I think the author has done a great job when it comes to the characters, as none of them is a cliche and all of them are very believable. Starting with Garp, the eternal worrier and the writer who had trouble writing because the lines between reality and fiction started to blur. Continuing to his mother, Jenny Fields, the feminist symbol who never once felt or understood lust. To Roberta Muldoon, ex-Robert and ex-Philadelphia Eagle, who sort of got the best of both worlds (knowing first hand how men think but being and acting like a woman). To Duncan, the one-eyed one-armed painter. To Bainbridge Percy nicknamed Pooh. To, last but not least, Ellen James, the young rape victim who started a whole current, becoming a symbol for desolate women everywhere (although she never approved of them).

Speaking of Ellen James, I was very shocked when I first read about the women who called themselves Ellen Jamesians — women who cut off their tongues “to protest what happened to Ellen James”, women that “must have suffered, in other ways, themselves”. To me it seemed an unspeakably horrible thing for someone to bring upon herself, regardless of their message :( I couldn’t help feeling sorry for them too though.

A quote of Garp’s that I have found interesting:

“‘If you are careful,’ Garp wrote, ‘if you use good ingredients, and you don’t take any shortcuts, then you can usually cook something very good. Sometimes it is the only worthwhile product you can salvage from a day: what you make to eat. With writing, I find, you can have all the right ingredients, give plenty of time and care and still get nothing. Also true of love. Cooking, therefore, can keep a person who tries hard sane.’”

And another one:

“To Garp, [TV's] glow looks like cancer, insidious and numbing, putting the world to sleep. Maybe television causes cancer, Garp thinks; but his real irritation is a writer’s irritation: he knows that wherever the TV glows, there sits someone who isn’t reading.”

Were I to be asked to describe the plot in more detail, I will probably find it quite hard — because there aren’t that many important facts in the book. I’ll just rephrase that. There are very few, if any, outstanding facts in the book: there are so many of them important and worth mentioning that I would have trouble choosing between them. This is probably why I have found interesting the way the author put it in the afterword in my edition: show spoiler

What I liked most: The Under Toad. The way Garp’s first short story came to be (at first he knew he wanted to write about a family; then, after a while, he chose what the father does for a living; and so on). Mentions of Vienna, having been there many times myself. The epilogue.

What I liked least: The first stories Garp wrote/told half horrified half saddened me. Especially the one about the dog and the cat he tells Walt one evening. Ugh. I cannot see anything remotely beautiful in that. They almost made me hate the book.

Recommend it to? Anyone :) Although I myself liked the book somewhat less than I thought I would, I do think it’s set to become a classic and as such I recommend everyone to give it a try. With a wee bit of reserve regarding the language (explicit every now and then).

Written by the same author:
The Cider House Rules


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