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3.69 AVERAGE
3.69 AVERAGE
dark
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Dear Mr. Irving;
I just finished reading your new book, Last Night in Twisted River. I enjoy your writing style very much and your layers of storytelling have always been amazing to me. I do have to ask you something difficult, though.
I have had this hope, each time I hear of a new John Irving book being released, that THIS time I am going to be totally surprised by how and where you have taken us as readers. My only wish is for you to really break out of you Exeter/wrestling/boys&mothers box. You do this group of themes so well, and have shown that time and again. In fact, in your new novel you rail against authors who do the same thing by "writing what they know". You can understand my confusion.
In Last Night in Twisted River, the (very)thinly veiled references to almost every book you have ever published, peppered throughout this novel, is a bit disconcerting. Along with a few badly cloaked allusions to some of your personal, real life events I am left worried your creative well is getting depleted. We readers know you KNOW this stuff ~ your comfort zone, your heart.
Please Mr. Irving, something different next time? I know you have the talent to pull off the absolutely unexpected and render the reading world gob-smacked! I still heart you and still give the novel 4 stars!
Sincerely,
Jennifer
Okay, so before the book has to go back to the library, I pulled out a couple of quotes that stood out for me.
A)"Ketchum meant that someone should have killed Ralph Nader. (Gore would have beaten Bush in Florida if Nader hadn't played the spoiler role.) Ketchum believed that Ralph Nader should be bound and gagged - "preferably, in a child's defective car seat" - and sunk in the Androscoggin."
Okay, this just made me laugh out loud, picturing it.
B)"Danny Angel's fiction had been ransacked for every conceivable autobiographical scrap; his novels had been dissected and overanalyzed for whatever could be construed as the virtual memoirs hidden inside them. But what did Danny expect? In the media, real life was more important that fiction; those elements of a novel that were, at least, based on personal experience were of more interest to the general public that those pieces of the novel-writing process that were "merely" made up."
C) "That kind of question drove Danny Angel crazy, but he expected too much from journalists; most of them lacked the imagination to believe that anything credible in a novel had been "wholly imagined." And those former journalists who later turned to writing fiction subscribed to that tiresome Hemingway dictum of writing about what you know. What bullshit was this? Novels should be about the people you know? How many boring but deadeningly realistic novels ca be attributed to this lame and utterly uninspired advice?"
D) "Dysfunctional families; damaging sexual experiences; various losses of innocence, all leading to regret. These stories were small, domestic tragedies - none of them condemnations of society or government. In Danny Angel's novels the villain - if there was one - was more often human nature..."
Funny how my tongue-in-cheek letter, above, can be addressed with passages from the novel. These quotations were all taken from the same time in the book, covering pages 372 through 377.
Hmmmmm.
I just finished reading your new book, Last Night in Twisted River. I enjoy your writing style very much and your layers of storytelling have always been amazing to me. I do have to ask you something difficult, though.
I have had this hope, each time I hear of a new John Irving book being released, that THIS time I am going to be totally surprised by how and where you have taken us as readers. My only wish is for you to really break out of you Exeter/wrestling/boys&mothers box. You do this group of themes so well, and have shown that time and again. In fact, in your new novel you rail against authors who do the same thing by "writing what they know". You can understand my confusion.
In Last Night in Twisted River, the (very)thinly veiled references to almost every book you have ever published, peppered throughout this novel, is a bit disconcerting. Along with a few badly cloaked allusions to some of your personal, real life events I am left worried your creative well is getting depleted. We readers know you KNOW this stuff ~ your comfort zone, your heart.
Please Mr. Irving, something different next time? I know you have the talent to pull off the absolutely unexpected and render the reading world gob-smacked! I still heart you and still give the novel 4 stars!
Sincerely,
Jennifer
Okay, so before the book has to go back to the library, I pulled out a couple of quotes that stood out for me.
A)"Ketchum meant that someone should have killed Ralph Nader. (Gore would have beaten Bush in Florida if Nader hadn't played the spoiler role.) Ketchum believed that Ralph Nader should be bound and gagged - "preferably, in a child's defective car seat" - and sunk in the Androscoggin."
Okay, this just made me laugh out loud, picturing it.
B)"Danny Angel's fiction had been ransacked for every conceivable autobiographical scrap; his novels had been dissected and overanalyzed for whatever could be construed as the virtual memoirs hidden inside them. But what did Danny expect? In the media, real life was more important that fiction; those elements of a novel that were, at least, based on personal experience were of more interest to the general public that those pieces of the novel-writing process that were "merely" made up."
C) "That kind of question drove Danny Angel crazy, but he expected too much from journalists; most of them lacked the imagination to believe that anything credible in a novel had been "wholly imagined." And those former journalists who later turned to writing fiction subscribed to that tiresome Hemingway dictum of writing about what you know. What bullshit was this? Novels should be about the people you know? How many boring but deadeningly realistic novels ca be attributed to this lame and utterly uninspired advice?"
D) "Dysfunctional families; damaging sexual experiences; various losses of innocence, all leading to regret. These stories were small, domestic tragedies - none of them condemnations of society or government. In Danny Angel's novels the villain - if there was one - was more often human nature..."
Funny how my tongue-in-cheek letter, above, can be addressed with passages from the novel. These quotations were all taken from the same time in the book, covering pages 372 through 377.
Hmmmmm.
It started out good, but became boring in the long run. Never finished it.
Começo a identificar um padrão nos livros que demoro a ler. Para mim, deixar um livro na mesinha de cabeceira para ir lendo não resulta (excepto poesia e contos), porque perco rapidamente o fio à meada, desconecto-me das personagens e desligo-me dos acontecimentos. Este livro de John Irving custou-me muito a terminar. Não achei a narrativa nada de especial, considerei um livro denso e extenso, que explora vários anos dos EUA, muito crítico sobre o país em questão e com personagens solitárias, inadaptadas e deslocadas da realidade que as rodeia. Não é, de todo, um livro que queira repetir ou aconselhar.
Bears, accidental murder, wrestling, writing, love, lust, incest, Maine, Iowa and a disconnected hand. . .Irving himself couldn't have written a more Irving piece!!
While I'll admit that Setting Free the Bears took me two tries, I have yet to read an Irving novel that doesn't resonate deeply with me from cover to cover. He is undeniably an incredible storyteller who knows how to develop a truly captivating tale.
As with other Irving novels, I found myself drawn to the characters from Twisted River. While none are an exact image of anyone I know personally, it is a the conglomeration of little facts about each that make them stand out at truly believable characters. Ketchum's propensity for flannel, Danny's idosyncratic self-defense running habits, Cookie's unwaivering over-protectiveness and Six Pack Pam's scarred face are all example of the nuances that Irving's characters have that really bring them to life.
Reading brilliantly written realistic fiction, it is hard not to be drawn into the story empathetically. With Twisted River, Irving wretches the reader's heart strings, introducing lovable characters and then tearing them away from those who love them so dearly.
An excellent piece of fiction that I was all too excited to get through, leaving me in the end with a finished book and anticipation for whatever Irving adventure I chose to undertake next!
While I'll admit that Setting Free the Bears took me two tries, I have yet to read an Irving novel that doesn't resonate deeply with me from cover to cover. He is undeniably an incredible storyteller who knows how to develop a truly captivating tale.
As with other Irving novels, I found myself drawn to the characters from Twisted River. While none are an exact image of anyone I know personally, it is a the conglomeration of little facts about each that make them stand out at truly believable characters. Ketchum's propensity for flannel, Danny's idosyncratic self-defense running habits, Cookie's unwaivering over-protectiveness and Six Pack Pam's scarred face are all example of the nuances that Irving's characters have that really bring them to life.
Reading brilliantly written realistic fiction, it is hard not to be drawn into the story empathetically. With Twisted River, Irving wretches the reader's heart strings, introducing lovable characters and then tearing them away from those who love them so dearly.
An excellent piece of fiction that I was all too excited to get through, leaving me in the end with a finished book and anticipation for whatever Irving adventure I chose to undertake next!
I'm on page 60 and I can't seem to get into this book. I know that it's supposed to be good, but if things don't improve soon, I'm ditching it. I just don't care about the characters and their history.
Ok....this one got the boot. I just didn't care enough to go on with it.
Ok....this one got the boot. I just didn't care enough to go on with it.
The content of this book was very very intriguing. It's nothing like John Irving's earlier works (which I love), and is extremely wordy. The book also jumps around quite a bit, so it feels like you are reading the script for a Quentin Taruntino movie. It's a really great, engrossing story, with very accurate, interesting food concepts included. It's just one you really have to be in the mood for. :)
I gave up on John Irving books after the painful novel The Fourth Hand, but this was a book club pick so I had to at least try!
I'm so glad I did because Last Night in Twisted River is an excellent book. It doesn't hold up to his '80s stuff like A Prayer for Owen Meany and The Hotel New Hampshire, but it was a really interesting story and I love the way he told it - narrating in chunks of time, so that neither the flashbacks nor the foreshadowing became tedious or obvious. Even though you could tell early on that certain events were inevitable, there were still plenty of twists right to the end.
I did find it a bit self-indulgent - like many of Irving's novels, this one is in part autobiographical. There was, as is often the case, a main character who is a writer, and much was made about the writing process. Some of it was really interesting ... like how he writes books from back to front, pinning up sentences or phrases as he works towards his first sentence. As a heretofore failed writer, I can see how this might work for me. But there was just a bit more made of whole thing than seemed really necessary. Especially since becoming a published author seems like the worst possible choice for a person who is trying to hide from a lunatic with a vendetta. Didn't quite buy that bit.
Nonetheless, I'm very glad I read it because it's reawakened my interest in Irving novels, and I'm going to seek out some of the older ones that I haven't read yet.
I'm so glad I did because Last Night in Twisted River is an excellent book. It doesn't hold up to his '80s stuff like A Prayer for Owen Meany and The Hotel New Hampshire, but it was a really interesting story and I love the way he told it - narrating in chunks of time, so that neither the flashbacks nor the foreshadowing became tedious or obvious. Even though you could tell early on that certain events were inevitable, there were still plenty of twists right to the end.
I did find it a bit self-indulgent - like many of Irving's novels, this one is in part autobiographical. There was, as is often the case, a main character who is a writer, and much was made about the writing process. Some of it was really interesting ... like how he writes books from back to front, pinning up sentences or phrases as he works towards his first sentence. As a heretofore failed writer, I can see how this might work for me. But there was just a bit more made of whole thing than seemed really necessary. Especially since becoming a published author seems like the worst possible choice for a person who is trying to hide from a lunatic with a vendetta. Didn't quite buy that bit.
Nonetheless, I'm very glad I read it because it's reawakened my interest in Irving novels, and I'm going to seek out some of the older ones that I haven't read yet.
Where Irving always enthralls me is in his lazy seamless plotting. It's so simplistic that I'm sure it takes grueling work, because he knows where he's going and drops symbols throughout the prose like a breadcrumb trail through a dark forest.
In a way this book could be called the Loves of Danny Angel - because the story is told in non-chronological segments moving from relationship to relationship as Danny and his father Dominic spend their lives on the run.
But it could be called the Books of Danny Angel. He's a writer and his books are autobiographical, so we learn the story of his life as he relives episodes and researches his character, himself.
It could be described as a complicated love triangle between Danny, his father, and Ketchum, the logger who holds himself responsible for the death of Danny's mother. The real story started in 1944 when another love triangle, this one romantic, existed with Dominic, Ketchum and Rosie, Danny's mother.
It could be so many different stories, and it is. It's the story of stories and it's so ambitiously woven. But for me it worked on every level. It didn't affect me as powerfully as Owen Meany or Cider House, but it did surround me with the kitchens and scenery of a man and his son on the run their whole lives - running from the past and from danger and from a bear of the Northern New England Woods. Oh and a crazed deputy sheriff with a gun and a grudge.
I wouldn't recommend this book as the entry work into Irving's library, but I do think that Irving fans are going to love it.
In a way this book could be called the Loves of Danny Angel - because the story is told in non-chronological segments moving from relationship to relationship as Danny and his father Dominic spend their lives on the run.
But it could be called the Books of Danny Angel. He's a writer and his books are autobiographical, so we learn the story of his life as he relives episodes and researches his character, himself.
It could be described as a complicated love triangle between Danny, his father, and Ketchum, the logger who holds himself responsible for the death of Danny's mother. The real story started in 1944 when another love triangle, this one romantic, existed with Dominic, Ketchum and Rosie, Danny's mother.
It could be so many different stories, and it is. It's the story of stories and it's so ambitiously woven. But for me it worked on every level. It didn't affect me as powerfully as Owen Meany or Cider House, but it did surround me with the kitchens and scenery of a man and his son on the run their whole lives - running from the past and from danger and from a bear of the Northern New England Woods. Oh and a crazed deputy sheriff with a gun and a grudge.
I wouldn't recommend this book as the entry work into Irving's library, but I do think that Irving fans are going to love it.