Garp

I have just finished reading, “The World According to Garp” by John Irving.  I can only apologise.  I should have read it before now, I know, I know…...  

Indeed, as a teenager, I promised I would read it after seeing the film starring Robin Williams,  but, I was put off by the 600 pages, and stuck instead with my Graham Greenes and abridged Reader's Digests.   The film, however, had opened my eyes to the possibilities of good fiction. Irving's quirky imagination, and unique characters made me want to be a writer, even before I had read a single word of his.

Now, having read it, I don't just want to be a writer.  I want to be a great writer.  Irving gives me ambition, inspiration, a jealous regard.  Like Dickens, the 'voice' is so consistent through all of his novels, that reading any one now, I almost immediately settle into the rhythm of the words, and the pages fall away effortlessly.

He is the only modern writer whom, when I am reading, I can hear an imaginary narrator's voice in my head, rather than my own monotone dirge.

And despite the tragedy at the heart of this novel, for me the only depressing thing about it is that Irving has made Garp a writer, a fictional writer who produces fictional works that any real writer would cut their index fingers off for.  Yet there they are, invented, to show the reader that Garp was a real writer.

I saw a jokey tweet recently from some bookish type about needing time off work to mourn the loss of a much beloved character.  At the end of Garp, I knew how they felt.  I had forgotten the end, Robin Williams' portrayal diminished in the fog of memory.  

I took it badly.  I'll miss him.  Having finally read his story, I'll miss him.