Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Irving, John (Vol. 112) - Irving Weinman (review date 9 April 1993)

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Irving Weinman (review date 9 April 1993)

SOURCE: "Short Shrifts," in Times Literary Supplement, April 9, 1993, p. 21.

[In the following review, Weinman offers tempered criticism of Trying to Save Piggy Sneed.]

The dust-jacket announces this volume of eight short pieces by John Irving as "a perfect introduction to his work". But the unfamiliar reader would do better to start with any of his seven novels than with these six short stories (all separately published between 1972 and 1982, introduced here by a memoir and closed by an essay). It is not that Irving's fiction-writing virtues aren't displayed in the stories: inventive incident, deft characterization and vivid language are all here. Despite these admirable qualities, however, the stories, on the whole, don't work. Over the space of a novel, Irving's loosely structured incidents, narrated with appealing garrulousness, accumulate depth and intensity, and character is deepened bit by...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Jack Beatty (review date 23 September 1981)
   2. Caryn Fuoroli (review date January 1982)
   3. Evan Carton (essay date Fall 1986)
   4. Janice Doane and Devon Hodges (essay date 1986)
   5. Wendy Steiner (review date 19 May 1989)
   6. Robert Towers (review date 20 July 1989)
   7. Edward C. Reilly (essay date 1991)
   8. Kim McKay (essay date Winter 1992)
   9. Raymond J. Wilson III (essay date Fall 1992)
   10. Irving Weinman (review date 9 April 1993)
   11. Robert Towers (review date 4 September 1994)
   12. Sven Birkerts (review date 4 February 1996)
   13. Andrew Rosenheim (review date 4 February 1996)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright

1. John Irving