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nikogatts's review against another edition
dark
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
1.0
I read this as a sort of pregame before the start of the next season of the podcast 372 Pages We'll Never Get Back. I've never seen the 1994 movie adaptation of this book, so my impressions are based solely on the text.
This book is less of a series of events and more of a cycle of two recurring instances:
1. Forrest Gump doesn't understand a situation and acts instinctively, doing the wrong thing in a way that results in immense personal success and makes him a national/international hero. Despite the many times this happens, no one ever recognizes Forrest as a war hero/famous astronaut/pro wrestler/guy who publicly mooned the president.
2. Forrest Gump doesn't understand a situation and acts instinctively, doing the wrong thing in a way that hurts the people around him and results in his girlfriend, Jenny Curran, dumping him. Despite the many times this happens, Forrest never learns from his missteps, and Winston Groom tosses out the phrase "I guess I'm just an idiot" as a shortcut to avoid writing character development.
There are attempts at "deep" moments sprinkled in here and there, particularly during the chapters dealing with Forrest's deployment in Vietnam, but the emotional impact is minimal because these moments last for, at most, a page and a half before the story moves along to Forrest's next implausible adventure. Ditto any attempts at satire -- there are a couple of political jabs at the popular targets of the time (Nixon, war protestors, Hollywood stars, etc.), but they're quickly shuffled offstage so Forrest can get back to publicly stating that he needs to pee.
To say the book has not aged well is to put it lightly. Every female character is written as either a weeping mess or a nagging shrew. Forrest's adventures take him across the United States and to several different countries, so readers are treated to a wide spectrum of racist slurs and stereotypes. And in addition to treating Forrest's disability as a get-out-of-jail-free card for personal conflict, Groom also uses it as a superpower, a punchline, and an excuse for sexual assault.
I'm not expecting any better from the sequel, Gump & Co., but at least I'll be reading that with a podcast, so I won't be cringing alone.
This book is less of a series of events and more of a cycle of two recurring instances:
1. Forrest Gump doesn't understand a situation and acts instinctively, doing the wrong thing in a way that results in immense personal success and makes him a national/international hero. Despite the many times this happens, no one ever recognizes Forrest as a war hero/famous astronaut/pro wrestler/guy who publicly mooned the president.
2. Forrest Gump doesn't understand a situation and acts instinctively, doing the wrong thing in a way that hurts the people around him and results in his girlfriend, Jenny Curran, dumping him. Despite the many times this happens, Forrest never learns from his missteps, and Winston Groom tosses out the phrase "I guess I'm just an idiot" as a shortcut to avoid writing character development.
There are attempts at "deep" moments sprinkled in here and there, particularly during the chapters dealing with Forrest's deployment in Vietnam, but the emotional impact is minimal because these moments last for, at most, a page and a half before the story moves along to Forrest's next implausible adventure. Ditto any attempts at satire -- there are a couple of political jabs at the popular targets of the time (Nixon, war protestors, Hollywood stars, etc.), but they're quickly shuffled offstage so Forrest can get back to publicly stating that he needs to pee.
To say the book has not aged well is to put it lightly. Every female character is written as either a weeping mess or a nagging shrew. Forrest's adventures take him across the United States and to several different countries, so readers are treated to a wide spectrum of racist slurs and stereotypes. And in addition to treating Forrest's disability as a get-out-of-jail-free card for personal conflict, Groom also uses it as a superpower, a punchline, and an excuse for sexual assault.
I'm not expecting any better from the sequel, Gump & Co., but at least I'll be reading that with a podcast, so I won't be cringing alone.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual harassment, Sexism, Ableism, Racial slurs, Racism, Cursing, and Sexual assault
Moderate: Violence and War
Minor: Police brutality, Adult/minor relationship, Homophobia, and Forced institutionalization
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