The World According to Garp, the film and the novel
September 7, 2014 8:06 PM   Subscribe

"Heralded in its day for its audacious envisioning of an American social landscape ravaged by dysfunctional sexuality – featuring an aspiring single mother who impregnates herself upon a dying soldier’s genitalia; a transsexual [gasp!]; and a feminist society who protest violent rape by cutting their own tongues off – John Irving’s 1978 picaresque now reads like a hysterical (in both senses of the word) male vision of the burgeoning feminist movement. Not much is different in George Roy Hill’s 1982 movie version, except that the absurdist imagery no longer drifts along the cooing flow of Irving’s prose, but rattles and jerks from one set piece to another. What’s missing is a strong characterization of the title character, played by Robin Williams, who scrambles from scene to scene like a quarterback shaken out of his pocket, never finding a consistent behavioral core from which to regard the shenanigans. Glenn Close and John Lithgow deserved their Oscar nominations for breathing dimension and empathy to a couple of kooky types the film otherwise regards with mocking abjection. For its reactionary middle-of-the-road advocacy of American normalcy under the threatening spectre of liberal progress, it’s a worthy precursor to Forrest Gump [TSPDT #577]. Of the films I’ve seen in the past two years for this project, this is the film for whose placement on the 1000 Greatest Films I have the most reservations."

More about Shooting Down Pictures.

Arik Bjorn explains how crucial to the film the casting of Robin Williams as 'Garp' was in this brief tribute.

Liesl Schillinger makes the case for revisiting the author in "The World According to John Irving", a book review of the 2012 novel, In One Person:
"There is no American writer of that era who deserves more to be re-read and reconsidered than John Irving, who wrote three novels in that decade (The Water-Method Man, The 158-Pound Marriage, and The World According to Garp) and who has produced another three or four major novels every decade since, never abandoning his core subject: the individual’s right to respect, regardless of sex or gender orientation. He is daringly feminist, to a degree that his sex-positive contemporaries (Roth and the late Updike) never considered—imagine either of them putting these words in the mouth of a female protagonist: “In this dirty-minded world… you are either somebody’s wife or somebody’s whore—or fast on your way to becoming one or the other. If you don’t fit either category, then everyone tries to make you think there is something wrong with you.” Commentators often focus on Irving’s repeating themes and plot devices—bears, wrestlers, amputations, fatherless children, adultery, Vienna, partner-swapping, transgendered characters, academic and prep-school settings, stories within a story, and epilogues—but these repetitions are set-dressing to his overriding repeat emphasis: tolerance for the breadth and flaws of human nature, particularly as it applies to people that others label sexually defective."
See also: FanFare: The World According to Garp
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome (38 comments total) 19 users marked this as a favorite
 
John Lithgow's portrayal of Roberta Muldoon could so easily have been a one-note joke, but his performance as that character was so heart-warming that it was a thing to behold, especially given the times. The rest of the movie does the novel absolutely no justice, though I did love Glenn Close from the first moment I ever saw her.
posted by xingcat at 8:18 PM on September 7, 2014 [10 favorites]


I still can't believe that I read this book in sixth grade, at school, like in class.
posted by oceanjesse at 8:47 PM on September 7, 2014 [9 favorites]


I love me some Garp and Owen Meany. The books, not the movies. I mean the Garp movie was ok, but let's not mention that other one.

One thing that really bothered me in the World According to Garp (book) was that Garp and his wife (name?) didn't divorce after Walter died. It seemed like their marriage was on such shaky ground when that happened. Combining that with the fact that either one of them could make a case for blaming the other (or themselves) for the death, it seemed like no way could they survive the anger and guilt of losing a child.

Also, Garp's mother raped his father, which seems like a decidedly un-feminist thing to do and it bothered me that this wasn't framed as such and is never treated as a horrible thing she did (e.g. see the above pull quote which describes this as "impregnating herself." and nothing more.)
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 8:47 PM on September 7, 2014 [4 favorites]


Cool post! It's high time I re-read Garp, now, as a jaded, weary old person.
posted by sandettie light vessel automatic at 9:00 PM on September 7, 2014 [3 favorites]


John Irving is the only writer I've ever stopped in the middle of a book of, I loathed it so. Updike I at least finished.
posted by Diablevert at 9:49 PM on September 7, 2014 [4 favorites]


My brother once pointed out that Irving "likes" (his phrase -- I think "chooses" is more accurate) to dispassionately kill his characters when he's run out of things for them to do, a criticism that has made it impossible for me to continue reading Irving's work. That said, Garp remains such a fundamental experience for me, both as a film and later as a book, that I'm weary of returning to them in any capacity for fear of retroactively sullying the experience. (Garp's desire to be a writer, for instance, was hugely influential in my life, even if I found his choice of subject matter tedious. Plus, I think I may have subconsciously made Mary Beth Hurt some sort of template for future mates.)

But I hadn't really considered just how progressive the book and film are. I remember my (fairly conservative) mother unabashedly loving John Lithgow's character because of just how damned charming he was. I've little doubt that Lithgow's portrayal (and, by extension, Irving's narrative) may have been a significant step forward for LGBT rights in this country. Roberta wasn't played for a punchline (well, maybe a bit, but that aspect of the character was such a tiny part of the performance), she was a human being, with many facets to her character, and a kind and decency at her core.

Maybe I could revisit Garp now after all...
posted by gern at 10:19 PM on September 7, 2014 [3 favorites]


This film was trash. You don't kill children unless you have a real, important point to make. The World According to Garp had no such point.
posted by carping demon at 10:27 PM on September 7, 2014


Can any Garp fans pitch it to me? I tried to read it in my early 20s after hearing it was something special, but it just never clicked with me. I don't remember much of it, but I do have a sense that I found it terribly precious, and I abandoned it relatively early on.

Please hope me!
posted by lumensimus at 10:34 PM on September 7, 2014 [1 favorite]


Also, Garp's mother raped his father, which seems like a decidedly un-feminist thing to do and it bothered me that this wasn't framed as such and is never treated as a horrible thing she did

In the film the person she relates the story to *is* shocked and horrified: "You raped him! You raped a dying man!!" before immediately getting up and leaving the room.

My own reaction to the scene was basically that consent should never, ever be assumed on principle. However a soldier clearly on his death bed yet still capable of having sex seems like a scenario that would, in actual practice, be amongst the very closest to 100%.

While still not relevant to the aforementioned overriding principle, in the film's version of the scene the soldier's reaction (croaking out "Good" before expiring) seems to indicate that this was - in this fictional tale - the actual case.

Counter-counter-argument: given the severity of his brain damage he was incapable of giving genuine informed consent, full stop.
posted by Ryvar at 10:38 PM on September 7, 2014 [1 favorite]


Can any Garp fans pitch it to me?

Not a fan, but I will say that many of the feminist views espoused (aside from the clearly-demarcated-as-crazy-by-the-film self-mutilating women) resonated with me and it planted a couple of the many seeds necessary for me to begin rejecting my adolescent misogyny.

It's the cinematic equivalent of green vegetables: I didn't care for it, but it probably did me some good to watch it.
posted by Ryvar at 10:42 PM on September 7, 2014 [1 favorite]


owever a soldier clearly on his death bed yet still capable of having sex

And in a coma, with the erection nothing more than a physical reflex? That's not consent.
posted by MartinWisse at 10:47 PM on September 7, 2014 [4 favorites]


Yep. In the film (I'm in the unfortunate category of having seen it but not read the book) it's severe brain damage rather than a coma, but that doesn't change the basic fact that no legitimate consent was possible.
posted by Ryvar at 10:58 PM on September 7, 2014 [2 favorites]


First movie that made me cry. "I'm flying..."
posted by Lukenlogs at 11:27 PM on September 7, 2014 [2 favorites]


i had a teacher who gave it to me in high school, along with Fifth Instinct by Robertson Davies. It was my first exposure, even in the midst of radical parents, a gender queer hero who was not tragic.
posted by PinkMoose at 11:32 PM on September 7, 2014 [3 favorites]


I have never read the book and don't want to, nor rewatch the film, because the film is such a peculiar sweet memory to me, from watching it when I wasn't supposed to as a child (older sisters had borrowed it) and one of the adults watching it saying derisive things about the transsexual character and other people in the film, but realising that other people - the people who wrote the book and made the film and acted in it - hadn't thought that, that John Lithgow was someone loved and loving, and that people hurt each other and forgive. It hit some deep sweet chord, scenes that come back whenever I think of douche or castrations....
posted by viggorlijah at 12:12 AM on September 8, 2014 [7 favorites]


Also, Garp's mother raped his father, which seems like a decidedly un-feminist thing to do and it bothered me that this wasn't framed as such and is never treated as a horrible thing she did (e.g. see the above pull quote which describes this as "impregnating herself." and nothing more.)

Sometimes good people do bad things for good reasons
Sometimes bad people do bad things for good reasons
Sometimes good people do good things for bad reasons
Sometimes bad people do good things for bad reasons

&c
posted by Sebmojo at 2:39 AM on September 8, 2014 [1 favorite]


Also, Garp's mother raped his father

As I remember the novel, Garp's father totally enjoys the sex and it's only his lack of language/sanity that makes it non-consensual in a formal way. It's peculiar to think of this sex as rape except from some kind of abstract moralistic standpoint being projected on the situation similarly to the way that cutting out your tongue is a feminist statement in the abstract but something else in reality.
posted by Obscure Reference at 5:52 AM on September 8, 2014 [2 favorites]


My favorite passage in the book:

My name is Ellen James. I am NOT an Ellen Jamesian.
posted by brujita at 5:57 AM on September 8, 2014 [3 favorites]


along with Fifth Instinct by Robertson Davies

Did you mean Fifth Business?
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 6:12 AM on September 8, 2014 [1 favorite]


This film was trash. You don't kill children unless you have a real, important point to make. The World According to Garp had no such point.

I think that was sort of the point. Things just happen and sometimes they're wonderful and sometimes they're horrible, but there isn't much of a reason to most of what happens to you in life.
posted by xingcat at 6:31 AM on September 8, 2014 [7 favorites]


As I remember the novel, Garp's father totally enjoys the sex and it's only his lack of language/sanity that makes it non-consensual in a formal way. It's peculiar to think of this sex as rape except from some kind of abstract moralistic standpoint being projected on the situation.

The lack of language/sanity makes it non-consensual in every way.

A couple of years ago, I set out to re-read A Prayer for Owen Meany, after some friends commented about it being a favorite book. I had read it when it came out without liking it much, despite having loved Irving's earlier novels as a high schooler and college student.

This is the goodreads review I wrote:

I read A Prayer for Owen Meany when it came out in 1989, but not since then. A couple of people I know have referred to it recently as a favorite book, so I though I'd give it another try. I was uncomfortable early on with the gender tropes in the book, which are all about positioning characters in relation to traditional ideas of what constitute real men and real women. But I stuck with it to see where it was going. Where it went was the narrator repeatedly describing a pre-pubescent girl who is being sexually assaulted by her older brothers and cousins as "rapacious." The girl. The girl is "rapacious." This is why they are sexually assualting her, you see. It was sickening. If it weren't an audiobook, I'd burn the damn thing.

I've thought about re-reading Garp and Hotel New Hampshire, two books that were really formative for me, but I think I won't. I want to let them be the books they were for me then, with all their strangeness, and the bizarre mix of feminism and sexism which I read only as feminism back then, and not whatever diminished versions of themselves they'd become for me if I were to read them now, 30 years later.
posted by not that girl at 6:40 AM on September 8, 2014 [6 favorites]


It's probably been 15 years or so since I read Garp (and about the same since I read Owen Meany), but for me it's the messiness and ugliness and moral ambiguities that make those books (Garp in particular) so fascinating. (I haven't seen the movie, but I would like to.)

My recollection is that Garp's mother is written as pragmatic, self-serving, and oddly emotionally distant. The "rape" of the soldier is presented not as desire or power or any of the things that ordinarily characterize a rape, but rather as the simplest route towards getting a baby. This does not diminish the questions about the propriety of her action, but intensifies them.

Similarly, the death of the child is tragic and stupid, like such deaths often are in real life. That scene (and the discussion of the under-toad) continues to haunt me.

Overall, John Irving is an incredible writer. His prose is so compellingly readable.
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 6:49 AM on September 8, 2014 [5 favorites]


What a wonderful coincidence. I'm about 2/3 of the way through my re-reading of this novel. Then I come in to work after a week off, fire up the browser, and hey! This post.

MeFi: IT'S IN YOUR HEAD, MAAAN
posted by grubi at 7:34 AM on September 8, 2014 [2 favorites]


Mostly he's just readable, often funny and tricky. That was then this is now...can't re-read that stuff.
posted by judson at 8:26 AM on September 8, 2014 [1 favorite]


I remember seeing this in the theater way back when, and John Lithgow absolutely charmed me. His Roberta and Swoosie Kurtz's prostitute made the movie enjoyable. Robin Williams was always likeable, but in Garp he becomes more the catalyst around which all the surreal action happens than a strong protagonist himself.

Glenn Close was mesmerizing and I can't imagine anyone else in that role now. It's hard to believe that movie was her film debut.

I am appalled at the rape apologism in this thread, though. Jenny Fields absolutely raped Garp's father; he was incapable of consent and she used him for her own ends, objectifying him in the worst possible way. It is rape, not "rape", and we are expected to be sophisticated enough as readers to realize that and also appreciate what Irving is attempting to do with that scene in the book.

Irving lets us, the readers, understand that the victim "enjoys" the act (something Jenny does NOT know) only to mess with our own preconceptions, in an attempt to turn what would be black and white issues in our own minds into shades of grey.

Irving's intent is to try to make us sympathize with a rapist, which he does by shamelessly manipulating the circumstances of the rape: the rapist is atypical in almost every way (an independent, feminist woman), the victim enjoys the act (which is insane and offensive to even hint at in any other context), and the end result of the rape (Jenny's beloved son, Garp) is not a reminder of pain and trauma who is loved despite that but a triumphant testimony to the rapist of the rightness of her actions in creating him.

Sure, you can argue that Jenny's actions were justified if you want, but you can't argue what she did wasn't rape. It was, and denying that is just a cheap cheat employed by those who want to sidestep the tricky moral dilemmas the narrative delves into entirely and avoid the very introspection the author intends his work to inspire in us.

Because we have been manipulated into twisting our minds around the untenable in this way from the very beginning of the novel, our minds are more susceptible to buying into the increasingly bizarre situations Garp himself is faced with in the book.

That manipulation of taboo subjects is pretty much Irving's modus operandi; consider how he makes us empathize with the siblimgs who commit incest (and enjoy it without reservation) in Hotel New Hampshire.
posted by misha at 9:02 AM on September 8, 2014 [9 favorites]


Fair enough. My intent with the quotation marks was not to be a rape apologist, but to make the same point you did - that Irving confuses and unsettles the reader by inverting the traditional circumstances of rape, almost rendering it unrecognizable. You said it better than I did.
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 9:12 AM on September 8, 2014 [2 favorites]


When I was in my early 20s I read A Prayer for Owen Meany and loved it so much that I read everything else he'd ever written. Then came A Widow for One Year, which was okay but not great. And then I bought The Fourth Hand in hardback and it was essentially unreadable. I tried the next two via the library and couldn't get through either of them. So I gave up. He is so entrenched in rehashing the same old stuff that I'm continually surprised he's still able to find someone to publish his books.

Ultimately I don't know if I outgrew him or I had just read too much of his work and gotten too far inside his head. The thing with Irving is that he is really obviously uncomfortably weird about women and sex and the more of his books you read, the more unavoidable seeing that becomes. I guess some stuff about Garp is feminist but in retrospect, for me it is just one of the less gross ones.
posted by something something at 10:29 AM on September 8, 2014 [3 favorites]


The thing with Irving is that he is really obviously uncomfortably weird about women and sex and the more of his books you read, the more unavoidable seeing that becomes.

I came to that conclusion after several attempts at reading Garp. It really comes off as someone's very personal and very panicked reaction to feminism, rather than being particularly in support of same.
posted by Halloween Jack at 10:45 AM on September 8, 2014 [3 favorites]


This film was trash. You don't kill children unless you have a real, important point to make. The World According to Garp had no such point.

Sorrow Floats.

One of the things that made Garp for me was we got to see all the main characters through to their deaths. These were people, and the fact that they lived and died outside the story was affecting.
posted by zoo at 11:08 AM on September 8, 2014 [2 favorites]


You don't kill children unless you have a real, important point to make.

Maybe you don't.
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 11:13 AM on September 8, 2014 [9 favorites]


Ben Trismegistus : Fair enough. My intent with the quotation marks was not to be a rape apologist, but to make the same point you did - that Irving confuses and unsettles the reader by inverting the traditional circumstances of rape, almost rendering it unrecognizable. You said it better than I did.

No worries, I may have over-reacted to the quotation marks myself. And I'm sorry if I misread you. Looks like we are on the same page anyway.
posted by misha at 12:28 PM on September 8, 2014 [1 favorite]


In the novel, there is a fairly lengthy section that deals with rape that is not written into the movie, including Garp helping to apprehend a child rapist in the local park, and his publishing a novel containing a lengthy rape sequence.

I wonder if Irving was purposefully drawing a parallel between having a main character conceived by rape, and his reactions to the victims (and in one case, perpetrator) of rapes that he encounters throughout his life?

I suspect Irving was deliberate in this choice, given that Jenny Fields had the means and skill to collect Technical Sargent Garp's sperm and artificially inseminate herself, rather than rape him. If Irving didn't want it to be rape, he had an easy way to avoid it.

And for anyone still on the fence: how would you react to reading a reversed gender sequence - one that involved a comatose female and a male nurse? (I'll toss in the obligatory "Kill Bill" reference to save someone the comment).
posted by 1367 at 2:54 PM on September 8, 2014


I remember when I read "Garp" I was unimpressed except for the story insert "The Pension Grillparzer" which I thought was wonderful.
posted by acrasis at 5:26 PM on September 8, 2014


carping demon: This film was trash. You don't kill children unless you have a real, important point to make. The World According to Garp had no such point.
Is there a list somewhere of all the rules artists have to follow?
posted by IAmBroom at 9:34 AM on September 9, 2014 [3 favorites]


Maybe you don't.

Fuckin' A I don't.
posted by carping demon at 7:31 PM on September 9, 2014



Is there a list somewhere of all the rules artists have to follow?


You bet there is. Look inside. You'll find it.
posted by carping demon at 7:34 PM on September 9, 2014


It's the one with "don't kick puppies" on it. The other entries may vary but "don't kick puppies" is always on it.
posted by carping demon at 7:43 PM on September 9, 2014 [1 favorite]


I remember reading everything Irving had written up to that point, all in one go, back in the mid 80s, probably, and enjoying the weird obsessiveness quite a lot. It fascinated me that he seemed mostly to be rearranging reusable pieces into 'different' stories, and it made me kind of assume he was working out demons, or determined in some kind of monomaniacal way to keep pushing the puzzle pieces into new patterns until he found the 'perfect' fit.

I don't know if his more recent work is more of the same, and I haven't as yet revisited the older work. Hell, I'm not 100% sure I'm talking about the right writer when it comes down to it -- my memory never was what it used to be, let alone is -- but so it goes.

The movie I'm sure I've seen, but I recall even less of it.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 6:32 PM on September 10, 2014 [1 favorite]


« Older Poor Comedians in a Car Getting Coffee   |   Why can't our education system be more like theirs... Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments