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Summary: One of the all time best books
Review: I just love Garp - he is one of my favourite literary characters. His life, which he yearns to be boring and normal, is a reader's delight, from his unorthodox conception to the trials and tribulations of his marriage.But this book is not just about Garp, it is about finding the unusual in every day things, about rejoicing in sadness and about making the best of what you have. It is a truly delightful book, and I rank it just as highly as I do Irving's other great masterpiece "A Prayer for Owen Meaney". I don't like all of Irving's books, but this is wonderful, and it should be on everyone's "must read that someday" list.
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Summary: Garp's World is Our World
Review: When reading The World According to Garp we see a world quite similar to our own. Irving presents several themes to his audience that succeed in both driving the plot and eliciting reader sympathy. Lust, one of the dominating themes, appears in each main character except the novel's heroine, Jenny Fields. Jenny, Garp's mother and almost virginal feminist, is the novel's focus for the first 300 or so pages. She is well developed and complex. Sex, for example, is something Jenny possesses but refuses to use. She is sexy and beautiful, but she need not depend upon these qualities and fall into the category of "either a whore or someone else's wife." Jenny is a pure, honest woman and thoroughly entertaining. Garp, on the other hand, is full of lust. It is through his story that we experience love, weakness, and redemption of the human spirit. Irving's novel is brilliant; he fuses drama with an intense level of dark comedy. Satire and an accurate eye for human qualities contribute to Irving's success in this novel. The World According to Garp is the world according to human kind, for in life we all are "terminal cases."
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Summary: As large as life
Review: This book is something comforting as it has a totally specific sence of humour working every time as one is in need of a getaway from 'the everyday crap'. And still, as describing 'the everyday crap', but in a manner almost larger than life, Irwing is able to swim in the dark waters of humanity. I warmly recommend, also if one is looking purely for entertainment - Garp'll catch you!
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Summary: One of the best novels ever written.
Review: Of all of Irving's works, "A Prayer for Owen Meany" and "The World According to Garp" remain my favorites. Besides being funny (I nearly choked on a Big Mac while reading it for the first time in a McDonald's), Garp is beautifully written. Irving 's ability to make the ridiculous seem possible makes this novel a great read whether you're picking up for the first or hundredth time. My advice: buy the Modern Library hardcover edition because you'll wear out the paperback.
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Summary: Classic
Review: This book is one of those books that i will come back to in 5 years and read again. It has some of the best short stories tied in to a novel. PS DON"T RENT THE MOVIE - It is horrible ... nothing like the book
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Summary: FULL OF WONDER, LOVE AND HUMANITY
Review: At first glance, regardless of all the wonderful reviews, this book did not truly catch my interest on the book shelf. However, after reading "A Prayer for Owen Meany" and "Cider House Rules,"(both are mind-absorbing books that will stay with you for years to come) it was clear that "Garp" might just be worth reading. As we already know, John Irving is an extremely gifted writer. This book will make you cry, smile, and evoke so many emotions that you will want it to go on forever. Written in many different languages in many different countries, it is not surprising that the new "20th Anniversary Edition" with an afterword by John Irving, is being snapped off the bookshelves like pancakes off a hot griddle! From Garp's rather "unique conception," through all his growing pains and eccentric mother, to the book's final chapter, you will be captivated with a sense of love, awe and bittersweet reflections of your own youthful days. You have not seen the world, until you have read Garp.
Rating: 
Summary: I've read better
Review: Maybe I started out with the wrong book, but after reading A Prayer for Owen Meany I have not found another John Irving book written as well or as good of a story. This book's plot was just too bizarre for me. However I would recommend Owen Meany to anyone!
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Summary: Engaging, funny, and poignant
Review: First let me say that this is the first time I have read John Irving - I have been interested in reading some of his novels after seeing the movie, "The Cider House Rules." I chose to read Irving's "The World According to Garp" on a whim, and I was not disappointed. The characters are engaging and fun to deal with. The peculiarities of TS Garp's personality are not surprising and you find yourself empathizing with his unique situations. Beginning the story, Jenny Fields - an independent minded nurse in the 1940s - slashes an officer in a movie theater when he tried to put his hand up her dress. She had no desire to be in a sexual relationship, yet she wanted to be a mother. This paradox is solved when she impregnates herself with a hapless technical sergeant that was injured during the war and reduced to the mentality of a newborn child. In the seclusion of his room with Technical Sergeant Garp, she is pregnant on the first and last time she ever has sex. She names her child after the Sergeant, TS Garp. The young Garp and Jenny attend the Steering academy for boys and that is where Garp finds his first love, Helen. She is an avid reader; he attempts to impress her by writing short stories. Thus the writing career for Garp has started. His mother is known as a feminist leader after the published of her book, "Sexual Suspects." Feminist extremists adore her, and Sexist extremist hate her - Garp is regrettably involved with the whole lot of them. This is Garp's life, and the suspicious delusions that protective fathers endure. In Garp's world, he finally realizes that we are all terminal case, and those are the most important to fight for. A very entertaining book, and I have every intention to read more by John Irving.
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Summary: one of those "carry it everywhere" books
Review: I once heard someone describe John Irving as "the calculus of literature" After reading Garp, I now see why! This is a wonderful story, with a great ending (I too, have always loved epilogues!) The book's full of unforgettable characters, from Garp's mom, to Roberta - the ex Eagles football star who now has breasts, to Garp himself! This truly is a book of the times!
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Summary: The story that influenced my life
Review: When I read this book for the first time I was 14 years old. Since than I read it so many times, that when I open the book I know exactly on which part I am. And I like it each time. This is one of the rare books that you find once in a while, and they change your approach to reading, completely. If I didn't read this book, I wouldn't thought about so many questions that John Irving puts in front of you. Do read this book. In the bunch of unpleasent and violent things that surround us, this will be the thing you will cherrish.
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