0-fer, part 3

I’ve never read anything by John Irving, either.

(I could go on with this series forever! Esp. around Nobel time!)

13 Replies to “0-fer, part 3”

  1. I had to read “Garp” for a university class. I liked it a lot, but couldn’t get into anything else he wrote. Chip hated “Garp” … thought it cliche and predictable. Since I was a senior in university, he is probably right.

  2. I did read A Prayer for Owen Meany because my brother liked it in high school and it was hanging around the house. Sort of depressing.

    If we throw in John Cheever, we have a trifecta of WASPy Yankee male writers who spend a lot of time worrying about sex. Richard Russo does the same thing, but is funnier, I think.

  3. Plus, you’d be adding to my 0-fer category! I’ve never read a word of Cheever or Russo! I’m starting to feel a lot better about myself!

  4. “I have to believe that this is the first time I’ve ever been criticized by my mom for NOT being like my dad.” …

    don’t worry Gil, it won’t happen again – and by the way, it wasn’t a criticism, just a statement of fact, since Garp and Portnoy’s Complaint were the only books I recall AR reading (and now you’re going to tell the world that you’ve never read Portnoy’s Complaint either!)

  5. I could have sworn it was you who first referred me to this.

    Russo is way funnier than Irving, but no one’s ever going to cast Mimi Rogers in a film adapted from one of Russo’s novels.

  6. John Irving’s favorite writers are, I believe, Charles Dickens and Robertson Davies. Are you 0-fer on them too?

    For Irving, Son of the Circus is a sleeper.

  7. Nope! I’ve read a bunch of Dickens, and hope to re-read Bleak House sometime in the next 2-3 years. And I read Fifth Business by Davies, although I don’t think I read the rest of that trilogy!

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