In fear of being thought a cliche, I must admit that I don't believe I have ever read a book quite like this one. To describe it would be akin to telling someone to climb up a rather steep hill and once you reached the top to run as fast as you can down the opposite side. If you stumble and end up tumbling end over end the rest of the way, all the better.
We meet Jenny Fields as she has just been accosted by a man in a movie theater. She handles this by whipping out her dented scalpel, she is a nurse after all, and cuts him to the bone. He lives and this is how the story of T.S. Garp begins.
Jenny wants a kid, but not a man who sticks around to give her one, so she ostensibly rapes a soldier on the verge of death in a hospital where she works. She succeeds in her task, and quickly goes through pregnancy. She raises her son, who she has named T.S. Garp after his father, (the T.S. stands for Technical Sargent as she never knew the man's first name) at the Steering School for Boys where she is a nurse once again.
GOOD POINT: Jenny is a wonderful mother despite the whispers surrounding Garp's conception. I admire this character so much. Hands down she was my favorite. Though she hovers over Garp and worries, I never felt it was overbearing. I think it helped that the character was never annoying. Now, I'm not going to excuse how she got pregnant, bottom line what she did was wrong, but I feel the whole point was to give the MC this great Creation Story. Also, Jenny is asexual and I adore how that is portrayed in her character.
Garp has some misadventures as a child that leads to him having a foe in a dog that bites off his ear and with the Percy family who is in charge of the Steering school, which he eventually attends.
He meets Helen, the daughter of his wrestling coach, who says that she could never marry just a wrestler, he would have to be a writer too. Thus begins Garp's journey of becoming a great writer.
Throughout the novel Garp writes three stories that we see and a fourth unfinished one that we only get the title of. Each story is shown to us and by this I mean the story of Garp is stalled while we read the stories written by this character. It's a book within a book!
The first story is the The Pension Grillparzer which is published shortly after his mother's novel A Sexual Suspect. The entirety of this short story is put within the pages of this book and I'll admit here and now that I did not get the significance of doing this with each of his books. In fact I skipped most of the second one. I guess this was fine as no one really liked that one according to Garp's publisher.
Garp's first story doesn't earn him fame and fortune, but it does earn him Helen's hand in marriage. On the flip side, his mother does get infamous for her story, getting labeled a leader of the feminist movement.
GOOD POINT: The contrasting stories of the various women within the feminist movement in this book. The fact that while Jenny doesn't consider herself a feminist, she knows her words are important to the movement so she goes along with it. Sadly this ultimately leads to her death. Additionally, the characters we meet within these women, most notably Roberta Muldoon, are quite spectacular.
GOOD POINT: Roberta Muldoon. She was the other shining light of this story next to Jenny. She is an M to F Trans and her story is beautiful. She and Garp become best friends and their relationship is one that could make anyone smile. I simply adored this character and though I am not a member of that community I felt that her story is pretty close to how it should always be portrayed.
The last bit of the first half is where we struggle to finally reach the precipice of our hill. It slowed down at this point and for a while I felt like putting the book down, but thankfully I had gained a solid momentum, not to mention a deadline to finish this for my book club, that I pressed onward.
Garp and Helen have a dysfunctional marriage. I'm not going to sugar coat this. It is toxic and dysfunctional and ultimately leads to the death and injury of their children. They both take part in infidelity and both seem to think it is justified. Though they realize that they truly love the other after the fact, the very act of cheating on your spouse should not be a step taken to determine your love for them. It's counter productive and the only reason I feel this marriage didn't end in divorce is that it just wasn't something you did back then.
I find that a book that on the outside seems progressive would have these two characters stay together instead of going through a very real thing like divorce is a bit underwhelming. If my husband was a serial cheater who constantly slept with my kids babysitters, I would drop him so quick. Not to mention the fact that Helen and Jenny financially support his ass.
And on the flip side, if my husband found out I was sleeping with one of my students while I taught at a local university I would full on expect him to divorce me no questions asked. The fact that Helen thinks she is alright and tries to end her side relationship on her terms is just laughable. You don't get to dictate a bad situation that you caused. At that point you own up to it and do anything you can to make it right regardless of the outcome.
GOOD POINT: The car accident. I think the fact that people have complained about how gruesome this scene is shows a lack of understanding about the real world and just how cruel it can be. Was this scene disturbing? Of course, it wouldn't have had the same effect if it hadn't been. Walt, Garp and Helen's youngest son dies horribly after Garp accidentally crashes their car into Helen's lover's car while she is servicing him as a final goodbye. Duncan, their oldest, loses an eye. The lover loses his male parts while the remaining adults only suffer minor injuries in comparison. It is important that this is described just like it is. This is the consequence of the character's choices and sometimes those consequences aren't pretty.
At this point we are well on our way down the hill. Garp and Helen get back together and decide that the only way they can move on is by having another baby. I truly don't get this, but I also understand that different people grieve in different ways. From this a daughter Jenny, named after Garp's mother, is born.
Garp's third and more popular book is written and that lands him the fame and fortune the Irving had us waiting for. In a way it attracts the same type of infamous response as his mother's book did. This is taken all in stride.
GOOD POINT: The fact that Garp never lets the crazies from the Feminist movement get him down. He fights for what he believes and does help many women with the support of Roberta Muldoon. He takes over what his mother left behind and I found it fascinating. Here we have what many would see as the typical man's man standing up for women and leading the charge with an organization all his own. I feel that this is the type of character that could potentially help men see what needs to be seen.
It's at this point that we are coming to the end and we get the feeling that it won't end well. We are not left disappointed. Garp is shot, and the people he leaves behind are forever altered. The book does this weird recap of each character, letting you know what happened to them. It almost felt how the show Six Feet Under ended because there is a lot of death.
I don't feel much toward the ending except I couldn't imagine it ending any other way.
GOOD POINT: Despite the fact that this is a book well over 500 pages it reads very quickly and easily. Like I mentioned the only part I somewhat skipped over was the second novel of Garp's just because I didn't see it having any bearing on the overall story. I'm pretty sure I was correct in that.
BAD POINT: The Ellen Jamesians. They are a group of fanatics that are mentioned throughout the entirety of the story. They are also the absolute fucking worst kind of feminist, nay, human beings. They are all that is wrong with any kind of movement. These days you would call them SJW's or social justice warriors. They are a poor excuse for anything decent and ultimately end up ruining any cause they get behind. While I am glad that the book depicts them as they should be depicted it didn't stop me from cringing every time they appeared. I was fully on Garp's side when it came to them, no doubt.
I enjoyed this book and I think I would like to read more from John Irving. Based on what I have seen an excellent second choice would be A Prayer for Owen Meany which supposedly is what the movie Simon Birch is loosely based on. Color me intrigued.
5 out of 5 stars
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Beware the undertoad...
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