The World According To Garp: Preliminary Thoughts

The World According To Garp. Pretty ambitious and lofty, don't you think? We chose this book as the first to read for our book club partly because it's one of his most famous books and partly because, according to Wikipedia, it involves less incest than some of his other heavyweights. I mean, from what I can tell, The Hotel New Hampshire is just a Russ Meyer film except even worse because there's a character in it named "Titsie."*

When I said "ambitious and lofty," I didn't mean that our efforts to read the book were ambitious or lofty; I meant that the book's title was. It sounds like John Irving is going to try to attempt to capture the entire world from one man's eyes in an entire novel. That speaks to me of some pretty skilled writing, because I think this book is set in New England, and from what I can tell New England consists of only three things:

1. Raking Leaves
2. Cheating On Your Wife*
3. Tennis

*Item 2 may be substituted or combined with Ignoring Your Kids

All of which can be done in funny outfits.

So, based on prior knowledge of New England, I'm assuming that John Irving is going to spread out leaf-raking and wife-cheating over 446 pages, a feat which has probably been accomplished but probably never should be. At this point I'm just going to say "Good Luck" to myself and settle in for some good old-fashioned suffering.

The inside cover also relates the following message: "Portions of this book have appeared in different form in the following magazines: Antaeus, Esquire, Penthouse, Playboy, Ploughshares, and Swank."

I know that Playboy is a legitimate magazine which many serious authors are published in; Penthouse is much more of an unknown element, and I’m presuming that they perhaps published portions of the novel on a girl’s tits. (As a side note: this book is dedicated to his two sons, so John Irving obviously knows his priorities.) But Swank? I'm sorry to make a joke that only high schoolers will get, but this book now pretty much has to be totally swank.

But enough New England bashing. This book probably will be boring in some parts, as all books are, but must be chock full of batshit crazy things, as all John Irving books are. The back cover summary does little to refute this assumption (taken from the Ballantine Books version with the sailor suit on  the cover):

"This is the life of T.S. Garp, the bastard son of Jenny Fields-- a feminist leader ahead of her time. This is the life and death of a famous mother and her almost-famous son; theirs is a world of sexual extremes-- even of sexual assassinations. It is a novel rich with 'lunacy and sorrow'; yet the dark, violent events of the story do not undermine a comedy both ribald and robust. In more than thirty languages, in more than forty countries-- with more than ten million copies in print-- this novel provides almost cheerful, even hilarious evidence of its famous last line: 'In the world according to Garp, we are all terminal cases.'"

First of all. Hmm. Okay. I'm just going to count to ten and wait for you to stop thinking about what sexual assassinations are. Ten nine okay whatever we're all going to be trying to picture sexual assassinations for probably the rest of our lives. Everyone probably has their favorite sexual assassination mental image, so insert it here; my personal favorite is a scantily clad woman in spandex acrobatically breaking people's necks with her thighs. You have to wonder: what do the zombies of sexually assassinated people eat? Balls, probably.

Moving on: what the fuck are sexual extremes? The only two polar ends of sex I can imagine are a) really boring sex and b) really exciting sex, such as sex while skydiving. However, when you're skydiving, there's no real way to thrust because there's nothing to push against. So basically what this book promises are a litany of awkward, boring sexual encounters punctuated by masturbatory skydiving. Welcome to New England, Folks: Where It Rains Semen.

Finally, I do love me some arbitrary quotes, but then again, you have to wonder where the phrase "lunacy and sorrow" came from. The writer of the summary was probably just quoting himself, but I'm hoping that either "lunacy and sorrow" has some horrifying double meaning or was a direct quote from the book:

"'LUNACY AND SORROW!' screamed Garp as he desperately grasped his raw, limp penis, furiously stroking in an attempt to ignore the raspy material of the glove against his foreskin as he fell through the sky. 'SOOORROOOOOW!' his wife shrieked as she hurtled past him, clinging dearly to her vibrator.”

Oh god. What am I talking about, this is going to be the best book ever.



*I mean, Titsie. Not Titsy; no, this girl was too good for that. To me, that "-ie" just speaks of pretension.

So We Decided To Create a John Irving Book Club

Let's start by saying that approximately one-half of this duo actually likes John Irving, albeit tepidly.* The other half is too busy laughing over the fact that a) that the word "doink" was used for the word penis in one of his books and b) the penis in question was the humongous penis of a midget.

 One half of us has in fact read several of his novels, and (somewhat) likes John Irving because he "tells a compelling story." The other half (me) likes John Irving because after reading one of his books I found myself typing phrases such as "the humongous penis of a midget." (I know "midget" is not politically correct, but then I'd either need to call him a little person or Owen Meany, and honestly, neither of those things are as entertaining.)

The creators of this blog both read A Prayer for Owen Meany in English class. One of us thoroughly enjoyed it, and the other just used the word "midget" to describe the titular character about three times in as many paragraphs. Both of us found it entertaining and hilarious, though not quite in the way that John Irving might have wanted us to, and based on our research, we have concluded that almost every single one of his books is in some way, shape, or form, entertaining and hilarious.



Exhibit A: The Section On His Wikipedia Page Entitled "Recurring Subjects"

That's right, I just used Wikipedia as a reference. SCREW YOU, HIGH SCHOOL TEACHERS.

Wikipedia has its own chart for weird shit that John Irving keeps reusing in his book. Yeah, someone had to make a chart. John Irving simply refuses to stop revisiting horrifying subjects such as amputation, negligent parenting, wrestling and New England.

Exhibit B: The Quotes Taken Out of Context

How did Irving guess my secret "forced literature" fetish?

Exhibit C: A Closer Look At the Chart From "Recurring Subjects"

You know it was only a matter of time before he discovered the "other" kind of bear, and then WROTE A BOOK about it.

As a lover of hairy gay men myself, I find this incredibly hilarious, and you have to give the seventy year old man some credit.


In all honesty, the man is seventy years old, and doesn't need two teenagers making fun of every other word he writes. He is proof in today's modern literary world that you can make thought-provoking, engrossing, bestselling pieces of literature with actual artistic merit. He has legions of adoring fans and will make more money than we will ever see in our lifetimes.

But honestly? Midget penises? Midget penises.

*A Note From the Other Half of the Duo, Henceforth to be known as "A": 
I don't actually like John Irving particularly. I enjoyed Owen Meany, but I read a few other books of his with reactions ranging from disgust to "this shit is hilarious." And yet, try as I might, I cannot stop reading his books. Something about the way Irving writes keeps sucking me in, so that I am forced to read as much as he is forced to write. Sexy. Anyway, I'm still on a quest to find the One True Good John Irving Novel (besides A Prayer for Owen Meany).


THE JOHN IRVING BOOK CLUB WILL IRREGULARLY UPDATE WITH BORING OPINIONS ON THE HILARIOUS SHIT THAT JOHN IRVING WRITES  

FIRST UP: THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP