A Widow for One Year

Rating:
Summary: Entertaining, beautifully written but...
Review: This was my first John Irving novel. I must say, I really enjoyed it, although I found myself questioning certain portions of the book and breezing through sections because I was tired of the rambling. Otherwise, his character development is flawless and his ability to weave multiple stories together into one solid story was wonderful. I am excited to read more books by this author. I enjoyed his writing very much and appreciated the depths and multiple layers making it entertaining and beautifully written.

Rating:
Summary: A Widow For One Year - a brilliant work of art!
Review: A Widow For One Year is Irving's best book so far. It's impossible to put it down once you begin reading. It's beautifully written, with rich and fascinating female characters so well drawn that I found myself wondering how it was a man could have written this story. The male characters in the book are equally fascinating, and ever-present, but they are not the center piece of this book.

Irving sees the light side of tragedy and the dark side of comedy. He shows in A Widow For One Year the chain of abuse, abandonment, and the reverberating effect of the neuroses of parent's on, not only their children, but also on all those who love them.

Like many of Irving's best books, A Widow For One Year is filled with his wonderful trademark brand of humor that tempers the deep emotions his story stirs in the reader. His brilliantly funny, odd, and ironic coincidences and juxtapositions of characters keep one laughing through their tears. Irving delves into the seamiest sides of the lives of practically all of the characters in this book, which takes the reader on an enthralling and dangerous ride.

A Widow For One Year seems to be a study of the phenomenon of exponential neurosis, but by the end of the story, one realizes it's more about the importance of casting away the demons of one's past and not allowing them to haunt and control the rest of one's life. Irving seems to be saying that no matter how terrible the hand you've been dealt in life, you are the master, or in this case, the mistress of your own destiny and happiness.

In the end, one is left with a wonderfully warm regard for most of the characters, and a satisfying, they got what they deserved, for the rest!

John Irving has created a brilliant work of art with A Widow For One Year!

...

Rating:
Summary: A tale based on a family tragedy
Review: Widow for One Year plumbs the depths of misery that bubbled to the surface in one on-the-surface successful family after the deaths of the two oldest children in a car accident. Ruth Cole, the surviving child who never knew her lustrous and immortalized brothers, is kind of the main character (among many), but lots of the book is told by Eddie O'Hare, a summer helper of Ruth's author father. Everybody is screwed up: Marion, the mom, exists in a zombie state and is unable to love Ruth - or anyone else. Ted, the father, is alcoholic and faltering in his career of writing creepy novels for kids. Ruth can't sustain a loving relationship. WFOY begins in 1958 and doesn't conclude till 1995, when Ruth, perhaps, embarks on a kind of loving healing.
This book qualifies to be called an epic. Wonderful - and I'm not always a fan of Irving's books.

Rating:
Summary: John Irving, what happened?
Review: I picked up A Widow for One Year, anticipating another great read by Mr. Irving, who's earlier works, The World According to Garp and Owen Meany, were favorites of mine. Instead, I've found a poorly conceived, puerile, rambling excuse for a novel - seems like a throwaway effort by a truly talented contemporary author. Loaded with badly developed caricatures of characters spouting infantile dialogue, droning in-your-face narrative, in which every subplot line is literally beaten to death by relentless repetition, I've been shocked into a mode where I just can't put this book down - I'm waiting for Mr. Irving's joke to end, waiting for a complete turnaround in style and substance - and if it doesn't come (don't think it will) I'll be more than confused that the reviewers actually liked this feeble attempt. Mr. Irving, what have you done?

Rating:
Summary: I loved this book
Review: This author presents such interesting characters and presents them as so human. He presents people with all there shortcomings and 'longcomings' I feel more human myself. Irving certainly is in my top five.

Rating:
Summary: A Prayer for John Irving
Review: A Widow for One Year is so literarily thin and implausible of plot that the only device which might have salvaged it would have been to have all the characters sporting bear costumes. It rates one star for making a good paper weight.

Rating:
Summary: Doesn't live up to the hype
Review: A Widow For One Year was our pick for my book club this month and it left me wishing we'd picked something else. I don't know why reviewers thought this was comic or interesting -- the hype surrounding it is just hype. No one in the book is likable; the actions the characters take is not believeable. It seems to be a book about sex and people who refuse to grow up and get on with their lives. Dissapointing.

Rating:
Summary: Its Fantastic!
Review: Torshay Chandler
Mrs. Fason English 11 2nd period
Mrs. Fason
October 9,2003

John Irving the author of A Widow For One Year: did an excellent job on writing this novel. It's a very exciting, tragic, and lusty novel.

"One night when she was four and sleeping in the bottom bunk of her bunk bed, Ruth Cole woke to the sound of love making it was coming from her parents bedroom."
This is a typical quotation because at this point all the drama begins. Irving's purpose on writing this novel is to show the life and all the hard times Ruth Cole goes through for the past 37 years.
Ruth Cole a child that went through more than anyone could expect, she lost both her two brothers Timothy and Thomas Cole in a crash and her mother is in deep depression and starts doing wild things and pay less attention to Ruth more and more each day. Ruth's mother also has an affair with a 16 year-old boy, Eddie O' Hare which is her husbands assistant for the summer Eddie reminds Ruth's mother Marion Cole of her two dead sons so she has a deep bond with Eddie. Ruth's father Ted Cole is a children's book writer and he has affairs with the children's mothers who come and model for illustrations for Ted's books. Ruth grows up and tries to find out what happened to her brother and continues to ask her father questions about the incident. The story took place in the summer 1958 in Orient Point the tip of North Fork of Long Island. It was a very good place for the action to take place in this novel. The characters are unique and have some very dramatic issues. The story is told in first person point of view. Marian Cole, which was Ruth's mother, is a dynamic character; she changed after her sons died.
She's a very quite person a little bit on the crazy side she is Eddie O' Hare's lover and she is real pretty. Ruth Cole is a flat character she is curious, bold, and knows exactly what she wants and goes and gets it she also becomes a writer later on in life. Her parents had her to replace their children that they had lost. Ted Cole is Ruth's father; he's a writer, cheater, and alcoholic. Him and Marian really don't communicate anymore after they lost their sons, but nevertheless he is always there for Ruth.
This novel was written in slow pace the drama and action didn't come really to the end of the novel. This novel won't allow a person to put it down. It makes one cry, laugh, gasp for air and has a full effect on them. The language that's spoken in this novel has and effect on the story it shows attitude it backs up the attitude that the characters have in this novel. The drama is like a soap opera it gets better, and better each chapter, it has drama for days. The novel does not get four stars for a reason it gets it because it deserves four stars.
Most novels have no meaning any interesting things going on in the story and it gets boring so fast. Well this novel is the best ever and Irving really knew the time and place to write things and there was full effect in this novel and that's what made it so good and not able to put this novel down. Try this novel and see if the feeling can be mutual.

Rating:
Summary: If You Liked the BOOK...
Review: Keep an Eye out for The Motion Picture, Titled "A Door In The Floor",currently in Production,Starring Jeff Bridges..No release date set yet,as of May 2003.

Rating:
Summary: I advice Irving and his readers to read some real literature
Review: This is my first John Irving book, and even if it's not rated as his best one, I won't burn my fingers on another one. Often it's not the story that counts, but HOW you present the story. And oh, boy, Irving has clearly never understood that.
By giving his characters a dramatic background, does NOT give them any psychological depth. At all.
He basically defines his characters merely by their sexual life, which is not interesting whatsoever, Irving probably thinks he's being progressive using the 'f-word' a lot.

His style is poor. Repetetive, referring all the time to events that are coming up and not giving any chance to identify with any of the characters. Partly because they're uninteresting, and partly because of the way he describes them 'the sixteen year old', 'the future novelist'.

I advice both Irving and his readers to read some real literature.