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  • I know this book is a bestseller and that Mr. Irving is well thought of, but I personally hated this book. It started off very good. It made me laugh a lot, but after a while esp. about the time I got to "The Pension Grillpazer." It upset me that Irving violated a general rule in writing; do not un ... Continue

    I know this book is a bestseller and that Mr. Irving is well thought of, but I personally hated this book. It started off very good. It made me laugh a lot, but after a while esp. about the time I got to "The Pension Grillpazer." It upset me that Irving violated a general rule in writing; do not under any circumstances write a book about a writer writing a book.The book just dragged on, and though I understood that it was supposed to be about Garp's life, I wanted it to wrap up already. The book stopped being interesting about the time Jenny Fields was made into a feminist hero. I do have to say there were a few well written parts beyond that esp. the affair that Helen has, but I found it all and all tedious. It angered me completely that I had to ask someone else who had read it what the book was about, even though I was reading it. It was seriously not my cup of tea. I wanted to read more of his work originally, but now I think I need a rest break.

    

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• ― Charley Snipe said on Jul 1, 2008 about the Mass Market Paperback edition| Add your feedback

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  • I recall that it was funny. I liked the first part about the mother the most. The rest seemed to be a typical author's self-absorbed view of an author's life.

    

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• ― Missmath144 said on Mar 20, 2008 about the Paperback edition| Add your feedback

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  • The movie of this was my first introduction to Irving, I believe. As I began reading him, I went back to read this. While the movie was all right, the book was even better.

    

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• ― Batona said on Mar 24, 2007 about the Paperback edition| Add your feedback

This is the life and times of T. S. Garp, the bastard son of Jenny Fields--a feminist leader ahead of her times. 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."

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