The World According to Garp, John Irving
The World According to Garp, John Irving
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The World According to Garp

Author: John Irving

Narrator: MacLeod Andrews, John Irving

Unabridged: 20 hr 54 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Penguin Audio

Published: 11/13/2018


Synopsis

A special 40th anniversary edition of the bestselling coming-of-age classic novel by John Irving, with a new introduction by the author. 

"He is more than popular. He is a Populist, determined to keep alive the Dickensian tradition that revels in colorful set pieces...and teaches moral lessons."--The New York Times 

The opening sentence of John Irving's breakout novel, The World According to Garp, signals the start of sexual violence, which becomes increasingly political. "Garp's mother, Jenny Fields, was arrested in Boston in 1942 for wounding a man in a movie theater." Jenny is an unmarried nurse; she becomes a single mom and a feminist leader, beloved but polarizing. Her son, Garp, is less beloved, but no less polarizing. 

From the tragicomic tone of its first sentence to its mordantly funny last line--"we are all terminal cases"--The World According to Garp maintains a breakneck pace. The subject of sexual hatred--of intolerance of sexual minorities and differences--runs the gamut of "lunacy and sorrow." Winner of the National Book Award, Garp is a comedy with forebodings of doom. In more than thirty languages, in more than forty countries--with more than ten million copies in print--Garp is the precursor of John Irving's later protest novels.

About The Author

John Irving has been nominated for a National Book Award three times—winning once, in 1980, for the novel The World According to Garp. In 1992, Mr. Irving was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Stillwater, Oklahoma. In 2000, he won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for The Cider House Rules—a film with seven Academy Award nominations.MacLeod Andrews is a multiple award-winning audiobook narrator. He has starred in a number of independent short and feature films and is a member of the Rising Phoenix Repertory Company in NYC. Andrews has narrated many audiobooks, including The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Testimony, and Your Fathers, Where Are They? And the Prophets, Do They Live Forever?


Reviews

Goodreads review by Emily on June 05, 2007

This book is one of my favorites. Because I like it so much, I'm not going to say much, except that it's always worth reading, even if you have read it before. There's a scene in this book it's a revealed that a high-up publisher gives all his manuscripts to his cleaning lady, and she's the one that......more

Goodreads review by Mario the lone bookwolf on January 08, 2022

A dry witted, sarcastic masterpiece, the funniest novel Irving wrote and dealing with the creative process, free love, emancipation, and parenthood. A cool fact about Irvings´ writing style is how he mixes epic descriptions with prosaic, short passages and especially hides shocking plot twists in a......more

Goodreads review by Roy on January 29, 2008

I'd say that "Lolita" and "Love in the Time of Cholera" are the two best written books I've ever read. But if I had to pick my all time favorite book I'd probably go with "The World According to Garp". Irving takes us on the path of T.S. Garp's life from conception to death and I was enthralled ever......more

Goodreads review by Tadas on April 30, 2025

It was not an easy book for me, I read about 30 pages in one sitting, I used to wonder what the hell I was reading here... but I found the desire to return again and again.......more

Goodreads review by Fabian on September 20, 2020

Indeed there are enough freaks & sufficient eccentricity here to make this a SUPER enjoyable read. It lacks what the only other Irving novel I've read so far, "A Prayer for Owen Meany," has plenty of: principally melancholia. It deviates to a semibiography of a writer, from an incredible birth story......more


Quotes

“The most powerful and profound novel about women written by a man in our generation . . . Like all extraordinary books, Garp defies synopsis. . . . A marvelous, important, permanent novel by a serious artist of remarkable powers.”—Chicago Sun-Times

“Nothing in contemporary fiction matches it. . . . Irving’s blend of gravity and play is unique, audacious, almost blasphemous. . . . Brilliant, funny, and consistently wise; a work of vast talent.”—The New Republic

“A wonderful novel, full of energy and art, at once funny and horrifying and heartbreaking.”—Washington Post