The World According to Garp: A Novel

You’ll laugh and be so amused as you read this book, which holds no punches in its writing and frankness, and has layers of societal and individual commentary for days.

Jenny Fields who in a sense rejects the idea of marriage, beds a dying soldier, becomes pregnant with Garp, and then raises him without a husband. I loved the character of Jenny, she takes the feminist role to an extreme, which I believe Irving assigns to her, to draw out a larger point about how far can movements in Feminism go before they turn to ridiculousness - not that there is anything wrong with the movement. I think about the same thing with other movements.

Jenny goes on to become a well-known writer and feminist hero. Garp, on the other hand, struggles with his writing, with romance/marriage (a thing Jenny didn’t anticipate), eventually gets published but overall is a pretty funny and dismal example of a son in the context of his strong feminist mother Jenny.

In general, this novel is complex, full of irony, and fun to read. I think I’ll have to come back to it to truly value it.

Some quotes I loved:

“…wherever the TV glowed, there sits someone who isn’t reading”

The opening line of Jenny’s famous novel:

“In this dirty-minded world, she thought, you are either somebody’s wife or somebody’s whore – or fast on your way to becoming one or the other. If you don’t fit either category, then everyone tries to make you think there is something wrong with you.”

Some words I’ve learned: Prophylatic: Medicine or course of action to prevent disease Morass:Complicated or confused situation Caustic: Sarcaastic in a scathing and bitter way