I didn't love this like I've loved John Irving's other novels, but I did like it a lot. I wouldn't recommend it as a first Irving novel, because I don't think it's his best, but it is distinctly an Irving novel. It's entirely too long and revisits a lot of elements from his other novels (single p...
I am a long-standing fan of John Irving; "A Prayer for Owen Meany" is one of my Three Desert Island Books. I found it very difficult to assign an accurate # of stars to "Last Night in Twisted River". On the one hand, there are pages of beautiful, clear and evocative writing. On the other, there a...
Come un disegno di EscherAvvertenze.Prima di iniziare questo romanzo, siete pregati di munirvi del seguente Book-kit:-Un vasto, quanto variegato campionario di espressioni facciali, da sfoggiare di pari passo con le molteplici emozioni di queste quasi 600 pagine. C'è di tutto, ma proprio tutto; d...
Are lives predestined or do people have the choice to determine their futures? Are we bound to follow in the steps of one or both of our parents and have neither the powers nor abilities to change or even influence the ultimate outcome? What our early beliefs are tainted with deceit? Will this ha...
I pulled into Iowa City yesterday afternoon, not planning to be in Iowa at all when I had woken up that morning. But while I was mowing my front yard, my son came up to me and said his ride back to college had fallen through; there was something about a texted dispute with the girl driving him a...
I just finished reading John Irving’s The Fourth Hand. While it is worth noting that I have previously read both The World According to Garp and A Prayer for Owen Meany, found each to be better than The Fourth Hand, and recommend that you read both, The Fourth Hand is especially significant today...
I’d forgotten what an intoxicating writer John Irving is. His compelling prose has a clarity and starkness that manages to entertain your brain and soul while permanently incorporating his characters and stories into your memory and being.Irving is not one of those writers who kicks out a new nov...
I shouldn't be throwing semicolons around too often; and yet, after reading Irving, what do I find myself doing? semicolon, semicolon, SEMICOLON ; ; ; ; I'm not winking at you; those are semicolons.. now you know what I mean. Irving affects me in many ways -- the semicolons are just one example...
I have been meaning to revisit John Irving lately. I’ve been re-reading War and Peace over this Easter break, but I wanted to take a break between each book within the novel and read something else. So I took a look at what the library had to offer for Irving, and I thought this would be a good t...
One of my most revelatory professional discoveries is also stupidly simple. It’s this, courtesy of Bob Probst: Reading is a selfish venture.It is. Of course it is. I’m disappointed in myself for not realizing it earlier, because it’s a principle – probably one of the top two or three – that guid...
A collection of one dozen short works includes the title piece, a loving portrait of the author's grandmother, and additional stories, including "The Pension Grillparzer" and "Dinner at the White House" Here is a treat for John Irving addicts and a perfect introduction to his work for the uninit...
Nacida para sustituir, en cierto modo, a dos hermanos muertos en un accidente, Ruth Cole vive una infancia muy especial. En el verano de 1958, cuando ella tiene cuatro anos, Marion, su madre, tras una torrida aventura con un jovencito de dieciseis, abandona el hogar. Ruth se queda con su padre, c...
It is 1967 and two Viennese university students want to liberate the Vienna Zoo, as was done after World War II. But their good intentions have both comic and gruesome consequences, in this first novel written by a twenty-five year old John Irving, already a master storyteller.
I went off to Europe feeling, for the first time, “like a writer.” I took 12 tutorial hours of German a week, but to this day I can speak the language only haltingly; I can barely understand German, when I’m spoken to, and reading German only serves to remind me of my dysl...
Dhar himself was at that moment sleeping on Dr Daruwalla’s balcony. However, the customs official who looked back and forth from the intense expression of the new missionary to the utterly bland passport photograph of Martin Mills was convinced that he stood face-to-face w...
You don’t get to choose the chronology of what you dream, or the order of events in which you remember someone. In your mind—in your dreams, in your memories—sometimes the story begins with the epilogue.In Iowa City, the first centralized HIV clinic—with nursing, social services, and teaching com...
“Knowing Mary, I’ll bet they were doing it immediately,” I’d overheard Aunt Muriel say. Only once had my mother ventured away from home; she’d gone off to college (no one ever said where), and she had dropped out. She’d managed only to get pregnant; she didn’t even finish secretarial school! More...