He lived in Vienna off and on through much of the 1960s, and the city's influence is seen in his fiction. He traveled to Austria in 1963 to attend the University of Vienna and the decision profoundly affected him. Irving was disenchanted during his brief time as a student at both the University of Pittsburgh (1961) and the University of New Hampshire (1962). He was an average student, but he later discovered that one of the reasons he struggled was because he was dyslexic. He eventually attended the school himself and there acquired his lifelong interests of wrestling and writing. "Being a novelist," Irving once said, "is never throwing anything away.") Irving also grew up at a prep school, Exeter Academy, where his stepfather taught Russian history. (However, Irving's mother gave him some letters his father had written during World War II and he used his father's experiences for a character in The Cider House Rules. Irving, like Garp, has never met his biological father. Although Irving has said that The World According to Garp is not autobiographical, there are many similarities between the novelist and the title character. John Irving was born in Exeter, New Hampshire, on March 2, 1942. Millions continue to read Irving's books, and thus he remains one of the most popular and successful American writers of the last twenty-five years. Garp is also influenced by Irving's experiences in Austria in the 1960s, as are Setting Free the Bears (1968) and The 158-Pound Marriage (1974).įor the most part, critics gave the novel excellent reviews. For example, in several Irving novels, children grow up without one or more parents, as in The Hotel New Hampshire (1981) and The Cider House Rules (1985). The book shares many of the characteristics of Irving novels published before and after it. Garp is an intricately plotted novel, and its themes are universal: love, sex, death, art, gender roles. Irving's novel was especially popular on college campuses across the nation because of its youthful energy, and the novelist was applauded for creating realistic and strong female characters. His life is both hilarious and ultimately tragic. Garp struggles vainly to protect the people he loves.
His best friend is a transsexual who was formerly a tight end for the Philadelphia Eagles. Garp's world is filled with "lunacy and sorrow." His mother is a radically independent nurse who conceives him by taking advantage of a brain-damaged soldier. Garp, son of the controversial feminist Jenny Fields. It is the tragicomic life story of author T. The novel features the memorably eccentric characters, outlandish situations, and moments both joyous and heartbreaking that so many readers cherish. Although John Irving's first three novels were relatively well-received by the critics, he was basically unknown to the general public until The World According to Garp became an international bestseller when it was published in the United States in 1978.
0 kommentar(er)
