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Summary: Irving is a Master Weaver
Review: I picked this book up and could not put it down. The characters were engaging. John Irving is extremely talented at weaving a story from multiple characters' point of view. Then, at the very end, each character's life (representing a single thread) come together and a beautiful tapestry is created. This is a definite must-read! I recommend it to all!
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Summary: I could hardly bring myself to keep reading
Review: This book dragged on for so long that I had the hardest time finishing it. I put it down one day and didn't pick it up again for about 6 months. I just wanted to finish it so I could say I'd finished it!
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Summary: "the...air mattress offered...a cautionary word: 'Zzzt!'"
Review: John Irving is my favorite author and he never fails to give you what you expect of him. Still, I found 'A Widow For One Year' to be one of my less favorites; I place it along the lines of 'The Cider House Rules.' For all that happens in 'Widow' (and for that matter 'Cider House Rules'), not much really happens. We are given a saga, somewhat remniscent of 'The World According to Garp,' with the usual Irving characters, themes and motifs: writers who offend, earnest young men, prostitutes, etc. But what are we to make of the characters? Marion, the mother and 'Widow's' equivalent to 'Garp's' Jenny Fields, moves from being the central character to a non-entity. And the most riveting part of the story (for me anyway)--Ruth's adventure in Amsterdam's red-light district--was a let down because it did not change her life as it should have (as it supposedly did to the character in her book). An OK read for Irving fans. But if you haven't experienced John Irving yet I would suggest 'A Prayer For Owen Meany' and my two favorites 'The Hotel New Hampshire' and 'A Son Of The Circus.'
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Summary: An entertaining story, but somewhat manipulative
Review: I am a huge Irving fan, and eagerly awaited reading this book. Overall, I wasn't disappointed, as it contained the memorable characters, gripping storyline, and entertaining shocks, suprises, and coincidences that one has come to expect from an Irving novel. My only complaint is that after finishing the book, and letting it sink in for a few days, I couldn't help but feel somewhat manipulated. My complaints aren't on the writing level necessarily, Irving as always is an amazing storyteller. What left a bad taste in my mouth is that I simply found that I disagreed with Irving on who I was supposed to feel sympathy for and who I was supposed to find fault with. In this novel Irving writes in such a way that seems to instruct us to think Ruth's father is some sort of evil cretin, when really, his only fault seems to be womanizing, and his treatment of the women he cavorts around with. Not that this isn't a legitimate personality flaw, but what was frustrating for me as a reader was that Irving seemed to imply that Ted, Ruth's father, was somehow a much lower form of life than Marion, Ruth's mother, who abandoned her daughter when she was a mere 4-years old. Some of the scenes involving Ted Cole just didn't feel realistic, but instead feel like author manipulation. In other words, it seems like Irving has Ted behave in a certain way just so that we wouldn't like him, and thus give the reader more sympathy for his ex-wife. I felt that Irving and the characters he created forgave Marion far to easily at the end of the book, and never really took her to task for her abandonment. Simply saying that she was a depressed woman doesn't cut it. I suppose I really shouldn't criticize a book too harshly just because I have a different moral opinion than the author, so in fairness I should mention that I found this book consistently entertaining and well worth your time, even if you find,like I did, that it is difficult to consider the book ultimately satisfying since you have such a different opinion of the characters than the author seems to.
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Summary: Welcome back on track, Mr Irving.
Review: All that really needs to be said about this book is "Thank you, Mr Irving." If any journalist bothers to read what the author has written, there can't be many questions left to ask - all the answers to why and what he writes are covered in the text. And after having just read a bunch of Grisham botpoilers, it was such a relief to read a story told with real style and panache. "It's okay Ruth, it's just me and Eddie." Loved it. Next please!!
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Summary: Ho-hum...
Review: I have been a fan of Irving's work in the past, but I found "Widow" a bit of a non-event. Mercifully Irving has abandoned his obsessions with bears, Vienna and wrestling, the familiar theme of prostitution (that is not sleeping with, but simply talking to prostitutes, as in Garp) surfaces again in this work. While the story is entertaining enough, the writing fails to sparkle. Irving's repeated use of italics for emphasis is grating. And as for other reviewers who have remarked on the absence of coincidences in this,as compared with Irving novels, wouldn't you call a family where mother,father and daughter (and the mother's ex-lover) are all published writers a little unusual? Give it a miss. Read "Enduring Love" by Ian McEwan instead.
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Summary: yawn....z-z-z-z-z-z
Review: The desperation of the movie industry's tendency to produce movies about movie-makers is surpassed by this writer's writing about writers. John, put away the "Playboy" magazine and get out of the cabin once in a while!
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Summary: I did not want it to end.
Review: I purchased this at the airport bookstore expecting light reading. I could not put it down. How does one learn to write like this? John Irving speaks volumes in just one sentence. "He used to say that darkness was his favorite color." "...a sound like someone trying not to make a sound." I am not an emotional person, but when reading Ted's telling of the car accident to Eddie, and then to Ruth, I felt as if Thomas and Timothy were my own brothers. GARP and NEW HAMPSHIRE I enjoyed, but this would be the one book I would take if stranded on a desert island.
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Summary: I left it at jury duty.
Review: First I'm hooked by good writing, then by a profound storyline, this book had neither. I first attempted to read it while lying comfortably in bed, didn't work. Well we all know how boring jury duty is. I figured that while waiting to grace a panel of fine jurors, it will hold my interest. The book is just plain boring and left me asking the question, why? I threw it on the table with the rest of the magazines and opted to read "The Great Gatsby" for a second time. They just don't make books like that anymore.
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Summary: Love, hate, and grief are the powers that rule our lives.
Review: John Irving has done it again! He has created a novel chock full of interesting, eccentric, and authentic characters who experience or are influenced by the emotional factors that rule most lives--love, hate, and grief. A Widow for One Year tells the stories of Ruth and Eddie, novelists whose lives are woven together by the absense of Ruth's mother, her father's profligate flings with women of all ages, and Eddie's love for Ruth's mother, a woman twice his age. Overshadowing the entire novel is the death of Ruth's teenage brothers who die before she is born and whose "stories" Ruth grows up with as the underlying fabric of her life. In her search for meaning and understanding, Ruth longs for the mother she barely remembers and projects her longings into the charcters who people her books. Irving shares chapters of her novels as the book progresses, and the reader slowly understands the inner workings of her psyche. Ruth's new novel leads us to Amsterdam and a revelation of the all too prominent world of prostitution that exists there. When Ruth witnesses the murder of a prostitute whom she is interviewing, her life begins to change just as her novel unfolds. Irving has a way of exploring the basic human condition in all its craziness and heartbreaking reality that brings the reader to new depths of understanding. Here we learn that the people we love the most are also sometimes the ones we hate the most, and reconciling that dichotomy is not always easy. The difficulty of recovering from grief and pain, and achieving forgiveness, is inherent in the healing process and here we realize how hard it is to let go of the past and live in the present. This book is a good read on any level, but it is not superficial and it requires thought and reflection to achieve the ultimate benefit from reading.
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