The World According to Garp | The Wold According to Garp - Review

In the following review, Griffin discusses The World According to Garp's lack of plot, vulgar comedy, and obsession with "kinky violence."

The World According to Garp was, of course, 1978's Ragtime, which is to say that it is the most recent manifestation of the greatest-novel-of-the-decade.

Mr. Irving's previous novels were much shorter than the Garp book, and they hadn't attracted a great deal of attention. True, the man was "one of the most imaginative writers of his generation" (Dutton), but then so was everybody else. Clearly it was going to take more than mere imagination to turn Mr. Irving into a major literary event. It was going to take greatness. Let's face it, it was going to take a...

[The entire page is 691 words long]

Join eNotes

The above is a free excerpt. Get total access to this content with the:

eNotes Pass

Summary and Analysis – Themes – Characters – And much more...