The World According to Garp

[DotCommunist]

Enjoying this actually. First chaprer hooked me in. I see what Danny's saying about the author being quite pleased with his own abilities but I reckon you can get away with that if you are any good.

 

[Fedayn]

A quote from Irving "There's a minority which is an open target in this country which no one protects, and that's rich people"

What a cunt.....
And here's why.

 

[quimcunx]

Did you enjoy the book?

 

[mrs quoad]

I really enjoyed it. Fuck the haters - definitely wouldn't class it with Zen / Alchemist.

I'm a bit amazed that it's being described as life affirming - it gets pretty dark in parts.

The film's got Robin Williams in, though, so best avoided.

Every day, I become increasingly convinced that I am actuallyfagbot. Without the funny bits.

 

[DotCommunist]

Every day, I become increasingly convinced that I am actuallyfagbot. Without the funny bits.

homophobe

 

[mrsfran]

Of course.

And will your wife graciously step aside for the better woman or fight tooth and nail like my current boyfriend's?

I'll cut you up, bitch.

On the other hand, I loved The World According to Garp.

 

[quimcunx]

I'll cut you up, bitch.

I'd never mess with you missfran.

Nosiree.

Actually we could probably make some money out of it. I'd bet the men of urban would pay good money to see a midget catfight.

 

[Fedayn]

Did you enjoy the book?

Can't stand Irving's writing full stop, the film is loathsome, Robin Williams makes it more so.

 

[Santino]

A quote from Irving "There's a minority which is an open target in this country which no one protects, and that's rich people"

What a cunt.....
And here's why.

What a dick, lol.

 

[ymu]

And? Liberal gets rich and becomes nasty cunt is hardly news.

For the moment, Irving is sulking in his tent, having fired off a letter to the Free Press last week in which he modestly insisted that he "didn't invent class warfare," and having entered a nasty public squabble with his old friend Peter Shumlin, president pro tempore of the Vermont Senate, who's "disappointed" that Irving "doesn't feel more responsibility for all of Vermont's kids. If you read his novels, his characters are often fighting for the little guy, or the person who doesn't have a voice. I don't know what's happened to John." There are people up here who honestly think he's lost his mind, including the editors of nearly every newspaper in the state and Peter Freyne, Vermont's foremost political columnist, who's been tweaking the Great Writer mercilessly in his column in the weekly Seven Days.

 

[DotCommunist]

Ok, after being amused and entertained initially, this book has started to become an empty exercise in being a bit clever-clever. Garp is entirely unlikable, the events of his life are not interesting and the author is not making statements as profound as he clearly thinks they are. The dialogue exists entirely in a fantasy land. People don't talk like that.

The plus side is that it is very artfully written, if hollow. And the sense of New England gentility- the american version of upper class, is well done.

Imma givit one more chapter and if it doesn't stop being a boring but artfully done detail of a series of largely boring events in the life of an unlikable Garp it gets sacked off for Obamas bio

 

[BlackArab]

The Hotel New Hampshire is a good one, book and film.

 

[Santino]

Ok, after being amused and entertained initially, this book has started to become an empty exercise in being a bit clever-clever. Garp is entirely unlikable, the events of his life are not interesting and the author is not making statements as profound as he clearly thinks they are. The dialogue exists entirely in a fantasy land. People don't talk like that.

The plus side is that it is very artfully written, if hollow. And the sense of New England gentility- the american version of upper class, is well done.

Imma givit one more chapter and if it doesn't stop being a boring but artfully done detail of a series of largely boring events in the life of an unlikable Garp it gets sacked off for Obamas bio

Told you so, I did.

 

[Idris2002]

A quote from Irving "There's a minority which is an open target in this country which no one protects, and that's rich people"

What a cunt.....
And here's why.

From that link:

The essence of Act 60 is that it removes control of funding for public education from individual cities and towns by imposing a statewide property tax and dividing the proceeds equally among all students -- $5,100 annually for every child in the public schools.

This has been badly needed in the US for decades. I used to vaguely know an American woman who researched education, and she told she'd come across cases of teachers paying for very basic supplies for their students -pencils, copybooks, etc. - out of their own pockets.

Thank you for bringing the case of Mr. Irving, Fed. Now I too can say 'fuck John Irving'.

 

[Reno]

I read Garp when I was fourteen and thought it was absolutely amazing, but I'm not sure how I'd feel about it now. Still it was one of the first grown up modern novels that really grabbed me. I thought the film was well cast, but ultimately its an unfilmable novel about the act of writing and the adaptaion comes up short in convening that. So far the only filmed Irving that came anywhere close too succeeding was The Door in the Floor and that's because it's a film version of only the first third of A Widow for One Year and therefore it was manageable. His novels are just too sprawling to make it into a two hour run time. Nastassia Kinski in The Hotel New Hampshire was one of the most ludicrous casting decisions ever, considering that the character in the book hides in a bear suit because she feels insecure about being overweight and having severe acne.

 

[N_igma]

Read it many years ago, it was shit imo.

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

I have not seen it for a very long time. I remember it being ace then a little bit depressing.

The film that is.