What Are You Reading?

[Tery]

Until I Find You was bad, IMHO, and I don't say that lightly: Irving is in my top writers.

I couldn't finish it. My favorite Irving book is A Prayer For Owen Meany.

 

[kingricefan]

I couldn't finish it. My favorite Irving book is A Prayer For Owen Meany.

A PRAYER FOR OWEN MEANY IS MY FAVORITE JOHN IRVING BOOK TOO!!!!

 

[fljoe0]

It's sad because I always wanted to read an Irving novel ever since I watched Hotel New Hampshire.

Sometimes the timing isn't right to read certain books and that may be what's going on with me and this book. I've liked just about everything I've read from John Irving so I'm not going to give up on it. I've had other books that have started this way and I've ended up liking them.

If you want to read John Irving, Hotel New Hampshire is way better than the movie. You should like the book.

 

[Tery]

A PRAYER FOR OWEN MEANY IS MY FAVORITE JOHN IRVING BOOK TOO!!!!

HIGH FIVE!!

 

[kingricefan]

HIGH FIVE!!

Did you get that I said that like Owen would say it?

 

[TH3J4CK4L]

Sometimes the timing isn't right to read certain books and that may be what's going on with me and this book. I've liked just about everything I've read from John Irving so I'm not going to give up on it. I've had other books that have started this way and I've ended up liking them.

If you want to read John Irving, Hotel New Hampshire is way better than the movie. You should like the book.

It's still a pretty depressing book. I always thought that "passing the open windows" thing was pretty sad. Not to mention the girls suicide note. Then the film just ends on this really abstract version of the hotel. It sucks because I had a copy of Hotel New Hampshire,but I put it in my storage with Stephen King, Clive Barker & Peter Benchley novels before I left to L.a.

 

[Tery]

Did you get that I said that like Owen would say it?

YES!!

 

[kingricefan]

Sometimes the timing isn't right to read certain books and that may be what's going on with me and this book. I've liked just about everything I've read from John Irving so I'm not going to give up on it. I've had other books that have started this way and I've ended up liking them.

If you want to read John Irving, Hotel New Hampshire is way better than the movie. You should like the book.

Re: Irving movies- I never bought the notion that Glenn Close could be Robin Williams Mom in Garp. She was right around the same age as Williams was back then. I never saw The Hotel New Hampshire so I don't know how it compares to the book, but I didn't like the whole incestuous relationship in the book. Everything else in 'Hotel' was great though!

 

[kingricefan]

YES!!

AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Doc Creed]

Re: Irving movies- I never bought the notion that Glenn Close could be Robin Williams Mom in Garp. She was right around the same age as Williams was back then. I never saw The Hotel New Hampshire so I don't know how it compares to the book, but I didn't like the whole incestuous relationship in the book. Everything else in 'Hotel' was great though!

Yeah, ditto. I hadn't seen the movie and when I read the incest storyline I was shocked...sickened, to be honest. I tried to see it from John Berry's POV but it just felt bizzarre. Irving is known to use a variety of odd influences (bears, prostitution, dwarves, sex fetishes, etc.) and yet this still bothered me. Otherwise, it would be in my top 5. He always makes me tear up, one of the only authors that can. Setting Free the Bears knocked me in the gut.

 

[skimom2]

I couldn't finish it. My favorite Irving book is A Prayer For Owen Meany.

Me, too.

 

[skimom2]

Lol...yeah, I was told this by many readers that I respect which is why I skipped it. I eventually want to try it anyway, but I'm sure my vote will probably join that concensus.

I think he was too close to the subject--no objectivity. I mean, many writers have sections that touch on things in their lives, but this was (according to Irving himself) VERY autobiographical. Weird is his stock in trade, but this just went beyond. I was sad for the little boy he was, to be honest. When stuff gets too real, I think it's difficult to tell what's good writing and what's tossing your guts out on the floor and looking at the patterns. It's like on American Idol (at least when I watched it years ago): when someone says whatever song is the most meaningful thing they've ever heard, you can be sure they're going to cock it up. No objectivity.

 

[Doc Creed]

I think he was too close to the subject--no objectivity. I mean, many writers have sections that touch on things in their lives, but this was (according to Irving himself) VERY autobiographical. Weird is his stock in trade, but this just went beyond. I was sad for the little boy he was, to be honest. When stuff gets too real, I think it's difficult to tell what's good writing and what's tossing your guts out on the floor and looking at the patterns. It's like on American Idol (at least when I watched it years ago): when someone says whatever song is the most meaningful thing they've ever heard, you can be sure they're going to cock it up. No objectivity.

Exactly. I heard him touch on this in interviews and it sounds like you may have put your finger on it. Great observation.

 

[muskrat]

Exactly. I heard him touch on this in interviews and it sounds like you may have put your finger on it. Great observation.

I don't understand all the wrestling, either.

 

[Doc Creed]

I don't understand all the wrestling, either.

Yes, I left out wrestling, older women, orphans, Germany, New England, and tragic deaths.

 

[muskrat]

Yes, I left out wrestling, older women, orphans, Germany, New England, and tragic deaths.

Just like Dickens.

 

[fljoe0]

Just like Dickens.

Dickens wrestled?

 

[no bounce no play]

It's sad too because its not like it uses the N word for the sake of using it. Is that the one where all the black people take off for mars,leaving behind earth?

I think the story is about all the black people who take off for Mars. And yeah you're right about the N word. Bradbury was anti-racist and I can't imagine anyone taking offense. And it's not like the reader doesn't know how things were in the past when Bradbury wrote the story.

Edited is a dirty word in my opinion. I will always wonder what did I miss?

Same here. I don't see any reason for fiction to be edited at all after first publication. I'm still surprised the Nancy Drew books were edited. I'm surprised Gone With The Wind hasn't been edited.

The edits seem to come from a 1997 edition of the book (from Wikipedia)

A 1997 edition of the book advances all the dates by 31 years (thus running from 2030 to 2057). (This change counteracts a problem common to near-future stories, where the passage of time overtakes the period in which the story is set; for a list of other works that have fallen prey to this phenomenon, see the List of stories set in a future now past.) This edition includes "The Fire Balloons", and replaces "Way in the Middle of the Air" (a story less topical in 1997 than in 1950) with the 1952 short story "The Wilderness", dated May 2034 (equivalent to May 2003 in the earlier chronology).

Ray Bradbury was around then so maybe he approved it.

Thanks If Bradbury approved it, I need to get off my soapbox lol.

 

[no bounce no play]

I think he was too close to the subject--no objectivity. I mean, many writers have sections that touch on things in their lives, but this was (according to Irving himself) VERY autobiographical. Weird is his stock in trade, but this just went beyond. I was sad for the little boy he was, to be honest. When stuff gets too real, I think it's difficult to tell what's good writing and what's tossing your guts out on the floor and looking at the patterns. It's like on American Idol (at least when I watched it years ago): when someone says whatever song is the most meaningful thing they've ever heard, you can be sure they're going to cock it up. No objectivity.

Great image but I gots to say, I prefer reading tea leaves, you don't have to get out the mop afterwards

 

[carrie's younger brother]

I don't understand all the wrestling, either.

Irving was a wrestling coach at one time. My personal opinion is that the wrestling in his books is an allusion to homosexuality.