A friend called out of the blue yesterday to ask if I had read Until I Find You by John Irving. She remembered me reading A Prayer for Owen Meany about the time she did and liking it very much. She picked up Until I Find You on audio, and it's a whopping 26 CD's. She doesn't know if she is going to stick with it and wondered if I knew the outcome. I haven't read that particular book but looked it up. Here's part of the Amazon.com review, not exactly glowing:
At over 800 pages, John Irving's Until I Find You is a daunting proposition at best. Anyone who finishes it will have acquired forearm muscles, sore shoulders, and not much else. The story is self-indulgent, repetitive and, ultimately, boring, that cardinal sin that readers can't forgive. Longtime Irving readers have stayed with him through a few hits and a miss or two, but this is an all-time low. We are accustomed to Irving's work as quirky, bizarre, and off-the-wall and have forgiven all by calling such high-jinks and characters "imaginative" or "absolutely original." The only thing original about this tome is the descent into soft porn.
Does anyone know how it ends? Go ahead. Just put UNTIL I FIND YOU SPOILER ALERT at the top of your comment. Maybe it will put my friend out of her misery.
Does anyone have a favorite book by John Irving or have a question for the group about his work? What have you thought of the movie adaptations of his stories? I've never read Garp. Should I?
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5 comments:
I enjoy reading Irving. My favorite is Widow for One Year. The movie version, The Door in the Floor, is even better than the book because the screenplay writer used this process called editing;-)
Sometimes I'm not sure J. I. is completely familiar with it.
I think you would enjoy Garp--it's sad, though.
Having read Garp, ahem...more than a few years ago, I wonder how it has aged. Enjoyed it when I read it but can't imagine that I would do so now. Course it IS fiction and we all know how I feel about that.
Cook, you've mentioned that book and film a number of times. I'm tempted to take the shorter route and just see the movie.
Don, I, too, wonder how Garp has held up over time.
So no one has read Until I Find her?
Thanks for the heads-up on the book. I have enough trouble finding time for much shorter works.
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