John Irving
John Irving is a celebrated American novelist known for his distinctive narrative style that blends humor, tragedy, and complex themes. He gained fame with his novel "The World According to Garp" (1982), which not only became a bestseller but also received the American Book Award and was adapted into a film featuring Robin Williams. Born John Wallace Blunt Jr., Irving's early life influenced his writing, particularly his experiences in Vienna during the 1960s, which inspired motifs like caged bears symbolizing primal nature. His works often explore moral dilemmas and familial relationships, as seen in novels such as "The Cider House Rules" (1999) and "A Prayer for Owen Meany" (1989).
Irving's storytelling is characterized by its emotional depth, engaging characters, and a blend of serious themes with dark humor. While some critics argue that his work lacks the complexity of literary giants like Charles Dickens, others appreciate his traditional narrative style and moral sensibility. Over his career, he has produced a variety of acclaimed novels, with his most recent work, "The Last Chairlift" (2022), continuing to showcase his exploration of love and societal issues. Despite facing mixed reviews in recent years, Irving’s unique voice and themes resonate with many readers, making him a significant figure in contemporary literature.
John Irving
Author
- Born: March 2, 1942
- Place of Birth: Exeter, New Hampshire
Biography
John Winslow Irving—born John Wallace Blunt Jr.—has the rare distinction of having achieved critical acclaim and tremendous commercial success. He sprang from relative obscurity to fame with The World According to Garp (1982), which became a best-seller, received the American Book Award as the best paperback novel of 1979, and was made into a film starring Robin Williams in 1982. His next novel, The Hotel New Hampshire (1984), was also a best seller and adapted for the screen.
Irving was born to Frances Winslow Irving, and in 1961, he graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy (the school became the model for the Steering School in The World According to Garp), where his stepfather, Colin F. N. Irving, was treasurer and instructor of Russian history. There, he was a much better wrestler than student. Wrestling also became a recurrent metaphor in his writing. He attended the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Vienna, Austria, before his graduation cum laude in 1965 from the University of New Hampshire. In 1967, he received an MFA from the University of Iowa, where he studied with the novelists Vance Bourjaily and Kurt Vonnegut.
Irving’s years as a bohemian student in Vienna, in 1963 and 1964, informed his first novel, Setting Free the Bears (1968). Caged or trained bears have been a recurring motif in his fiction, a central image associated with primal nature, wildness, and the soul. In this darkly picaresque novel of the 1960s, the popular ideal of freedom is expressed by a plot to set free all the animals in the Vienna Zoo, where a spectrum of primal human nature is suggested by the contrast between timid Rare Spectacled Bears and brutal Famous Asiatic Bears. Underlying this and all of Irving’s novels is World War II, when the Prussian bear was released by Adolf Hitler.
In 1963, while taking a summer course in German at Harvard University, Irving met Shyla Leary, a student at Radcliffe and a painter who later became a professional photographer. In August 1964, they were married in Greece and had two sons, Colin and Brendan. The family became the center of value in Irving’s vision. His comic novel The Water-Method Man (1972) is about a doctoral student in literature at the University of Iowa named Bogus, who loses his family through his folly, then matures in part through a trip to Vienna, where he learns lessons in the dark realities of history and human nature—something that happens recurrently in Irving’s novels. In The 158-Pound Marriage (1973), the narrator, a novelist and university teacher, loses his family through an experiment in mate swapping. Two of the sexual foursome come from Vienna, and three end up there, leaving the American narrator behind, ironically, as the least perceptive of the four. Throughout his fiction, Irving shatters middle-class illusions of security with violence, pain, and sudden death while affirming courage, stoical realism, moral responsibility (especially to children), and transcendence through imagination. The world is a dangerous place in his novels, especially at home.
With his fourth novel, The World According to Garp, Irving set free the bear of his own soul in a style that was baroque, agonized, and bravely comic. A response to American feminism of the 1970s, it generated a mass cultural reaction characterized in the popular media as “Garpomania.” Irving suddenly became a huge success, a cultural hero, even a sex symbol (he was featured on the cover of Time magazine, August 31, 1981, as the handsome “Garp Creator”). The World According to Garp provoked extreme reactions that confirmed its vision of extreme conflict between the sexes. Some readers disliked the exaggeration and violence, others disapproved of the explicit sex, and many hated the satire of feminist excesses. T. S. Garp is not Irving, but the novel does reveal the author in its tones and form, transcending autobiography but deriving its passion and satirical inspiration from what is deeply personal. Irving is a feminist in his public life, and the novel is feminist in a humanistic spirit that is critical of intolerance and fanaticism. Garp’s mother becomes a celebrated feminist leader, while Garp is made to feel like garp, or vomit. The first story Garp writes, “The Pension Grillparzer,” is an allegory of how feminism is affecting society, represented by the pension; the male soul is represented by a trained bear who dies of mortification in a zoo. Though uneven in quality, the novel has a loosely allegorical form of great complexity.
Irving’s next novel, The Hotel New Hampshire (1984), idealizes the family in the way of a fairy tale. After its publication, Irving was separated from his wife. The Cider House Rules (1999) is an allegorical polemic on the subject of abortion, as Irving continues to wrestle with moral and psychological problems important to his generation. A Prayer for Owen Meany (1989) details the Christlike actions of the eponymous Owen, a character so tiny that he can be lifted with one hand. Owen’s efforts to keep his best friend, Johnny (also the narrator), from going to Vietnam point to the tragedy of that war and allow Irving room for philosophizing about an era.
In A Son of the Circus (1994), Irving tells the story of Dr. Farrokh Daruwalla, a Canadian citizen and middle-aged orthopedic surgeon who periodically returns to Bombay to treat children with disabilities. In the tradition of his earlier efforts, this novel underscores the author’s enduring interest in exploring moral and psychological dilemmas. Trying to Save Piggy Sneed, published in Europe in 1993, assembles several of Irving’s short stories and periodical pieces, including “Almost in Iowa” and “Weary Kingdom.”
A Widow for One Year (1998) presents three pivotal moments in the life of its protagonist, Ruth Cole. The first occurs when four-year-old Ruth finds her mother having sex with her writer father’s sixteen-year-old assistant. The second is in 1990, when Ruth is now a successful writer, but her love life is in shambles, and the third is in 1995 when she finally can love. The novel is not only another entry in Irving’s depictions of dysfunctional families but also a meditation on the writing life and its effects on those who follow it. The Fourth Hand (2001) is the story of a handsome, shallow television reporter, Patrick Wallingford, who loses his hand to a lion while covering a circus. A widow, Doris Clausen, offers her recently dead husband’s hand to be grafted onto his arm in return for his fathering a child with her. From this absurdist start, Patrick spends the rest of the novel slowly becoming the kind of man whom Doris will love.
A Sound Like Someone Trying Not to Make a Sound (2003) is a children's book written by Irving and illustrated by Tatjana Hauptmann. Several of his subsequent novels, including Until I Find You (2005), Last Night in Twisted River (2009), and In One Person (2012), received mixed reviews from critics, although his 2015 novel Avenue of Mysteries received strong critical acclaim. After a seven-year gap, Irving published a historical fiction novel, The Last Chairlift (2022)—a tale of love, sexual politics, and ghost stories.
Irving’s detractors have charged that his fiction lacks the complexity and depth of Charles Dickens, his most comparable model and that it is ordinary in style and often structurally faulty, contrived, and sentimental. For some academic critics, Irving’s traditionalism, generosity of spirit, moral sense, and belief in character and plot seemed unimportant in a postmodernist period of literary history. Others argue that such works as The World According to Garp would outlast such criticism. The unusual characteristics of Irving’s novels are popular: emphatic storytelling, emotional power, likable characters, humor, wholesome sentiments, and hopeful endings.
Author Works
Fiction
Setting Free the Bears, 1969
The Water-Method Man, 1972
The 158-Pound Marriage, 1974
The World According to Garp, 1978
The Hotel New Hampshire, 1981
The Cider House Rules, 1985
A Prayer for Owen Meany, 1989
A Son of the Circus, 1994
A Widow for One Year, 1998
The Fourth Hand, 2001
A Sound Like Someone Trying Not to Make a Sound, 2004
Until I Find You, 2005
Last Night in Twisted River, 2009
In One Person, 2012
Avenue of Mysteries, 2015
The Last Chairlift, 2022
Nonfiction
The Imaginary Girlfriend, 1996
My Movie Business: A Memoir, 1999
Screenplays
The Cider House Rules, 1999
Miscellaneous
Trying to Save Piggy Sneed, 1996
Bibliography
Bloom, Harold. John Irving. Chelsea, 2009.
Christ, Birte. "Irving, John." The Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Fiction 1980–2020, vol. 1, 2022, pp. 1-6. doi.org/10.1002/9781119431732.ecaf0077.
Campbell, Josie R. John Irving: A Critical Companion. Greenwood Press, 1998.
Friend, Tad. "On the Mat." New Yorker, vol. 91, no. 40, 2015, p. 28. Literary Reference Center Plus, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lkh&AN=111412813&site=lrc-plus. Accessed 28 Apr. 2017.
Harter, Carol C., and James R. Thompson. John Irving. Twayne, 1986.
Miller, Gabriel. John Irving. Frederick Ungar, 1982.
Priestley, Michael. “Structure in the Worlds of John Irving.” Critique 23, no. 1, 1981, pp. 82-96.
Reilly, Edward C. Understanding John Irving. University of South Carolina Press, 1991.
Van Gelder, Lindsy. Review of A Widow for One Year, by John Irving. The Nation, vol. 127, 11 May 1988, pp. 52-55.
Zhao, Xue, and Guanting Li. "Study on Narrative Skills in John Irving’s Novels." Theory and Practice in Language Studies, vol. 13, no. 1, 2023, pp. 202-206. doi.org/10.17507/tpls.1301.23.