Rating: 
Summary: Irving's Best?
Review: A culmination of - what, thirty years of massaging the same themes and characters? Fortunately, Irving keeps his stories fresh, funny and interesting. From the squash court to the Red Light district, this novel lives. Lives through characters you'll like, even when you don't like them. Such is Irving's talent when he's at his best.
Rating: 
Summary: Dissapointing
Review: I absolutely love John Irving. The Cider House Rules and A Prayer For Owen Meany are my two most favorite books of all time. I was very dissapointed with this book to say the least. I'm not sure how to fully explain my thoughts on the book. It seemed like just when I was starting to like the story or a character something would and I wouldn't like the character or the direction of the story. I tried very hard to like it while I was reading it and it never happened. I agree with what on reader said about it lacking warmth. None of the characters seem to have any passion behind anything that they do. It seems like they move on sick compulsions.
Rating: 
Summary: Talented Author, but he's written much much better books.
Review: "Not even love can daunt the appetite of a sixteen-year-old boy!" Marion observed. Eddie blushed; he wasn't supposed to say how much he loved her. She hadn't liked that. -John Irving The most delightful part of the book begins with a very romantic and passionate involvement between Eddie, a 16-year old student at an all-male private school, and Marion, the love of his life. Marion is a 39 year old married mother of 3-year old Ruth, and she is still grieving for her two boys who have recently been killed in a car accident. Irving then begins to focus on Ruth, and that's when the book takes a huge downturn. The plot is too long and involved to detail here, as are the characters. Irving ends by tying a couple of strands together and abruptly stopping this weighty, often tedious chronicle.
Irving brings many women into this story, and it's very clear that he knows nothing about females. All of Irving's women have masculine ways of thinking, relating, and communicating, and none of them is endearing -- not even Marion, who abandons her daughter and her lover because of her grief. Ruth is obnoxious, as is her friend Hannah, and their way of relating does not occur between best friends who are female. Irving uses breasts to characterize his females' inner workings. Hanna's breasts are small, thus she has a smaller worth as a woman -- only promiscuous sex. Ruth's breasts are huge and pendulous, thus she has more worth, both as a character and as a woman. The word "breasts" itself is overused and tiresome -- it reappears every time Irving refers to Ruth. The remainder of Irving's women are prostitutes and servants -- all faceless females of servitude. Most have inferior types of breasts which are usually detailed.
This author is talented -- he can write sparkling dialogue and craft a very good book. He hasn't done much of that inside these pages. Look to A Prayer for Owen Meany or The World According to Garp for examples of his talent -- it's not here to any satisfying extent.
Rating:
Summary: love is patient
Review: Never before have I given a novel that I have disagreed with as much as John Irving's "A Widow for One Year" such a high rating. Still, for all its flaws and fixations and its sporadic nastiness..."A Widow for One Year" is an undeniable masterpiece. Irving's fixation on sex rears its head BIG TIME in this book. It gets down right gratuitous. I can understand such fixation at the beginning of the book; after all, the plot is centered on a sixteen year old boy. The thing is that this fixation does not stop--even when the characters are pressing their sixties and seventies. Some parts are just gross. None of the characters even takes a second to reflect on their promiscuities (I am thinking especially of Ruth here...of all the characters, she at least, should have some shred of conscience). Another quibble I have is that things are not simply foreshadowed in "A Widow for One Year"--they are telegraphed in what is the literary equivalent of a screaming boldfaced newspaper headline. Other than those two caveats, I have to say that "A Widow for One Year" is an absorbing story that is skillfully told. The intricate structure of the novel is mind-boggling. I don't think I have ever read a tale with some many narrative devices. Irving has once more proved himself to be one heck of a writer. In spite of its characters messed up psyches, sex lives, and skewed moralities...there is something redeeming about a story that shows to power of one person's true love for another. I must admit that I enjoyed this book.
Rating: 
Summary: John's Autobiography?
Review: This novel is EXCELLENT! This book has some very funny passages and you will never convince me that John is not in fact writing for himself as Ruth! Ruth discussing her usage of commas and semi-colons, has John's "writing" all over it. This is one of JI's very,very best and is one of my favorites. If you pass this one by, make sure that you select something else as worthy! (As a point of reference, I disliked ASOTC and would rave about TCHR).
Rating:
Summary: A Widow for one Year or John Irving stays with you for years
Review: John Irving can develop characters !! I know Eddie O'Hare, Ruth Cole, "The Boys", and unfortunately, Ted Cole (the rat) and Marion Cole, as well as any of my friends (or enemies). I know John Irving hates being accused of writing biographically, but how can we resist? Ruth, wrote biographically, Graham Greene wrote biographically, at least Mr. Irving tells us they did. How different from OWEN MEANY can we get? That the same author could create and bring to life such diametrically opposite characters certainly proves his skill and imagination. I never see or read about a very short person that I don't think of Owen Meany's legs stuck straight out from the edge of the chair, and I will never see a young, naive, college freshman with a crush on an older woman without thinking of Eddie O'Hare. Am I the only one who wants to say, enough with the sex, John Irving! But maybe it's necessary for the story?? Anyway, another great book and congratulations to him. However, I have a feeling John Irving would be bored with, or indifferent to, my opinion.
Rating:
Summary: A WRITER FOR ALL TIME
Review: The prose of John Irving seems to flow as effortlessly from his brain to the page, as his blood flows through his veins. It is articulate; witty; brazen; reflective; sharp; explicatory and perfectly readable. The saga of Ruth, Ted, Marion and Eddie sweeps across the pages like blustering wind at times, and like a gentle breeze at others. The characters are so entrenched in the reader's psyche, they elevate to close friends early in. What occurs in their day by day struggles becomes essential fodder for the reader's ever increasing interest. The prose is written lyrically, the descriptions keen, and sex scenes richy erotic; the characters are defined intimately defying complacency. To say John Iriving is genius is to say black is dark........he is beyond description. The man writes a story that lives within the reader's soul for seasons. John Irving is a master craftsman.
Rating:
Summary: One Line and I am always hooked
Review: Dear John, You have not yet failed. I read one line, the first line, and I am committed to the book. The first paragraph about Ruth seeing her mother, Hello! Had to read on. Your books are always an emotional investment. I space them out and read the one at a time through out the year, reliving each character, thinking about them, what I would do, who I would be.... Though my favorite remains Owen Meany, "because he is the reason I believe in God." Everytime. My best to you. Thank you for the years. A.Chronister
Rating:
Summary: An almost classic piece of Literature
Review: The story, divided into three parts, starts with the summer of 1958 when the main character is still a 4-year-old child and her mother, the beautiful Marion Cole, fells in love with her husband's assisstent, 16-year-old Eddie O'Hare. The terrific elements of extreme tragic, pathos and broad humor which are just typical for John Irving - and which seem to be the main reason for Irving's big success at writing one bestseller after the other - capture you right from the beginning on, pulling you deep into the sad and sometimes very funny world of Irving's characters. M. Cole has to deal with the great loss of her beloved sons who died in a car crash and with her womanizing husband, Ted, who actually brings home the bacon by writing creepy children's books, but prefers to spend is spare-time seducing young mothers and drawing pornographic portraits of them before telling them to take a hike. Richly detailed Irving tells the intense relationship that develops between Eddie and Marion, who both now that their relationship is only temporary and not going to last. At the end of part I, Marion leaves Ted and Ruth (the child, whom she is not able to love since the terrible death of her two boys - Eddie somehow reminds her of) ... and Eddie who returns home with a broken heart. Part II shows Ruth cole as a fully grown-up, successful writer, while Eddie who still loves her mother is a miserable writer with books like "Sixty Times" who all refer to the time he had spent with Marion (and all of his books deal with the great sex he had with her. Although Ruth is the literary equivalent to a Hollywood superstar, she is all but happy in her life until she finally fells in love with Alan Albright, her editor. Remember the pathos/tragic/etc-thing? Alan dies of course, Ruth is a widow for one year, until she fells in love for a second time, this time with the Amsterdam cop Harry Hoekstra who tracks her down (and instantly fells in love with her, too) when a prostitute is found dead and there is only one witness ... Take a guess. Part III: With Harry Ruth finally manages to find eternal happiness, finally she is able to leave her strange feelings for her father (she does not know wheter to love or hate him for the way he is) behind, Marion shows up again. Irving's "Widow for one year" deals with love, passion, and fugacity, a well-told tale of dramatic lives woven together through live and death, I can only recommend anyone to read. And do not think this is a book for women only, because it deals with love, etc. I am not women either and I enjoyed reading this book very much, altough it is definitely not what I am usually reading. I like to read horror, si-fi, and fantasy-stories, but mostly I read everything I can get my hands on - and this book is just worth reading, not only because it is a very well-crafted story, but also because it is a very talented work of art, a good example of who proper writing should be done. If you still have your doubts about this book, just shove 'em behind and start reading. It is sure worth the time and an experience you will not forget too soon. Just one more thing: I gave this book only four stars, because there were some small parts in between I did not like too much - but four crowns still is pretty good, isn't it? Decide for yourself!
Rating:
Summary: Writer as writer in a book within a book
Review: John Irving readily admits that he writes "long, explicit, plot-driven novels," and that "to move the reader , emotionally, means more to [him] than persuading the reader intellectually." This rich, complex, novel grows its plot from characters struggling with what they have (emotionally) and what they want, and the gap that lies between. All the main characters in the book are writers, and they all struggle with their characters imagination and with their own. Ruth, who is a child in the opening scenes of the book, is in search of a mother, still, at the end of the book. Her search is made more complex by her success as a writer and her ability to conjure up experiences she doesn't think she can feel. Marion, Ruth's Mother, wants to be free of emotion and the responsibility emotion brings along with it. Ruth's best friend Hannah, a journalist, serves as a pesky narrator in her life, examining Ruth's fiction and arranging it as non-fiction. Eddie, a good-hearted bad writer, writes the story of his life over and over because it's the only story he knows. Ruth's father is a helpless womanizer whose fame is baffling, considering that he writes terrifying children's stories. Timothy and Thomas, dead before the book opens, are Ruth's brothers, seen only in photographs so powerful and realistic they remain pivotal characters in the book. It's clear that with all these writers, there will be several other-book chapters within the main book, and occasionally the reader may have to re-orient out of other books back into the main plot. Irving does what he does in many of his books--spins a seemingly simple story that becomes more involved and complex, with details woven into the rich and wonderful cloth as the story develops. The weakest point of the story is the description of Ruth's new novel. Irving falters as he explains how a woman writer would handle the issues surrounding prostitution--power, shame, control, and money. The end of the novel closes around the plot in a tidy circle, showing the reader that life is cyclical, that seasons do return, and that many endings make wonderful beginnings.
| 
