Trying to Save Piggy Sneed

Rating:
Summary: not Irving's best, but..
Review: Although certainly not Irving's best work, PIGGY SNEED is definitely a great vacation book to bring with you. The stories are faily quick to go through, and if you stop in the middle of one of them, it is pretty easy to pcik it back up again. Some of the stories are rather interesting, while others are a throwback to his days as a wrestler/wrestling coach, which doesn't particularly interest me, but might interest another reader.

Rating:
Summary: not Irving's best, but..
Review: Although certainly not Irving's best work, PIGGY SNEED is definitely a great vacation book to bring with you. The stories are faily quick to go through, and if you stop in the middle of one of them, it is pretty easy to pcik it back up again. Some of the stories are rather interesting, while others are a throwback to his days as a wrestler/wrestling coach, which doesn't particularly interest me, but might interest another reader.

Rating:
Summary: A Writer's Memoir
Review: I love John Irving. When I first read Garp 25 years ago it knocked me out. Mr. Irving was truly an original voice. In "Piggy Sneed" he has given us a memoir, some short stories and essays. The memoir, "The Imaginary Girlfriend", is the best piece in the book. I enjoyed the fusion of his wrestling career and his writing career. I enjoyed the short stories and his attempt to share with us his some of the craft of writing. The homage to Dickens was enlightening and inspiring. I found the final piece of the collection (the one on Gunter Grass) the most difficult to read (perhaps because I haven't read any of his work but the piece has not inspired me). All in all if you love John Irving, you will find this book an excellent companion.

Rating:
Summary: A Writer's Memoir
Review: I love John Irving. When I first read Garp 25 years ago it knocked me out. Mr. Irving was truly an original voice. In "Piggy Sneed" he has given us a memoir, some short stories and essays. The memoir, "The Imaginary Girlfriend", is the best piece in the book. I enjoyed the fusion of his wrestling career and his writing career. I enjoyed the short stories and his attempt to share with us his some of the craft of writing. The homage to Dickens was enlightening and inspiring. I found the final piece of the collection (the one on Gunter Grass) the most difficult to read (perhaps because I haven't read any of his work but the piece has not inspired me). All in all if you love John Irving, you will find this book an excellent companion.

Rating:
Summary: No-Holds-Barred Irving
Review: Inside "Trying To Save Piggy Sneed" is a chapter in John Irving's life called "My Dinner At The White House" which is, quite simply, the funniest thing he's ever written. Perceptive, ironic, and devastatingly on-target, it reveals the author at his no-holds-barred BEST.

Be warned: "Trying To Save Piggy Sneed" is a collection of essays and short stories, and there are many readers (myself included) who find the stop-and-start quality of anthologies problematic - especially when the contents are as diverse as they are here. But Irving's regular-guy sensibility brings the disparate elements together, and there's something in "Piggy Sneed" to appeal to everyone - especially those who

a) have been ill-treated by a cavalier boyfriend,
b) are familiar with gut wrenches and whizzers,
c) have fallen under the spell of central Europe,
d) admire the works of Charles Dickens and/or Gunter Grass,
e) have experienced an unnaturally close relationship with a car.

Fall into any of these categories? If so, you may want to spend some time with "Piggy Sneed."

Rating:
Summary: Unusual Irving
Review: John Irving and Michael Chabon are probably my two favorite authors. They both write beautifully. Although their books are usually pretty hefty (in weight and subject matter), they don't waste a single word.

This book differs from most of Irving's work in that it's a collection of memoirs, short fiction and essays. There's lots of wrestling in this book, as one would expect from an Irving memoir. I've read that some people found those sections tedious; I didn't. As far as I'm concerned, the book is worth purchasing even if you read nothing but the section about having dinner at the White House. I had to read it out loud to my husband (which was difficult, since I was laughing the entire time).

I also enjoyed the short fiction and essays. Matter of fact, though I didn't enjoy Dickens as a youngster, I'm tempted to read him again after Irving's essays.

Rating:
Summary: Not Irving as his best.
Review: John Irving was bedriden when he wrote this book, and it shows it. He wasnt feeling well enough for writing a novel, but he was kind of bored so he wrote this exercise of a memoir.
When he talks about his life as a writer, about his childhood, about Piggy Sneed, about his children, its Irving as his best, but the wrestling part its so boring that you have to be masochist no to find yourself skipping pages.
The shorts stories are a sure proof why Irving likes to write novels, he's not a short story teller, its well known that he believes that there its nothing worth saying in 30 pages that wouldnt be better said in 300. But I enjoyed his essays, specially his pasion for Dickens.
Not Irving as his best, but worth a look

Rating:
Summary: Not Irving as his best.
Review: John Irving was bedriden when he wrote this book, and it shows it. He wasnt feeling well enough for writing a novel, but he was kind of bored so he wrote this exercise of a memoir.
When he talks about his life as a writer, about his childhood, about Piggy Sneed, about his children, its Irving as his best, but the wrestling part its so boring that you have to be masochist no to find yourself skipping pages.
The shorts stories are a sure proof why Irving likes to write novels, he's not a short story teller, its well known that he believes that there its nothing worth saying in 30 pages that wouldnt be better said in 300. But I enjoyed his essays, specially his pasion for Dickens.
Not Irving as his best, but worth a look

Rating:
Summary: More about wrestling than writing.
Review: Selected recollections by Irving, written when he was recovering from an injury and kind of out of sorts. Wrestling and writing are the two focuses of his life, but since the latter is private, and this is not an investigation of the "inner life", the book is more about wrestling than anything else. Irving is a likeable guy, and this is a likeable book, although I would not recommend it for readers not interested in athletic competition. Packaged with the memoirs are some short stories which did little for me.

Rating:
Summary: John Irving's Garage Sale
Review: Take "Trying to Save Piggy Sneed" for what it is, a mismatched collection of "memoirs", short stories, and "homages" to Charles Dickens and Gunter Grass. Unless you like to read about wrestling, the memoirs provide very little true insight into Irving. Do not waste your time buying "The Imaginary Girlfriend" as that comes from this book and is mostly dedicated to Irving's lackluster wrestling career. I think I learned more about Irving in the notes after the short stories than I did by reading the memoirs.

The short stories range in quality. "Weary Kingdom" was Irving's first published work and is a long, dull story (not even the author really likes it). "Interior Space" is my favorite, but even it is not as good as some of Irving's novels.

The homages to Dickens and Grass are somewhat interesting. I decided to give "Great Expectations" a try since Irving said that's the book that really made him want to write. I doubt it will have the same effect on me.

The biggest flaw in my opinion was that the publisher put the notes AFTER the various pieces of writing. I always read those first just to get the background of the story before I read it. For example, it helped me tolerate "Weary Kingdom" when I saw that it was really Irving's first piece of published writing.

At any rate, I recommend skipping this garage sale and sticking with Irving's novels. If you read this in the hope of understanding the author better, you will be disappointed as I was.