The World According to Garp

Rating:
Summary: Favorite Book Ever
Review: I read this book some 20 years ago for the first time. I lived in New Orleans at the time and each evening was stranded in Mississippi River Bridge traffic for an hour or more. I often kept a book in the car to help pass the time. I still remember vividly the point at which I learned Walt's fate and how the traffic began to move at that precise moment and I had to put the book aside. I've read the book four more times since. This is the only book besides _Anguished English_ by RIchard Lederer that I have ever read more than once. If you know _Anguished English_, you know for sure how diverse my tastes in reading material are!

Rating:
Summary: Spectacular Writing!
Review: Reading this book for an outside selection for school, i wanted to read what are considered "Modern Classics". What i got was a superb book, which has become my all time favorite book. Irving wrote all the characters so well and even a 16 year old, like myself, can relate to the events which go on in "Garp". Incredible book.

Rating:
Summary: Shortest 600 page book I've ever read
Review: The World According to Garp was the best book I've read in about two years. The book is very well written and goes fast for having 600-some pages. The World According to Garp is comedic, tragic, and occasionally even a little pornographic (the sexual references in this book seem endless). Garp's personality is very accurate, and although his sense of humor is sometimes hard to find, he has a great one. (Check out the responses he makes to an angry reader on page 232.) One of the best aspects of this book is the inserts of the stories he writes. Some very accurately coincide with Garp's experiences. The World According to Garp makes fun of people who go too far to make their point (The Ellen Jamesians), and, as mentioned above, it pokes at people that don't fully comprehend Garp's works (or life altogether). On the other hand, it shows how some people who have been shunned by society (transsexuals, prostitutes) are in reality good people. John Irving has accomplished what few authors have ever done well- a fictional novel about someone's entire life, and what happens before and after it. It is a very fast, very good read and I would recommend it for everyone... except the ultraconservative.

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Summary: Very funny book
Review: When first choosing to read this book I wasn't sure I wanted to because it was 600+ pages long, I was pleasantly surprized when I finished. It read quickly and always kept my attention to keep reading. I would have to say that this is one of the funniest books I have ever read. There were parts where I had to stop reading because I was laughing so hard. There were also extremely tragic parts, so graphic I couldn't read on. The sad parts were qucikly replaced by funny parts so that the reader wouldn't get to down. There were so many details in this book, a second reading isn't out of the question. I think I will get so much more out of reading it again, understanding the trickly little details that I missed in the first reading. I would recommend this book to anyone that wants a very enjoyable book. I read this book with 2 other people and they also enjoyed this book very much. I had to bribe them to read it but they were glad that I had. They all agreed it read fast and was very funny.

Rating:
Summary: Fiction rings true to life
Review: "The World According to Garp" is a wnderfull novel. It is so true to life. All of his characters are disabled in some fashion just as all of us in life have our disabilities and faults. Irving can make us laugh at tragedy in an oddly sympathetic way. T.S. Garp wants nothing more than to keep his children safe and happy just as all parents do. The lust and sex is true (i have heard) of life in the seventies but also gives the reader a timeless message about the dangers of lust and giving in to it. Excellent book that I would reccomend to any mature reader that could handle the content.

Rating:
Summary: Not a typical classic
Review: I recently read the novel A World According to Garp by John Irving. I was skeptical at getting into a six hundred page classic novel like this one. Often times I find that the books I like best are somewhat the least popular books. I also have found that I find a lot of 'classics' to be boring. With the World According to Garp I found that six hundred pages can go by very fast if the book is good enough. The book feels like it is written as a biography by someone who has spent their entire life hanging over the world of Garp before he was born and after he died. You come to know the character of T.S. Garp like he's your best friend. You know his mother long before he was born and you witness the incredible and somewhat disturbing story of his conception. Then the book goes on and you hear the story of Garp growing up, getting married, having children, and dying. Garp is not president and he isn't a world renowned athlete or anything else all too exciting. Garp is only a mildly successful, but like his mother, a well known author. His life is not too much out of the ordinary and is in fact a very believable life despite the fact that it is fiction. For having what is mostly an ordinary life it is difficult to believe a story about the life and times of T.S. Garp could be that interesting. However, I guarantee you'll enjoy the story and if you're like me, you'll wish there was a continuation of the last chapter, "Life After Garp." Even after six hundred pages you'll be left wanting more when John Irving sums up his entire story with the last and best line of the book, "But in the world according to Garp, we are all terminal cases."

Rating:
Summary: So True To Life
Review: As a whole I really enjoyed The World According to Garp. My paperback's cover proclaims, "20th ANNIVERSARY EDITION," making the publishing date in the late seventies, approximately during the time I was born. This gave me a unique perspective with which I approached the novel. Although this work was considered popular fiction twenty years ago, I found the story timeless. There will always be senseless violence, "war brides" (here I refer to Jenny Fields who said in the novel, "Who took time for weddings when there was a war?), lust/sex, and parents who worry about their children and try to do the best for them in the world. Another reason I enjoyed the novel was because it was a book about writing and writers. Through different characters the idea of "good" fiction is defined. At points in the novel short stories and other pieces of writing are presented to be experiencced first hand. This technique makes the story more real and tangible, enabling the reader to connect with a character though that character's writing. Finally, the humor used in Garp is very dark. Personally, I enjoy this sort of humor with its sarcasm and irony. Often the novel makes the reader laugh at the trgedies of life, but occasionally the tears that fall are not from laughter, but for sorrow. Irving is quite masterful in showing these extremes that are so true to life. Overall, I strongly recommend this novel because it is timeless and relevant. But, I caution that many things in the novel are not appropriate for young people who do not yet possess the maturity to deal with themes such as violence and rape which dominate the novel.

Rating:
Summary: I thought the book was good, but not entirely believable.
Review: I thought that "The World According to Garp" was a good novel. However, I thought that parts of it were unbelievable. I thought the characters in particular were a little unbelievable. Also, the numerous amount of accidents that happen to the people within Garp's world just seemed extremely contrived. The book was, however, entertaining. The numerous accidents that occured were so ludicrous that at times they seemed funny. Also, some of the things that the characters did added a touch of comedy to the novel. I liked this book despite it being not entirely believable and would recommend it to others.

Rating:
Summary: It took too long to read, and never really delivered a point
Review: The final five chapters of Irving's novel brought me to a very sure conclusion; I really didn't like it. It was for a college class assignment that I had to read this novel. By the time I was stranded in the last chapter at two in the morning, I desparately needed to reach the end of this very tiring book, not so much for the sake of the assignment, but to bring to an end once and for all the torture of reading it. It became evident after a very short time that Garp really wasn't a very good writer. "The World According to Bensenhaver" proved this point once and for all. The main character, Bensenhaver, had definite heroic potential, but Garp, or perhaps Irving, ruined him. The story ended up being completely devoid of any kind of heroism whatsoever, which is something I truly detest. After reading this over-detatailed, slow reading novel, I don't feel that I was properly rewarded at the end with a striking moral or point. What does it mean that we're all of us terminal cases? That we're all going to die? That we're all crazy? That there is often friction of the unpleasant kind between the two genders? So what? Are these groundbreaking points of news for the human race or something? Irving used many admirable writing techniques, such as writing fiction within fiction, using complicated shifts in time, and developing characters to the point where it was as if they were real people. In these feats, I DO give Irving credit by saying he IS talented in his abilities, but still, "The World According to Garp" was sort of an explosion or misuse of these talents, resulting in a time-consuming (for the reader), rather dissapointing, pointless, though at times quite humourous, 600+ page mess.

Rating:
Summary: So TRUE
Review: The World According to Garp is filled with "lunacy and sorrow"--a novel that is both horrifying and heartwarming. One note of caution to any perspective readers or readers who have flung Garp down with disgust after the first chapter: the tone of this book is purposely sarcastic; it may seem that Irving is making fun of infirments and frailties, but there is a larger purpose there.See if you can read Garp with this in mind.Although others don't agree, I find Irving's characters to be quite believable. I have known women like Jenny Fields and like Helen; I have know T.S. Garps and even Robertas. Though not for everyone, The World According to Garp can really touch you. It can make you laugh and cry at life, but also find a deeper understanding of your motives and your fears.