Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Irving, John (Vol. 112) - Raymond J. Wilson III (essay date Fall 1992)

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Raymond J. Wilson III (essay date Fall 1992)

SOURCE: "The Postmodern Novel: The Example of John Irving's The World According to Garp," in Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction, Vol. XXXIV, No. 1, Fall. 1992. pp. 49-62.

[In the following essay, Wilson examines the postmodern construction of The World According to Garp, particularly elements of metafiction, irony, and the gothic bizarre in the novel.]

As a novel that recapitulates within itself a history of twentieth-century fiction, John Irving's The World According to Garp illustrates a key aspect of postmodernism, that of formal replenishment. The earlier segments of Garp exhibit strong elements of modernism whereas in its final third, Irving's book is a postmodern novel of bizarre violence and black humor, flat characters, and metafiction—a mode of writing one might expect from the pen of John Barth, Robert Coover, or Thomas Pynchon. Specifically, in...

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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