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3.68 AVERAGE
3.68 AVERAGE
emotional
funny
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I couldn't get through it. Maybe I'll give it a third try another time. I'm disappointed too because I really liked "Garp" and "Cider House Rules".
It's official, John Irving is part of my top ten authors list.
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
This is the only Irving novel I've read so far, but I plan to read more in the future. I read "A widow for one year" about a year ago, and I picked it unknowingly in the bookshop without knowing anything about the author, his style or the story. To be honest, I picked it up just because:
a) It was long and it was summer
b) It began with the sentence "One night when she was four and sleeping in the bottom bunk of her bunk bed, Ruth Cole woke to the sound of lovemaking -it was coming from her parents' bedroom".
You can beat a beginning like that one, but it's gonna be hard.
So I did what I'm not used to do: I entered a literary work without any clues whatsoever. It was great.
John Irving is a story-teller, in the widest sense. He takes a character and builds a story around him, normally adding loads of special characters to accompany him. He tells the story with slow, careful writing, paying the right attention to details (the brother's stories and how Ruth memorises the stories through the photographs, just genious) and keeping the reader interested. His stories are long, and he might get a bit tough from time to time, but it's worth it. What I loved the most was how true, how honest, how real his characters were. Neither good nor bad, just people living hard situations and not always taking the right road.
I preferred the first part of the book, which focuses on Ruth's parents relationship, rather than the second one (when Ruth is actually old enough to have her own relationships). That might have been because I liked the parents best, and I found both of them appealing and intriguing, I wanted to know what was wrong with them.
a) It was long and it was summer
b) It began with the sentence "One night when she was four and sleeping in the bottom bunk of her bunk bed, Ruth Cole woke to the sound of lovemaking -it was coming from her parents' bedroom".
You can beat a beginning like that one, but it's gonna be hard.
So I did what I'm not used to do: I entered a literary work without any clues whatsoever. It was great.
John Irving is a story-teller, in the widest sense. He takes a character and builds a story around him, normally adding loads of special characters to accompany him. He tells the story with slow, careful writing, paying the right attention to details (the brother's stories and how Ruth memorises the stories through the photographs, just genious) and keeping the reader interested. His stories are long, and he might get a bit tough from time to time, but it's worth it. What I loved the most was how true, how honest, how real his characters were. Neither good nor bad, just people living hard situations and not always taking the right road.
I preferred the first part of the book, which focuses on Ruth's parents relationship, rather than the second one (when Ruth is actually old enough to have her own relationships). That might have been because I liked the parents best, and I found both of them appealing and intriguing, I wanted to know what was wrong with them.
There are parts of this book which are excellent bu there are also many parts that are fragmented and meaningless. I am a lover of John Irving's other works but this leaves a lot to be desired. The narrative is fragmented, the characters uninteresting and there is a distinct lack of connection between the two. Had this been my first dip into Irving's books it might also have been my last
