The World According to Garp

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Summary: Quite possibly the most depressing book I've ever read.
Review: When I was reading this book, I found myself actively seeking other pastimes when I would normally be reading. I was 2/3 of the way through when I realized I was doing everything in my power to avoid continuing it, and quit reading it at that time. The first chapter promised a Catch-22-like festival of insanity, but after that the story sunk into a mind-numbing pathos devoid of all hope and amusing to only the most avid sado-masochists. Stay away froim this one!

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Summary: What a loving book
Review: John Irving's Garp surrounds himself with characters who fill us with wonder and amazement. What an honor to be accepted in Garp's world. What a telling insight to be excluded.

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Summary: A must -read for all lovers of fiction.
Review: If you've ever aspired to be a writer (or even if you haven't), Irving's 'The World According to Garp' presents a view of a writer's life through the eyes of T.S. Garp. Irving's ability to create sympathetic, yet believable, characters is unparalled. His plots and subplots are outrageously funny and he's gone beyond traditional fiction by actually including some of Garp's fiction within the novel. I highly recommend this book!

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Summary: Earth moving
Review: I read this novel in 80's . And since then it has been the best book I have ever read. And it is the only one book that has succesfully transferred into a movie. Thanks to good actors. And the director who has followed the story and not made big artistic compromises.

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Summary: To Entertain
Review: John Irving is a brilliant writer. He uses real life scenarios, humor, and good descriptions to keep the reader reading his books. This is his author's purpose, to entertain.- O. Whitmer, BDH

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Summary: Garpisms will endure long after Gumpisms become stale!
Review: John Irving has the amazing gift of making ordinary the most absurd, and absurd the most ordinary. Certainly few of us can ever be TS Garp or the other equally-lovable personas, but at their most absurd we each can find an experience, an emotion, a thought which is common to us all. Biting off a guy's penis, dating a transexual, walking on our hands, catching the clap...this is certainly the only book I'd bring to a desert island. With each reading I learn something new about the human condition, and find something new to cry over or rejoice at about it

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Summary: You'll never read a novel so fast as this! Simply Perfection
Review: "The Word According to Garp" is the most woundrously written book I've ever read! The characters were so fascinating and exciting to me I would think about them all day, and still do. John Irving has really constructed this book perfectly­never a dull moment. - Dolly Housholder (age 17)

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Summary: I just love John Irving!!!
Review: I read "The World According to Garp" two and a half years ago while I was i California. I started to bomb my best friend with letters saying that she had to read John Irving's books (something I'd done several times before that)! She answered that she didn't have time to it - but after a couple of weeks I got a letter about how great it had been to read about Garp and his wonderful world! She hasn't stopped yet - I think she has become a bigger fan of the great John Irving than I am! It is a true joy to sit down with his books and the world won't be the same after you've seen it through the world of Garp (I stole that - but it's still true!)!!! Right now I'm trying to read "A Son of the Circus", which - of course - has been great so far, I just don't have time enough because of my school. John Irving is still the best! Paula Johansson

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Summary: EXCELLENT!
Review: To be honest, this book was my first one of John Irving's, but i must say: IT WON'T BE THE LAST! John Irving pulls you into this book of loves, lusts, and life. I am just thirteen and even at my age i loved and understood it. What i think I liked most about this book is that it was different from most books today. It didn't have a certain plot, other than showing you this man's life, from pre-birth, to post-death. This book was amazing and i would reccomend it to anyone who is mature enough to handle it. Oh, and the movie is great too!

Rating:
Summary: What was the point?
Review: This book was entirely divorce from anything I could related to and just seemed not surreal enough to be "trippy" and too unreal for me to get involved in the story.

Was the self-mutuilation of the Ellen Jamesians symbolic? What was that supposed to be I had no idea. All of the relations described in the book seemed contrived and just plain weird.

Only for very few of the characters did I even feel a slight interest in, but they tended only to be tangential to the story.

All in all this book is an absurdist account of the race wars, that is not so absurd to be entertaining, but too absurd to be involving.

My motivation for purchasing this book was because so many reviewers thought that this book was hillarious. Well, if this was hillarious, how would you describe Douglas Adams? This book was about as funny as gangrene.