Sat, June 21, 2008 – Mon, June 30, 2008 (Book)
Expecting cleverness and wit, I found mostly lunacy and sorrow; foreboding overshadowed glimpses of levity. It never became what I hoped for.
© onebee · all rights reserved
www.onebee.com
Sat, June 21, 2008 – Mon, June 30, 2008 (Book)
Expecting cleverness and wit, I found mostly lunacy and sorrow; foreboding overshadowed glimpses of levity. It never became what I hoped for.
© onebee · all rights reserved
Brandon — Mon, 6/30/08 8:36pm
I have no son!
Seriously though, you're docking it for not being the type of book you thought it would be?
I suppose this is just karmic payback for the many favorites of yours that I've been lukewarm about. Maybe I connect to it more because of fatherhood (though actually, now that I think of it, the first time I read it was before Grace was born). Oh well. I'm glad you at least tried the book first, rather than the movie. (Frickin' George Roy Hill can cram it with walnuts!)
Bee Boy — Mon, 6/30/08 10:14pm
Yes, I am very grateful for your advice to read before viewing. In some context a while ago, I saw a picture from the movie of Lithgow in drag, and I spent the whole book imagining him as Garp. It's a good thing, too – if I'd imagined Robin Williams, I probably wouldn't have been able to finish it. Or keep down any solid foods.
I didn't randomly make up the book I thought it'd be; I was going from the first chapter or two, which set my expectations for something breezier, with dark humor but not so much flat-out darkness. I think I was also expecting it to be more about writing (the opening chapter drops a lot of hints about Garp and Jenny as writers). Irving's afterword mentions that most readers forget it's a novel about a novelist – I spent the whole middle begging for it to be about that.
Upon reflection, I think there may be topics that I can't laugh about. (If true, this comes as a shock to me.) I'm fine with dark humor and irony in many forms, but infidelity and family tragedy are too serious. If sly observations were being made about these, I was too disturbed to notice. And I was heartbroken by the turns of his writing career.
On another note, I agree that Hill has a talent for disappointment, but I thought The Sting was mighty fine.