{"id":4575,"date":"2006-03-02T12:32:34","date_gmt":"2006-03-02T17:32:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=4575"},"modified":"2022-10-09T22:47:52","modified_gmt":"2022-10-10T02:47:52","slug":"happy-birthday-john-irving","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=4575","title":{"rendered":"Happy Birthday, John Irving!"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of our best storytellers. I’ve been reading John Irving’s books since high school when I first read The World According to Garp<\/a>\"\"<\/i>. I think, in retrospect, my favorite of his books is The Cider House Rules<\/a>\"\"<\/i> – (can’t even really think about it without getting goosebumps) – but in terms of an emotional reading experience – A Prayer for Owen Meany: A Novel<\/a>\"\"<\/i> is up there in the top 5 – as one of the most intense and powerful reading experiences I’ve ever had. The book blindsided me. It is one of a handful of books where I spontaneously burst out crying at the last sentence. (In case you’re interested – the other books in that very rare category are Geek Love<\/i> – don’t even get me started – and Atonement<\/i> – don’t even get me started again). I think, in terms of structure, impact, importance – Cider House Rules<\/i> is his best book – so far – but … argh – I don’t want to commit to that!<\/p>\n

My family are all huge John Irving fans – and my group of college friends are all Irving maniacs – led by Mitchell and David, primarily. I strayed away from the Irving oeuvre in the late 90s … I just felt too wiped OUT by Owen Meany<\/i> – which I had read in 1991 (I remember where I was, what I was wearing, what the day was like, etc., when I finished that book) – and somehow … I was done with John Irving. For a while. Mitchell and David were the torch-bearers for Irving, saying to me… “Have you read A Widow for One Year<\/a>\"\"<\/i>?” “Have you read Son of the circus<\/i>?” Etc. They kept up with him. The release of a new John Irving book is anticipated, waited for, countdowns going on … “It comes out on April 1!!”<\/p>\n

The story of how Garp<\/i> came to be – and how his fourth novel took off in a way that other writers only DREAM of – is now the stuff of legend. Irving is quite honest about the fact that all of his books somehow have to do with absentee fathers – because he has never met his father. His father took off when Irving was a baby, never to be heard from again. One of the reasons that Irving’s idol, as a writer, is Charles Dickens (no surprise there – he is Dickens’ American heir) – is because of Dickens’ neverending theme of abandoned children. Children have to fend for themselves in Dickens’ work – and adults are notoriously unreliable, evil, and selfish. Irving felt really inspired by that. He said once: “My imaginary reader has been my father. Surely, in one novel after another, I’ve been inventing fathers. I’ve been making them up. I have a ceaseless capacity to make up the missing part, to fill in the blanks, and he was a blank in my life.”<\/p>\n

Amazing … if Irving’s father HADN’T abandoned his child – then perhaps John Irving would not be the artist he is today.<\/p>\n

Irving fans: what are your favorites of his books?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of our best storytellers. I’ve been reading John Irving’s books since high school when I first read The World According to Garp. I think, in retrospect, my favorite of his books is The Cider House Rules – (can’t even … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[39,9],"tags":[227],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4575"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4575"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4575\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":178994,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4575\/revisions\/178994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}