Movie Review: The World According to Garp

The World According to Garp

What can I say about "The World According to Garp" other than, 'in the world according to Garp, we are all terminal cases.'  It's the most haunting last line in all of literature, and after reading the book by John Irving, I felt so touched I decided to start this blog.  I just needed to get some emotion out, and this is where I turned.  That was November 2004 - it's been a long time.

I started the blog to remember my thoughts on books that I read, because I had a hard time learning that things I read eventually left my head.  Ironically, if you asked me what the plot of the book was about before I watched the movie, I would only give you snippets.  I remember Ellen James and I remember a horrible scene in a driveway.  And I remember the last line.  Haunting.  It was so powerful, and it lead me to read more John Irving... some, like 'A Prayer for Owen Meany' I fell in love with, while others, such as 'The Fourth Hand' fell short.

Book: "The World According to Garp" by John Irving
Movie: "The World According to Garp"
Book Publication Date: 1978
Movie Production Date: 1982
Read: November 2004
Watched: February 2011
Stars: 4

When this movie began, I felt it was not penetrating me.  The time flew by as I watched it, but I did not really feel it at all.  I'm not sure if I felt this when reading the novel, but I do remember that the book was like the movie... a lot was packed into the end.  After the 1 hour and 30 minute mark, I was hooked, and the last 45 minutes were haunting and emotional.

I must state that the movie did the book justice, and I was really afraid that it would not.  The memories of the book came flooding back, and I remember some of the passion I had for the novel I read more than six years ago.  That said, the movie will never be what the book was to me... though, it was a good experience and I'm glad I watched it.

I expected a good performance by Robin Williams, though I was expecting him to be 'sillier' - probably a reason I wasn't that excited about giving the movie a try.  He was much truer to character than I thought he would be, and I was glad for that.  Another thing that surprised me was seeing John Lithgow as the transgender woman.  Honestly, I think he stole the performance from Robin Williams.  I didn't look it up, but I hope he won something for it.  I liked John Lithgow from the moment I saw him as a child in 'Harry and the Hendersons', but he won me over with his performance in '3rd Rock from the Sun', one of very few programs that I have ever been attached to - 99% due to his performances.

Anyway, I am rambling on here and I am probably doing a disservice to the movie with this shoddy review, but I am not a fan of giving away the plot and I think you should always read the literature first.  My primary intention in this post is to let you know if the movie does the book justice, and I'm happy to report that in this case, it does.

Would love to know your thoughts.

The Fourth Hand | John Irving

Author's Nationality: American
Author's Original Name: John Wallace Blunt, Jr.
Original Language: English
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 352

I must have known somehow about how Patrick Wallingford lost his left hand prior to my post a couple of weeks ago on the opening line from the novel.  It gets eaten by a lion.  Okay, this is not really a spoiler... you find it out in the first chapter or two which leads me to believe that I've read a portion of this book before and put it down before completion.

I'm not going to say much about this book except that it pales in comparison to both "The World According to Garp" and "A Prayer for Owen Meany", both books I absolutely loved.

This book is about Patrick Wallingford, a ladies man and a journalist that loses his hand.  The novel is really a different type of love story where Patrick finally falls in love with a women who is not just some girl who wants to sleep with him (he's basically what some term as 'easy' and just waits to be approached by women because he's so good looking).  The book was plastered with sexuality, and some would say sexual perversion.  I suppose it's up to the reader to make a judgement call on that one - I will just say that I after a while I was thinking 'okay, Irving... enough with all this sex.  I don't want to read a Harlequin romance novel."

SPOILERS BEGIN HERE.

The premise is this:  Wallingford loses his hand to a lion.  He hates his job as a journalist because journalism is not what it used to be - it's smutty.  He sleeps around with women and has only two long term relationships.  Eventually, a woman out of nowhere offers her husband's hand as a transplant.  This man, Otto, eventually gets killed (accidentally by himself in typical Irving style) and his hand is surgically attached to Wallingford.  He impregnates this woman as a 'service' for the hand and now he has a baby with a woman that he 'loves' - this woman doesn't give him the time of day... she only cares about the hand.  She replaces the love of the hand for the child she bears (and thus, the hand doesn't have a reason for living anymore and eventually 'dies').  Wallingford finally gets fired from his job and eventually gets Otto's ex-wife to agree to marry him because she wants to try to love him.  Throw in a bunch of sex and that's it in a nutshell.

I think all the sex* took away from the book, and while the love story was there and interesting (since it was atypical), the novel on the whole did very little for me.  It wasn't as funny as "A Prayer for Owen Meany" and it didn't have any strong messages that either Garp or Owen Meany had that I believe will stick with me.  The characters weren't really endearing and not a lot actually happened.  Let's just say that I wasn't impressed, and if I read another Irving novel it would probably be "The Cider House Rules" because I've heard that that's really the only other one that is a decent read.

Anyone else have opinions on Irving or this novel?

*Note: There is a good chart of Irving's reoccurring themes and sexual variations here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Irving

QUOTATIONS:
"...books, and sometimes movies, are more personal than that; they can be mutually appreciated, but the specific reasons for loving them cannot satisfactorily be shared." 322

"What do medical school students know about having lives?  They haven't had time to have lives." 347

A Prayer for Owen Meany | John Irving

You are not a fan of literature, if you don't feel something strong for little Owen Meany. In fact, as I write this... I feel I know what he would say to that: WHY DOES EVERYONE INSIST ON CALLING ME LITTLE, AS IF IT IS A DISEASE?

Owen was someone who you just couldn't help but like. His voice threw you for a loop, his height made you take him lightly... but Owen inspired everyone, and he commanded respect. His brash actions had a purpose to them, potentially because he believed everything happend FOR A REASON. His proclamation that he was "GOD'S INSTRUMENT" not only baffled religious church goer'ers (pun intended), but also the very ministers who preached about a higher power.

Now, I have never been a "religious man." Ask me what I was baptized as, and I couldn't tell you. Ask me my philosophies on organized religion, and you will not hear the words that you would ever want to repeat in a congragation filled with the converted. No, I am a man who questions religion but does not entirely cast it aside. My beliefs about religion are the same as my beliefs about a lot of things. Present to me an argument or an opinion, and I will make a decision on it. If I cannot, I will think hard about it.


This book, however, isn't about religion. It's about faith, but it's also about the state of our society, the principles we uphold and the fears we face (or run from). It's about challenging people and principles, and making an impact in the world by being who you are. Owen Meany was ahead of his time. His words from the 60's mirror some of the problems that society is still faced with today. His best friend, and the rest of us, live with the lessons he taught us... in this world filled with questions of faith and morality, and feelings of hopelessness.


Strongly recommend that you give this one a go.

Thomas Hardy & John Irving

"Tess of D'Ubervilles" and Thomas Hardy's work in general, has been reference quite frequently in "A Prayer for Owen Meany." So much so, that I find myself deeply moved enough to warrant reading one of his novels in the near future. Irving cautions us, that Hardy is so difficult to comprehend and unravel that one would even be better off reading Dostoevsky's "The Brother's Karamazov." I was told, by my best friend's mother that this was a book that I needed to read, when I was ready for it. I still don't know if I am. I find it quite ironic though, that at a book club meeting I suggested two novels: "A Prayer for Owen Meany" and "The Brother's Karamazov" (both of which were turned down). However, "The Brother's Karamazov" was unanimously consented to in my book club... so I wager that we will get to it either this year, or early next.

Anyhow, I digress. I came onto the blog, to share you a quote from Thomas Hardy (which I excerpted directly from "A Prayer for Owen Meany." I hope you enjoy it... it encompasses a lot of my feelings towards literature.

"A story must be exceptional enough to justify its telling. We storytellers are all ancient mariners, and none of us is justifed in stopping wedding guests, unless he has something more unusual to relate than the ordinary experiences of every average man and woman."

And one more, from the point of view of Owen Meany, a chacter of Irving's:

"Think of Hardy as a man who was almost religious, as a man who came so close to believing in God that when he rejected God, his rejection made him ferociously bitter. The kind of fate Hardy believes in is almost like believing in God - at least in that terrible, judgemental God of the Old Testament. Hardy hates institutions: the church- more than faith or belief - and certainly marriage (the instituion of it), and the insitution of education. People are helpless to fate, victims of time - their own emotions undo them, and social institutions of all kinds fail them.

Don't you see how a belief in such a bitter universe is not unlike relious faith? Like faith, what Hardy believed was naked, plan, vulnerable. Belief in God, or a belief that - eventually - has tragic consequences... either way, you don't leave yourself any room for philosophical detachment. Either way, you're not being very clever. Never think of Hardy as clever; never confuse faith, or belief - of any kind - with something even remotely intellectual. That's why I say he was 'almost religious' - because he wasn't a great thinker, he was a great FEELER."

Irving, on television

"Television gives good disaster. I suppose this was nothing but a more vernacular version of my grandmother's observation of the effect of TV on old people: that watching it would hasten their deaths. If watching television doesn't hasten death, it surely manages to make death very inviting; for telvision so shamelessly sentimentalizes and romanticizes death that it makes the living feel they have missed something- just by staying alive."

400 pages through. Irving has made this novel far too long, but he does bring up some very interesting points throughout. The hilariousness of the first four chapters is in total contrast to the seriousness of the last four chapters (although, I must admit to not being able to trust my emotions entirely, right now).

It's not "The World According to Garp," but it is very spellbinding, just the same. Will post some information about the bookclub, shortly.

A Prayer for the Owen Meany's of the world

An excerpt from "A Prayer for Owen Meany", for my sweetie...

"I want you to meet him," she said to us all.

"You've dated him?" my grandmother asked.

"No! I just met him-just today, on today's train!" my mother said.

"And already you like him?" Lydia asked, in a tone of voice so perfectly copied from my grandmother that I had to look to see which one of them was speaking.

"Well, yes," my mother said seriously. "You know such things. You don't need that much time."

"How many times have you known such things-before?" my grandmother asked.

"This is the first time, really," my mother said. "That's why I know."
----
For those of you romantics, you must watch the movie "Before Sunrise." This excerpt, reminds me of that movie as well.

The World According to Garp | John Irving

I have just finished the book "The World According to Garp" by John Irving. Period. The book was, to speak simply and inarticulately, one of the best books I have ever read. It is definitely what would be referred to as a 'modern day classic' which I assume will eventually become a book spoken in the same likeness as "The Catcher in the Rye" by J.D. Salinger. As you all know, Salinger's novel is my favourite book of all time.

"The World According to Garp" touched me beyond belief. I quite honestly, was close to tears. At points, I was prone to fits of laughter. Some lines were spoken so eloquently that they made me appreciate the beauty of the english language, and of human thought. As far as I am concerned, our world is split into two categories: those that have been touched by "The World According to Garp," and those who have yet to read it. Quite simply put, you must read this book before you leave this earth.

"In the World According to Garp, we are all terminal cases."