What the critics said
John Irving’s fourth novel, The World According to Garp, quickly became a bestseller, shocking and titillating readers at the same time. Here’s what some of the most-read critics had to say about the book when it first came out in the spring of 1978.
“This, surely, is the stuff of pulp fiction, in which improbable characters and highly spiced incidents jostle for attention. But John Irving’s fourth novel is something more than highcamp entertainment; it’s a skilfully crafted black comedy that confirms the 36-year-old American author’s reputation as one of the best young novelists writing today.” Ken Adachi, Toronto Star, June 3, 1978
“I know. Rape and mutilation aren’t the least bit funny. Nor are brain damage and automobile collisions. Nor, for that matter, is a former tight end for the Philadelphia Eagles named Roberta Muldoon who has given up professional football to become a transsexual. Nor is the “First Feminist Funeral,” held for Garp’s mother after she has been assassinated by a crazed antifeminist deer hunter, which funeral Garp attends in drag because no men are to be admitted, and then gets mugged when he is recognized by the younger sister of a former girlfriend. At least these things oughtn’t to be funny. Still, the way that Mr. Irving writes about them, they are. The way he filters them through his hero’s unique imagination, we not only laugh at the world according to Garp, but we also accept it and love it.” Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, New York Times, April 13, 1978 “You know The World According to
Garp is true. It is also terrific. On the most elementary level, I kept reading to find out what would happen next and when it had all finally happened, I didn’t want it to stop. So I read it again, and it seemed just as true the second time around, as full of the hilarity of survival as the pain, an X-rated soap opera that runs from the ridiculous to the sublime.” William McPherson, Washington Post, April 30, 1978 “Although it was unlikely to travel,
The World According To Garp caught on in America as a piece of contemporary surrealism with a handful of ‘memorable’ incidents — like an English major whose penis gets bitten off in a car crash. It was sick, especially when set against its academic, Waspy background.
But at the time of its publication — Monty Python was big on U.S. college campuses just then — what mattered was that it was bizarre.
There was, however, an emptiness in the book — a sense that like the scene on the front seat of the Buick, Irving had bitten off more than he could chew. In place of the wit and insight that the book required, Irving could only manage a series of stilted, longwinded yarns that never seemed to reveal their underlying subject. Even Irving’s relationship with his characters was ambiguous — was he for them, against them or neutral?” Stephen Games, The Guardian, June 5, 1989 (topping a review of A Prayer for Owen Meany)