Book Review - The World According to Garp

The World According to Garp is the 2nd novel by John Irving that I have read and enjoyed. Like the first book, A Prayer for Owen Meany, it took me a while to get through it, and not because it was dull or poorly written or confusing, but because it was "meaty".

The story has 3 main themes: gender roles, sexuality, and death.

Garp was born out of wedlock, his conception was not from love, but from his mother's want of a child. His mom, Jenny Fields, finds any type of sex act lustful and has no desire at all to be intimate with a man. She takes a nursing position at an all boys school and stays until Garp has finished his studies there. She later writes a book, an autobiography of sorts that brings about her role in leading feminists throughout the world, although she does not herself believe she is one.

Garp turns out to be a caring (and adulterous) husband, a wonderful (and paranoid) parent, and a famous (loved and hated) writer. Throughout Garp's life, many dark and life-changing events, later foreseen by the "Under Toad", shape his character as well as those of his family and loved-ones.

If you like riding the emotional roller-coaster and don't mind removing your rose-colored glasses, you ought to like this book. It is imaginative, tragic and funny...