Rating: 
Summary: Irving's Best Novel
Review: The Water Method Man is a "Cathcher In The Rye" for the baby boomers. Fred "Bogus" Trumper, like many, seems stuck between his good upbringing and the desire to throw his life over the edge on a whim. While the skip around timeline may be confusing at first, it suddenly becomes old hat and the reader can focus on the great character development. This book brings to the forefront Irving's comedic wit and irony and seems to provide insight into the author's past. Like very few books, it seems easy to envision that this book was written aboout the reader's life and not the main character's life. Bravo Bravo Bravo. Books seem to grow as the author grows, but oh how I wish that Irving never matured from the time that he wrote The Water Method Man. This book is a constant companion and has followed me around the world. Someday, if I ever meet Irving, I plan to ask him whether he would choose the water method or the surgery. I would take the water method!
Rating: 
Summary: Not his best...but funniest.
Review: The Water Method Man is by and far away the funniest John Irving book I have read. It may not be his deepest or most revealing, but I have not laughed this much at any of his other works...and I've read them all.
Rating: 
Summary: early Irving work entertains but isn't polished
Review: The Water-Method Man is a good story and exhibits all of the creativity and novel plot lines that Irving is know for. But he was still 29 at the time that he wrote it. The novel is a bit rough around the edges and does not capture like his later works. If you are new to Irving, this is not the New England writer at his best. Instead, try his classics: The World According to Garp or A Prayer for Owen Meany.
Rating:
Summary: One of my all time fav's and as good as hotel new hampshire
Review: The Water-Method Man is a great book. It has it everything you could possibly want from a book. You are intertained by Irvings fantastic epic skills and humor. When you read the W.M.M. it is sometimes like and Out-of.body experience. The way Irving makes you take a long hard look at your self, when you feel the most depressed and sorry for yourself or confident, through his characters (mainly "Bogus")is amasing. I feel I have learned something about how I see myself and other people persieve me. And I know other people have the same feeling when reading this tremendous book. In addition to this there is plenty for those of us who like to analyse what we read especially if you've read Hotel New Hampshire and Garp.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Writing & Insightful Snapshots
Review: The Water-Method Man is a well-written piece of fiction that is worth the read. This story has a 'woven' plot that takes you back and forth through the weft and weave of the narrative, building both plot and characters along the way. For those who need a linear progression to anchor them in a story, this is not the book to read. But for those who enjoy a good example of a more complex pattern of story telling, Water-Method will be a special treat. As a piece of writing, this book is superb.Nevertheless, I am ambivalent about the book as a whole. I like the way Irving tells a story -- and I even have a special fondness for some of his characters and scenes -- but I confess that I do not like his story. As a writer he seems far too self-absorbed, making too little room for empathetic engagement by the reader. I had the sense throughout the book that Irving was working out his 'stuff.' This is fine. But a good piece of writing should be crafted in such a way that it reaches out to the reader. Irving invites us into more of a voyeuristic experience. For some this may be counted as part of its appeal. But for me it is not. When I commit myself to reading an author's work, I expect to be more important to the author than simply as a vehicle for book sales or fame. That said, there is a lot that is worth seeing -- even through the panes of 'glass' behind which Irving places us. My favourite character is Merrill Overturf whose humanity and humour transcend the weaknesses of the book. And for anyone who has ever lived some portion of their life in the pursuit of a graduate degree, Trumper's thesis work is bound to cause howls of laughter (as it did with me). Water-Method also does a good job capturing snapshots of the awkwardness and adventure of life around the age of 30. John Irving is a great practitioner of the craft of writing -- and that is a good enough reason to read this book. I recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Writing & Insightful Snapshots
Review: The Water-Method Man is a well-written piece of fiction that is worth the read. This story has a 'woven' plot that takes you back and forth through the weft and weave of the narrative, building both plot and characters along the way. For those who need a linear progression to anchor them in a story, this is not the book to read. But for those who enjoy a good example of a more complex pattern of story telling, Water-Method will be a special treat. As a piece of writing, this book is superb. Nevertheless, I am ambivalent about the book as a whole. I like the way Irving tells a story -- and I even have a special fondness for some of his characters and scenes -- but I confess that I do not like his story. As a writer he seems far too self-absorbed, making too little room for empathetic engagement by the reader. I had the sense throughout the book that Irving was working out his 'stuff.' This is fine. But a good piece of writing should be crafted in such a way that it reaches out to the reader. Irving invites us into more of a voyeuristic experience. For some this may be counted as part of its appeal. But for me it is not. When I commit myself to reading an author's work, I expect to be more important to the author than simply as a vehicle for book sales or fame. That said, there is a lot that is worth seeing -- even through the panes of 'glass' behind which Irving places us. My favourite character is Merrill Overturf whose humanity and humour transcend the weaknesses of the book. And for anyone who has ever lived some portion of their life in the pursuit of a graduate degree, Trumper's thesis work is bound to cause howls of laughter (as it did with me). Water-Method also does a good job capturing snapshots of the awkwardness and adventure of life around the age of 30. John Irving is a great practitioner of the craft of writing -- and that is a good enough reason to read this book. I recommend it.
Rating: 
Summary: Bad, but good enough to finish.
Review: This book has no REASON. Not like logic-reason, but like a reason to be. It is hard to follow, the plot jumps from first to third person and travels through Bogus's life in absolutely no order, and the characters are dull, there is no plot, it is BORING and you don't care about anyone. It is not funnier than Garp or Owen Meany, no matter what anyone says. (and, for the record Garp IS better than Owen)
Rating:
Summary: Not his best - but who cares?
Review: This is definitely not the cleverest of Irving's books, nor the deepest, nor the best written. It is, however, without a doubt the most enjoyable. `The Water Method Man' is the book to read when you wish to reaffirm for yourself that life makes absolutely no sense at all, but is a hell of a lot of fun anyway.
The characters, like all of Irving's, are charmingly flawed and vibrantly human. They are presented to us in what feels more like a string of interconnected vignettes than a plot, which is a slight deviation from Irving's 'family history' model on display in many of his other novels. One of the (few) criticisms frequently made of Irving is that his endings tend to be a little too neat, with epic epilogues and an almost obsessive tying up of loose ends. However, in The Water Method Man, this is entirely to the book's advantage. The feel-good ending is a natural conclusion to both the plot and to the main character's journey.
While 'The World According to Garp' and 'A Widow for One Year' may offer more in the way of thematic depth, 'The Water Method Man' is nothing less than a pleasure to read.
Rating:
Summary: My favorite Irving novel!
Review: This was the first Irving novel I read--almost 10 years ago, at the age of 16--and as much as I love Garp, Owen Meany, and other Irving novels I have since read, Water-Method Man continues to be my favorite. First, few books make me laugh out loud. This is one of them. It's also one of the three books I don't go anywhere without. More importantly, it's a book about growing up (whether you want to or not), about taking responsibility for your past mistakes, and about having the courage to get at the root of your problems so that you can stumble, however blindly, toward what the future might bring you. The writing is brilliant. It is true that the chapters go back and forth in time; however, this is done to underscore the fact that Bogus Trumper is about to repeat some of his most disastrous mistakes. And if the chapters detailing Merrill's attempt to teach Bogus to ski and Bogus's "duck-hunting" escapade can't make you laugh, nothing can. Definitely a book for the reader who wants to think--and laugh. Enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: Life is wasted like water through fingers
Review: Time is wasted like water through fingers. Inability to do something with one's life. Patience of women living with the main hero seems to be enormous, but it must end somewhere. Here we have a study of someone, who is not able to get a grip of his own life, tries to escape decisions, in particular those which concern his life the most. I won't tell the story, but I was depressed afterwards. There is a lot of truth in this book. I felt very uneasy, reading it, but I think I will read it again. You bet.
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