The World According to Garp

Last updated

The World According to Garp
TheWorldAccordingtoGarp.jpg
First edition
Author John Irving
Publisher E. P. Dutton
Publication date
1978
Publication placeUnited States
Pages609
ISBN 0-525-23770-4
OCLC 3345460
813/.5/4
LC Class PZ4.I714 Wo 1978 PS3559.R8
Preceded by The 158-Pound Marriage  
Followed by The Hotel New Hampshire  

The World According to Garp is John Irving's fourth novel, about a man born out of wedlock to a feminist leader, then grows up to be a writer. Published in 1978, the book was a bestseller for several years. It was a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction in 1979, [1] and its first paperback edition won the award the following year. [2] [lower-alpha 1]

Contents

A movie adaptation of the novel starring Robin Williams was released in 1982, with a screenplay written by Steve Tesich.

BBC Radio 4's Classic Serial broadcast a three-part adaptation of the novel by Linda Marshall Griffiths in January 2014. The production was directed by Nadia Molinari and featured Miranda Richardson as Jenny, Lee Ingleby as Garp, Jonathan Keeble as Roberta and Lyndsey Marshal as Helen. [3]

On 3 November 2015, Irving revealed that he'd been approached by HBO and Warner Brothers to reconstruct The World According to Garp as a miniseries. He described the project as being in the early stages. [4] According to the byline of a self-penned, 20 February 2017 essay for The Hollywood Reporter , Irving completed his teleplay for the five-part series based on The World According to Garp. [5]

Synopsis

The novel is about the life of T. S. Garp. His mother, Jenny Fields, is a strong-willed nurse who wants a child but not a husband. She encounters a dying ball turret gunner known only as Technical Sergeant Garp, who was severely brain damaged in combat. Jenny nurses Garp, observing his infantile state and almost perpetual erection. Unconstrained by convention and driven by her desire for a child, Jenny impregnates herself by raping the brain-damaged Garp once, and names the resulting son "T. S." (a name derived from "Technical Sergeant", but consisting of just initials). Jenny raises young Garp alone, taking a position as the live-in nurse at the all-boys Steering School in New England.

Garp grows up, becoming interested in sex, wrestling, and writing fiction—three topics in which his mother has little interest. After his graduation in 1961, his mother takes him to Vienna, where he writes his first novella. At the same time, his mother begins writing her autobiography, A Sexual Suspect. After Jenny and Garp return to Steering, Garp marries Helen, the wrestling coach's daughter, and begins his family—he a struggling writer, she a teacher of English. The publication of A Sexual Suspect makes his mother famous. She becomes a feminist icon, because feminists view her book as a manifesto of a woman who does not care to bind herself to a man, and who chooses to raise a child on her own. She nurtures and supports women traumatized by men, among them the Ellen Jamesians, a group of women named after an eleven-year-old girl whose tongue was cut out by her rapists to silence her. The members of the group cut out their own tongues in solidarity with Ellen, even though she opposes the practice.

Garp becomes a devoted parent, wrestling with anxiety for the safety of his children. He and his family inevitably experience dark and violent events through which the characters change and grow. Garp learns (often painfully) from the women in his life (including transgender ex-football player Roberta Muldoon), who are struggling to become more tolerant in the face of intolerance. The story contains a great deal of (in the words of Garp's fictional teacher) "lunacy and sorrow".

The novel contains several narratives: Garp's first piece of fiction, a short story entitled "The Pension Grillparzer"; "Vigilance", an essay; and the first chapter of his third novel, The World According to Bensenhaver. The book also contains some motifs that appear in other Irving novels: bears, New England, Vienna, hotels, wrestling, a person who prefers abstinence over sex, and adultery.[ citation needed ]

Background

John Irving's mother, Frances Winslow, had not been married at the time of his conception, [6] and Irving never met his biological father. As a child, he was not told anything about his father, and he told his mother that unless she gave him some information about his biological father, in his writing he would invent the father and the circumstances of how she got pregnant. Winslow would reply "Go ahead, dear." [7]

In 1981, Time magazine quoted the novelist's mother as saying "There are parts of Garp that are too explicit for me." [8]

Notes

  1. Garp won the 1980 award for paperback general Fiction. From 1980 to 1983 in National Book Awards history there were dual hardcover and paperback awards in most categories, and multiple fiction categories, especially in 1980. Most of the paperback award-winners were reprints, including this one.

    Related Research Articles

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">John Irving</span> American-Canadian novelist and screenwriter (born 1942)

    John Winslow Irving is an American-Canadian novelist, short story writer, and screenwriter.

    <i>The Color Purple</i> 1982 novel by Alice Walker

    The Color Purple is a 1982 epistolary novel by American author Alice Walker that won the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award for Fiction.

    <i>Sophies Choice</i> (novel) 1979 novel by William Styron

    Sophie's Choice is a 1979 novel by American author William Styron. The author's last novel, it concerns the relationships among three people sharing a boarding house in Brooklyn: Stingo, a young aspiring writer from the South, Jewish scientist Nathan Landau, and his lover Sophie, a Polish-Catholic survivor of the German Nazi concentration camps, whom Stingo befriends.

    <i>A Prayer for Owen Meany</i> 1989 novel by John Irving

    A Prayer for Owen Meany is the seventh novel by American writer John Irving. Published in 1989, it tells the story of John Wheelwright and his best friend Owen Meany growing up together in a small New Hampshire town during the 1950s and 1960s. According to John's narration, Owen is a remarkable boy in many ways; he believes himself to be God's instrument and sets out to fulfill the fate he has prophesied for himself.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Robin Morgan</span> American poet, writer and activist (born 1941)

    Robin Morgan is an American poet, writer, activist, journalist, lecturer and former child actor. Since the early 1960s, she has been a key radical feminist member of the American Women's Movement, and a leader in the international feminist movement. Her 1970 anthology Sisterhood Is Powerful was cited by the New York Public Library as "One of the 100 Most Influential Books of the 20th Century.". She has written more than 20 books of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, and was editor of Ms. magazine.

    Marge Piercy is an American progressive activist, feminist, and writer. Her work includes Woman on the Edge of Time; He, She and It, which won the 1993 Arthur C. Clarke Award; and Gone to Soldiers, a New York Times Best Seller and a sweeping historical novel set during World War II. Piercy's work is rooted in her Jewish heritage, Marxist social and political activism, and feminist ideals.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Pat Barker</span> British writer and novelist

    Patricia Mary W. Barker,, Hon FBA is a British writer and novelist. She has won many awards for her fiction, which centres on themes of memory, trauma, survival and recovery. Her work is described as direct, blunt and plainspoken. In 2012, The Observer named the Regeneration Trilogy as one of "The 10 best historical novels".

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Steve Tesich</span> Serbian-American screenwriter, playwright and novelist (1942–1996)

    Stojan Steve Tesich was a Serbian-American screenwriter, playwright, and novelist. He won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay in 1979 for the film Breaking Away.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Suzy McKee Charnas</span> American writer (1939–2023)

    Suzy McKee Charnas was an American novelist and short story writer, writing primarily in the genres of science fiction and fantasy. She won several awards for her fiction, including the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award and the James Tiptree Jr. Award. A selection of her short fiction was collected in Stagestruck Vampires and Other Phantasms in 2004. The Holdfast Chronicles, a four-volume story written over the course of almost thirty years was considered to be her major accomplishment in writing. The series addressed the topics of feminist dystopia, separatist societies, war, and reintegration. Another of her major works, The Vampire Tapestry, has been adapted into a play called "Vampire Dreams".

    <i>Return to Peyton Place</i> Book by Grace Metalious

    Return to Peyton Place is a 1959 novel by Grace Metalious, a sequel to her best-selling 1956 novel Peyton Place.

    <i>Lady Oracle</i> Novel by Margaret Atwood

    Lady Oracle is a novel by Margaret Atwood that parodies Gothic romances and fairy tales. It was first published by McClelland and Stewart in 1976.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Jill Paton Walsh</span> English author (1937–2020)

    Gillian Honorine Mary Herbert, Baroness Hemingford,, known professionally as Jill Paton Walsh, was an English novelist and children's writer. She may be known best for her Booker Prize-nominated novel Knowledge of Angels and for the Peter Wimsey–Harriet Vane mysteries that continued the work of Dorothy L. Sayers.

    <i>The Price of Salt</i> Novel by Patricia Highsmith

    The Price of Salt is a 1952 romance novel by Patricia Highsmith, first published under the pseudonym "Claire Morgan." Highsmith—known as a suspense writer based on her psychological thriller Strangers on a Train—used an alias as she did not want to be tagged as "a lesbian-book writer", and she also used her own life references for characters and occurrences in the story.

    <i>Until I Find You</i> 2005 novel by John Irving

    Until I Find You (2005) is the 11th published novel by John Irving. The novel was originally written in first person and only changed 10 months before publication. After realizing that so much of the material—childhood sexual abuse and a long-lost father who eventually ends up in a mental institution—was too close to his own experiences, Irving postponed publication of the novel while he rewrote it entirely in third person.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Sulfathiazole</span> Chemical compound

    Sulfathiazole is an organosulfur compound used as a short-acting sulfa drug. Formerly, it was a common oral and topical antimicrobial, until less toxic alternatives were discovered.

    <i>The World According to Garp</i> (film) 1982 film by George Roy Hill

    The World According to Garp is a 1982 American comedy-drama film produced and directed by George Roy Hill and starring Robin Williams in the title role. Written by Steve Tesich, it is based on the 1978 novel of the same title by John Irving. For their roles, John Lithgow and Glenn Close were respectively nominated for Best Actor in a Supporting Role and Best Actress in a Supporting Role at the 55th Academy Awards.

    Terry Davis is an American novelist. He was born in, and lived near Spokane, Washington for many years, and is a professor emeritus of English at Minnesota State University, Mankato, where he taught Creative writing – fiction and screenwriting – as well as adolescent literature. Davis, who has been a high school English teacher and a wrestling coach, is the author of three novels for young adults: Vision Quest (1979), Mysterious Ways (1984), and If Rock & Roll Were a Machine (1992). He has also written Presenting Chris Crutcher, a biography of the respected young-adult author.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas Williams (writer)</span> American writer

    Thomas Williams was an American novelist. He won one U.S. National Book Award for Fiction—The Hair of Harold Roux split the 1975 award with Robert Stone's Dog Soldiers—and his last published novel, The Moon Pinnace (1986), was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.

    <i>Last Night in Twisted River</i> 2009 novel by John Irving

    Last Night in Twisted River is a 2009 novel by American writer John Irving, his 12th since 1968. It was first published in the Netherlands by De Bezige Bij on September 1, 2009, in Canada by Knopf Canada on October 20, 2009, and in the United States by Random House on October 27, 2009. The novel spans five decades and is about a boy and his father who flee the logging community of Twisted River on the Androscoggin River in northern New Hampshire after a tragic accident. While on the run, the boy grows up to become a famous writer, writing eight semi-autobiographical novels. The book was included in Time's 2009 list of "the fall's most anticipated movies, books, TV shows, albums and exhibits".

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Meg Elison</span> American author and feminist essayist

    Meg Elison is an American author and feminist essayist whose writings often incorporate the themes of female empowerment, body positivity, and gender flexibility. Her debut novel, The Book of the Unnamed Midwife, won the 2014 Philip K. Dick Award, and her second novel, The Book of Etta, was nominated for the award in 2017. Elison's work has appeared in several markets, including Fantasy & Science Fiction, Terraform, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, Catapult, and Electric Literature.

    References

    1. "National Book Awards – 1979". National Book Foundation. Retrieved 14 March 2012.
    2. "National Book Awards – 1980". National Book Foundation. Retrieved 2012-03-14.
      (With essays by Deb Caletti and Craig Nova from the Awards 60-year anniversary blog.)
    3. "Episode 1: The World According to Garp". BBC Radio 4. 5 January 2014.
    4. Kevin Haynes (4 November 2015). "John Irving novel to become an HBO miniseries". Purple Clover. Retrieved 5 November 2015.
    5. Irving, John (20 February 2017). "Oscar Winner John Irving Urges Hollywood to Get Political With "Outright Bias" in Acceptance Speeches". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on 18 March 2018. Retrieved 18 February 2023.
    6. Nicholas Wroe (13 August 2005). "Grappling with life". The Observer. Retrieved 5 November 2009. His parents had married six months before his birth
    7. Ariel Leve (18 October 2009). "The world according to John Irving". The Times. Retrieved 4 November 2009.
    8. R.Z. Sheppard (31 August 1981). "Life into Art: Novelist John Irving". Time. Archived from the original on 5 November 2012. Retrieved 4 November 2009.
    Awards
    Preceded by National Book Award for Fiction
    1980
    With:
    Sophie's Choice
    William Styron
    Succeeded by
    Succeeded by