Has anyone read anything by John Irving? I read The World According to Garp around Christmas time and loved it. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to read anything for leisure (because of AP English) until recently. I picked up The Hotel New Hampshire , but for some reason I just couldn't get into the story. I've picked up Lolita instead; its been quite awhile since I've read anything disturbing.

Now that I've segued off...basically, I was just wondering if there were any other Irving fans on this forum?

By the way, I'm new here...so excuse me for asking any questions that may have previously been asked.

A lot of people swear by 'A prayer for Owen Meany'. I couldn't get thorugh it. I did read 'A widow for one year' and really enjoyed it. His latest book didn't get such great reviews.

I've read almost all of Irving's stuff. Garp is one of my two favorites - the other is A Prayer for Owen Meany. How they made the movie Simon Birch out of that book is beyond me.

Irving is one of a very few authors with whom I try not to gorge myself (meaning I probably won't read more than 1 of his books in a year). I've found his themes amongst books to be quite repetitive, so I like a break in order to avoid an "overdose." Plus, I don't want to run out of Irving stuff to read!

And hey, welcome to the forum!

I like many of Irving's books. I think The World According to Garp, The Hotel New Hampshire, The Cider House Rules and A Prayer for Owen Meany are all excellent. I haven't read his latest few books. I think his pre-Garp stuff is OK but nothing great.

I've read almost all of his books - I haven't read "The Forth Hand", "Son of the Circus" or "The 158-lb Marriage"

My favorite I think was his first book "Setting Free the Bears" THough I can't say why I liked it best exactly.

I've heard bad things about "The Forth Hand" though.


I'd much rather re-read "THe Hotel New Hampshire" than reread "Lolita" The second half of that book is really slow

The World According to Garp is good.

A Prayer for Owen Meany is one of my favorite late 20th century novels.

I've noticed that Irving has some affinity for using bears, Vienna, New Hampshire, and parents who work menial jobs at private schools so that their children can attend. Does anyone know exactly what the deal is with these symbols? Or are they even symbols?

I think that was one of the reasons that I didn't want to read another Irving book, because I just read Garp and I need to read something that is different.

Oh yes, another general question: what is the average age of the people in this forum?

The World According to Garp is the next book on my list. The movie was excellent, but aren't the original books usually better?

Honk!

Irving uses the same structures over and over again - Austria, bears, motorcycles, prostitutes, New Hampshire. But he uses them for different purposes, with different themes, I think.

His books get repetative, but I still enjoy them


BTW, all of those redundant themes come from his life - If you read the Memoirs section of "Trying to Save Piggy Sneed" you'll see what I mean.

And that, my friend, is the wisest choice you could ever make. I adore John Irving, but these three are his stinkers.

Really?

That sucks. I have those, and was planning on reading them soon. It sucks that I happened to read all of his good books first and left the 3 bad ones for the end. I'll have to go back and read Garp again when I'm done with those, so that I won't be left with a bad taste of irving.

I may be in the minority here, but I actually enjoyed Son of the Circus, and have also read A Prayer for Owen Meany, The Hotel New Hampshire, and am currently reading A Widow for One Year.

I would also recommend "Setting Free the Bears". I also think "The Water-Method Man" is one of the funniest books I have ever read.

The cut up aspect of "The Water-method Man" put me off at first....sometimes it is set with his first wife, sometimes with his future girlfriend, sometimes its in first person, sometimes its in third.

But I liked it by the time I got to the end.

The problem I had with those three novels is that I just couldn't find myself with the same emotional connection to the characters that I usually do with Irving's books. Especially in The Fourth Hand. Irving usually manages to show us every iota of a character's inner workings, his/her reason for life and the ability to push through pain and relationships, but I felt completely disconnected. And I found some really clunky prose in this one, which troubled me...the section that references the title made me cringe and remark aloud to my wife, also an Irving fan. She liked it, though, so you may not want to take my word for it.

I read A Prayer for Owen Meany but didn't think that much of it.
I found it was memorable, even though I read it two or three years ago, I still remember the Owen Meany character.
I thought Irving was a good writer in terms of imagination but still the book was difficult to finish.
All the capitalization got to be annoying after a while.

My favorites are A Prayer for Owen Meany and Setting Free the Bears. Especially Bears. I think I like it so much because of it's atypical structure, it reads more like memoirs than a novel.