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kastrel 's review for:
Trying to save Piggy Sneed
by John Irving
challenging
funny
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I read quite a lot of John Irving in my early twenties (Garp, Hotel New Hampshire, Cider House Rules) and he was probably my first exposure to Important Men Writing Literary Fiction. Since then, I've read a lot more of all sorts of fiction, and maybe I'm harder to impress, or these stories weren't Irving at his finest.
I think there are various editions of this with various short stories, but mine contained the following.
Trying to save Piggy Sneed: this claim to be pseudo-autobiographical. It's classic Irving - cruelty to the less fortunate, deliberately quite uncomfortable while being well observed.
Interior Space: larger than life characters going to war over a tree between their houses, interspersed with musings about venereal disease.
Almost in Iowa: probably the weirdest one - an anthropomorphic car being taken on a car trip across America. I found this annoying simply because my American geography isn't good enough to find the place names meaningful.
Brennbar's rant: people arguing at a dinner party about prejudice, again sort of supposed to make you think and feel a bit uncomfortable.
Other people's dream's: another very short one about a man who finds he can dream other people's dreams if he sleeps where they slept.
The Pension Grillparzer: this is actually from The World According to Garp, I think, and I vaguely remember it from there. It's weird and interesting and has the same sorts of strange circus characters and families that you get throughout his books.
The King of the Novel: this is a non-fiction essay (I think an introduction to an edition) about Great Expectations, and it was absolutely fascinating (I really like Great Expectations and remember it well).
There were a lot of classic Irving techniques and his style is always there, but I'm not sure they all worked as short stories. A friend once described his writing as feeling like he's trying to tell you something really important, but you can't tell what. Like his writing is weird, as if it's going to all be explained later, and things feel heavy with hidden meaning, but nothing actually ever gets sorted out. That's even less satisfying in a short story, where I think I'm more trained to expect a twist or a neat ending, and there generally isn't one. But I didn't dislike any of them (some are deliberately unpleasant in a trying to shock you way, but that's Irving for you) and the non-fiction essay was really interesting.
I think there are various editions of this with various short stories, but mine contained the following.
Trying to save Piggy Sneed: this claim to be pseudo-autobiographical. It's classic Irving - cruelty to the less fortunate, deliberately quite uncomfortable while being well observed.
Interior Space: larger than life characters going to war over a tree between their houses, interspersed with musings about venereal disease.
Almost in Iowa: probably the weirdest one - an anthropomorphic car being taken on a car trip across America. I found this annoying simply because my American geography isn't good enough to find the place names meaningful.
Brennbar's rant: people arguing at a dinner party about prejudice, again sort of supposed to make you think and feel a bit uncomfortable.
Other people's dream's: another very short one about a man who finds he can dream other people's dreams if he sleeps where they slept.
The Pension Grillparzer: this is actually from The World According to Garp, I think, and I vaguely remember it from there. It's weird and interesting and has the same sorts of strange circus characters and families that you get throughout his books.
The King of the Novel: this is a non-fiction essay (I think an introduction to an edition) about Great Expectations, and it was absolutely fascinating (I really like Great Expectations and remember it well).
There were a lot of classic Irving techniques and his style is always there, but I'm not sure they all worked as short stories. A friend once described his writing as feeling like he's trying to tell you something really important, but you can't tell what. Like his writing is weird, as if it's going to all be explained later, and things feel heavy with hidden meaning, but nothing actually ever gets sorted out. That's even less satisfying in a short story, where I think I'm more trained to expect a twist or a neat ending, and there generally isn't one. But I didn't dislike any of them (some are deliberately unpleasant in a trying to shock you way, but that's Irving for you) and the non-fiction essay was really interesting.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Infidelity
Minor: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Vomit