the characters and feeling as though you are part of their family.I've never met a John Irving novel I didn't love. ... Read more

Book Description
"Irving looks cunningly beyond the eye-catching gyrations of the mating dance to the morning-after implications."
--The Washington Post

The darker vision and sexual ambiguities of this erotic, ironic tale about a ménage a quatre in a New England university town foreshadow those of The World According to Garp; but this very trim and precise novel is a marked departure from the author's generally robust, boisterous style. Though Mr. Irving's cool eye spares none of his foursome, he writes with genuine compassion for the sexual tests and illusions they perpetrate on each other; but the sexual intrigue between them demonstrates how even the kind can be ungenerous, and even the well-intentioned, destructive.

"One of the most remarkable things about John Irving's first three novels, viewed from the vantage of The World According to Garp, is that they can be read as one extended fictional enterprise. . . . The 158-Pound Marriage is as lean and concentrated as a mine shaft."
--Terrence Des Pres ... Read more

Customer Reviews (27)

A Master of Craft, Plot, and Characterization
This is the second book I've read by Irving, and I have to admit he's quickly becoming one of my favorite authors.

The book is about two married couples who meet well after they've each established a family and mode of life.Though neither couple seemingly would have considered such a thing before, they begin to swap partners without secrecy.It becomes a normal occurrence for them, and they even go so far as to vacation together.

One of the characters is a wrestling aficionado (not an uncommon occurrence in Irving's writing) and thus you get the title and all sorts of easily accessible wrestling lingo.In fact, he dedicates a chapter to each character in the beginning of the book, establishing background, and he literally divides them by weight class.

Of course, such things as spouse swapping are bound to fall apart, and the reader experiences the full implosion as both couples must deal with their "break-up" and the new dynamic it introduces both into their own marriages and with each other as "friends."

Though the story was a bit more sexually graphic than I'm accustomed to reading, Irving's style captivates me.He is truly a master at craft, plot, and characterization.And best of all, his stories burrow into your being and you can't help but become enthralled with his character's lives.

I look forward to reading more of Irving's work.

~Scott William Foley, author of Souls Triumphant

Lightweight Literature
"The 158-Pound Marriage" is Irving's third novel, but it bears the seal of his trademark conversational prose, his sleek sparsity.The man is a prose pro -- even at this early point in his career -- capable of turning the simplest of descriptions into something fulsomely beautiful, larger than the sum of its parts.

However, just because someone knows how to write, that doesn't mean they know what they're writing about.In this book, Irving tries real hard to make a very little look like a whole lot.This reader wasn't fooled.

The story is about an unnamed college professor (who is also an unsuccessful writer of historical fictions) and his Viennese wife, Utchka.At a faculty get-together, they meet another couple: a Viennese German professor/wrestling coach named Severin, and his spoiled wife, Edith.Without much fanfare, the couples start up a spouse-swapping relationship that, of course, ends badly.

That's it.I'm not kidding.

Irving rounds out his dismal and repetitive plot with various anecdotes, some time-flopping devices, and lots of clever (if not over-wrought) character development.Irving is a maverick at populating his books with legitimate and understandable souls; you can feel their pulses in each slim page.The problem here is that every character is despicable.The narrator is myopic and heartless.Severin is petulant and stubborn.Utch is childish and stupid.And Edith is selfish and melodramatic.The real kicker?None of them change.Not at all.

The story's "twists," if they can be called that, are employed solely to make the reader feel like the tale is in motion, that it both arose from and is headed toward something interesting.That's not the case.These people and their histories (especially Utch's) make for some occasionally intriguing reading, but by the last third of the novel, when the couples are mostly just bickering and whining, you'll find it as intriguing as, well, as watching two couples bicker and whine.

Let's not forget the children.That's right.Both couples have two children which exist in the plot like thumbtacks holding up a map of Swingsville.Not only are the kids barely there, but when they DO show up, their presence is announced sportscaster-style by both Irving and the narrator.My guess is that the next-to-last draft of this novel had no kids at all.Just before publication, I bet Irving decided to try to ratchet the stakes up a notch by tossing in a few tykes, expecting they would give all of the self-indulgent sexuality a tincture of doom.He's trying to slap on some import, make the reader aghast, throw the amoral escapades into the light of carelessness, but such a thing would be unnecessary if the story were well-molded to begin with.As such, the overall effect is cheap and tasteless.(Maybe Irving knew this; the narrator himself frequently mentions how it's too bad he hadn't thought of the children more than he did.)

For a story about love and passion, this book is void of either.Never do the characters seem to have any feelings for anyone other than themselves, and even the occasional "erotic" passage is about as sexy as a shattered shower door or stinking wrestling mat.The book takes place at such a remove (not a surprise, since the narrator, like all the characters, has his sights turned mostly on himself) that there's no connection at all, not between the lovers, nor between the spouses, not even with the reader.There's a lot of nice-sounding prose here, but it tells a dull and dismal half-story, one that's not nearly as profound as it is pathetic.

The weakest of Irving's early works.
If one views the works of John Irving as a whole, this novel stands out like a sore thumb.Published in 1974, it is, without a doubt, a product of its time - when sexual freedom and experimentation were rampant and menage a quatres, such as described in the novel, were not that uncommon.Although encompassing many of the Irving themes: Vienna, wrestling, infidelity, and his character's propensity for emotionally destroying one another, it lacks the magic and playfulness of his other works.Irving's "story within a story" style is gone and is replaced by a style that seems more suitable to a writer of literary digests than to a novelist, with the result that the reader does not get to know the characters as well as in his other novels nor even really care what happens to them.

When Irving is unable to create characters that the reader cares for, his whole work suffers.In fact, it is Irving's characterizations that are the center of his art.One is hard pressed to name any of his main characters that does not strike a sympathetic note with the reader; even the foolish charlatan, Bogus Trumper (The Water-Method Man), has his charming side and at least sugggests that he has learned from this mistakes and is ready to make another go of it.Not so in this novel.All four characters are fairly reprehensible.The un-named narrator, a tenured professor of history whose historical novels are not even recognized as "publications" by his department; his wife, Utch, an Austrian refugee from World War II, who confuses a cow for her mother (you'll have to read the book!); the Viennese wrestling coach and professor of German, Severin Winter, and his svelte wife and aspiring writer, Edith, all come across as caricatures rather than as real characters.

The story of the sexual escapades that seemingly consume their fairly boring lives is told in almost clinical terms and lacks any of the passion that, one would hope, would come from such a shared arrangement.As the narrator relates the story of self-absorption, self-delusion, and sexual dalliance, the reader comes to realize why the narrator's historical novels quickly go out of print and are not recognized by his colleages as serious works - he is a mediocre writer, and for a historian, oblivious to the lessons of history.But in spite of all the shortcomings of the main characters, Irving shines a penlight of hope that perhaps not all is totally lost.The two Austrians, having survived World War II and its aftermath, have their feet on much firmer ground than do the two Americans, and one gets the faintest of impressions that maybe, just maybe, the Winters will get back together and learn something from this experience, and that even the most injured of the quartet, Utch, will perhaps pull things together.As for the narrator, the reader knows with certainty that he will continue to live on the periphery, always attempting those things for which he is marked for failure.

An interesting novel of personal interaction
Being brand new to John Irving, I decided to grab the smallest novel he wrote to see what his writing style was like.This novel provides the story of two couples and their wife swapping, intermingled with their past histories.

I found the history and back story somewhat interesting, but not mundane minglings in the midst of war atrocities, art dealings, college wrestling tournaments, and in their suburban family life.

However, the mundane nature of their lives, even though appropriate in terms of sticking with the plot, doesn't tend to a page turner.The terse language and lack of fluidity also makes this book a somewhat chore to read.

While it an interesting look at love and personal relationships, the lack of anything compelling with below average fluidity means that I can't really recommend this book.

Writing, Wrestling, Bears, and Vienna
The above being the 4 things Irving is most known for in his books. Thank God there are no bears in this one. What is present are 2 couples who mutually agree to swap lovers to spice up their lives. Only something happens that hurts this little arrangement: husband and wife from marriage #1 fall in love with the wife and husband from marriage #2. Only, the feelings aren't reciprocated. Jealousy, competitiveness, contempt, and bitterness follow. The couples' children are totally ignored except when one of them is almost killed by a faulty shower door.

In situations like this, the story can never have a happy ending.

Sidenote: The "158 Pound" title refers to the different weight classes in wrestling. 158 lbs is the heaviest. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

One of the greatest of all time
When I first read this book, many years ago, it moved me in ways I never thought a book could. It transported me, and still does, again and again and again. I grew to love the characters and cheer them on, cry with them, and dream of the life they led. Their stories have been a part of my life since this book was published. It's Mr. Irving's greatest and should I ever get to meet him, I will thank him.
I'm not a total fan of all Mr. Irving's work and shouldn't be considered a slave to it. I speak only for this book where, for the time he took to write it, he connected with my and so many others.
I could write volumes about this book. The sadness and death, the joy and perserverence, the love of family despite incredible hardships and outrageous happenings. Instead, however, I will encourage the person who is considering this book to keep and open mind and allow him/herself to be transported in a way only a REAL GOOD BOOK can do. Enjoy.

What a horrible book
This book was horrible...no plots, no metaphores; nothing I do not agree with the writing style of the author and I don't think that anyone who knows a good book when they read one, would either.

Un escritor brillante
Este es uno de los mejores libros de John Irving.Yo lo considero a eluno de los mejores escritores contemporaneos norteamericanos.La historiade esta familia es triste, comica, y increiblemente adictiva.Yo lerecomiendo esto libro a todos mis amigos, y pare ser honesta yo siemprerecomiendo todo lo que este escritor escribe. ... Read more