The bestselling American author John Irving is unique in the world of literature. Before writing modern-day classics such as The Cider House Rules and A Prayer for Owen Meany — both translated into thirty-five languages and made into films — he spent twenty years competing as a professional wrestler. Irving’s parents separated before he was born and he never knew his father. He was sexually abused by an older woman when he was only eleven. These experiences scarred him and are reflected in his work.
In his own words, Irving has used his large-scale, multi-layered novels to address what he calls America’s “puritanism, her pettiness, her sexual anarchy, her dysfunctional families, her damaged children, her bullying patriotism.” His great strengths are narrative and character, just like his hero, Charles Dickens.
Best-Known Work
Published in 1978, The World According to Garp was Irving’s fourth novel. A feminist book with a strong-willed heroine, it was an immediate bestseller that propelled Irving to international fame. The novel tells the tale of two lives, those of T.S. Garp and his mother Jenny. She is a Second World War nurse who wants a child, but definitely not a husband.
“I wanted a job and I wanted to live alone. That made me a sexual suspect. Then I wanted a baby, but I didn’t want to have to share my body or my life to have one. That made me a sexual suspect, too.”
“Volevo un lavoro e volevo vivere sola. Ciò mi rendeva sessualmente sospetta. E poi volevo un bambino, ma non intendevo condividere il mio corpo e la mia vita, per averlo. Anche questo mi rendeva sessualmente sospetta.”
RAPE AND PREGNANCY
One of Jenny’s patients is an airman with severe brain damage and an almost permanent erection. She rapes him and becomes pregnant. He grows up and becomes interested in sex, wrestling and writing fiction. After Garp’s graduation, in 1961, Jenny takes him to Vienna, where her son writes his first novella. She, in turn, starts writing her autobiography, entitled A Sexual Suspect.
The art of fiction
The World According to Garp is full of observations about the art of fiction. The young writer, for example, places emphasis on the importance of memory.
“It is only the vividness of memory that keeps the dead alive; a writer’s job is to imagine everything so personally that the fiction is as vivid as our personal memories.”
“O è solo la vivezza dei ricordi che serba i morti in vita, per sempre; compito dello scrittore è immaginare ogni cosa tanto personalmente che la narrazione risulti viva come i nostri ricordi personali.”
GARP AND WOMEN
Garp then marries Helen, the daughter of a wrestling coach, and begins a family. His mother, after the success of her autobiography, is now a famous feminist icon who works to support women who have been traumatised by men. Through her, Garp meets many different kinds of women, including a transgender ex-football player. He is unfaithful to his wife, but he is gentle on himself.
“He would always call her ‘the wisest of my life’s decisions’. He made some unwise decisions, he would admit; but in the first five years of his marriage to Helen, he was unfaithful to her only once – and it was brief.”
“Diceva sempre, di lei, che era stata “la più saggia delle sue decisioni”. Aveva preso delle decisioni poco sagge, in vita sua, l’ammetteva; ma durante i primi cinque anni di matrimonio, Garp fu infedele a Helen solo una volta…. e por poco tempo.”
DEVOTED BUT DESPERATE
Garp is a devoted parent who is desperately worried about the safety of his two young boys, Duncan and Walt, in a dangerous world.
“Helen knew Garp was thinking up a story to tell Walt after dinner. She knew Garp did this to calm himself whenever he was worried about the children – as if the act of imagining a good story for children was a way to keep children safe forever.”
“Helen sapeva che Garp stava inventando una storia da raccontare a Walt dopocena. Faceva così, Garp, per calmarsi, ogni qual volta era preoccupato per i figlioli: come se inventando una bella storia per i figli riuscisse a garantirgli l’incolumità per sempre.”
In fact, Garp’s fears extend much further than the safety of his two children; he is obsessed with mortality. This is another recurring theme in Irving’s books and in his own life.
“It had been an unpleasant sensation for Garp, shortly after Duncan turned six, to smell that Duncan’s breath was stale and faintly foul in his sleep … This was Garp’s first awareness of the mortality of his son.”
Era stata per Garp una sgradevole sensazione, accorgersi che il fiato di Duncan, dopo i sei anni compiuti, si era fatto pesante e un po’ cattivo, durante il sonno. […] Fu così che Garp si rese conto per la prima volta che anche suo figlio era mortale.
Garp and his family experience some troubling events, which transform and evolve the characters. They culminate in a horrific accident, which more than justifies Garp’s fears.
TYPICAL IRVING
The novel has many of the elements of a typical Irving work. It contains numerous Irving motifs, including bears, wrestling and adultery. It has a complex Dickensian plot and the story is told in wonderfully entertaining prose. When Irving wrote it, he thought that its theme of sexual hatred would quickly become dated. In fact, in these times of sexual intolerance and violence, the book has never been more topical.