Irving, John. The World According to Garp. New York: Pocket Books, 1976.
I must have first read this in high school. The only reason why I say that is because I wrote “Ben is weird” on the inside cover. The language suggests I was young and bratty but more telling is the name Ben. I only know one Ben well enough to call him weird and he was a classmate in high school. I also drew my interpretation of Monhegan Island, complete with a lobster trap and buoy. I wonder what my teenage self thought of The World According to Garp? Here’s what I thought of it over 20 years later:
The World According to Garp is a best seller written by John Irving and first published in the mid 1970s. I found it to be extremely entertaining and at times downright disturbing.
The story spans the life of T.S. Garp and the people around him. There are three reoccurring themes throughout the book: sex, writing, and tragic relationships. From the very beginning sex is very prominent. Garp’s mother impregnates herself with the help of a brain-dead, dying soldier only known as Technical Sergeant Garp. She has always wanted to be a mother but not a wife. Her child, named T.S. Garp after the soldier, grows up to be very preoccupied with sex and as a result adultery also becomes a strong theme later in the book. As Garp comes of age his mother becomes a literary feminist, writing a best selling autobiography about her life called A Sexual Suspect. This influences Garp to become a writer with some success as well. He marries his childhood crush and goes on to have three children with her. Throughout the entire plot the dynamics of awkward yet tragic relationships is prominent. Among the most interesting characters are Ellen, Robert(a), and Michaal. Ellen James is a young girl who was raped and had her tongue removed. Her tragedy prompted other women to cut out their own tongues and call themselves “Ellen Jamesians.” Roberta Muldoon is a transsexual who used to be a football player for the Philadelphia Eagles. Michael Milton is a love interest of Garp’s wife who has an unfortunate accident when his car meets Garp’s Volvo at a high rate of speed.
Favorite lines: “They were involved in that awkward procedure of getting to know each other” (p 4), “If she is to be a whore, let her at least be clean and well shod” (p 14), and “Children…have some instinct for separating their parents when the parents ought to be separated” (p 359).
Author Fact: The World According to Garp has autobiographical elements. Irving grew up on an all-boys school campus and his father was a soldier killed in battle.
Book Trivia: The World According to Garp was made into a movie in 1982 starring Robin Williams, John Lithgow and Glenn Close. It has a Hollywood ending, happier than the book…of course.
BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Growing Writers” (p 107).
~*LunaSea*~ 