The all-caps drove me insane.
Being a Terry Pratchett fan, I didn't mind much.
Where's the praising and extolling of my virtues? Where's the love?
Host ,'Not Fade Away'
Literary Buffistas 3: Don't Parse the Blurb, Dear.
There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."
Seska (the Watcher-in-Training) - Oct 28, 2009 12:48:01 pm PDT #10274 of 28377
"We're all stories, in the end. Just make it a good one, eh?"
megan walker - Oct 28, 2009 12:54:44 pm PDT #10275 of 28377
"What kind of magical sunshine and lollipop world do you live in? Because you need to be medicated."-SFist
Irvings I have known (in order of preference):
A Widow for One Year
The Cider House Rules
The World According to Garp
The Hotel New Hampshire
I have a special fondness for Garp, mostly because of the film, but I loved
A Widow for One Year.
Amy - Oct 28, 2009 12:58:22 pm PDT #10276 of 28377
Because books.
Oh wait, I read Garp, too. That's it, though, although I have a copy of Widow around somewhere, I think.
DavidS - Oct 28, 2009 1:04:47 pm PDT #10277 of 28377
"Look, son, if it's good enough for Shirley Bassey, it's good enough for you."
Everybody needs to read the early Irvings too!
Water Method Man is flat out hilarious. It might be his funniest book.
erikaj - Oct 28, 2009 1:10:42 pm PDT #10278 of 28377
Always Anti-fascist!
I always meant to, but he writes long. I've read New Hampshire Garp(duh! I think about the Ellen Jamesians all the time, most notablly during Terri Schiavo.) Cider House Rules(There's an upper! NOT!) Owen Meany and I think "Widow"
JZ - Oct 28, 2009 2:15:43 pm PDT #10279 of 28377
See? I gave everybody here an opportunity to tell me what a bad person I am and nobody did, because I fuckin' rule.
The Water Method Man rules. Someday we should have a fall F2F and celebrate Throgsgaffen (sp?). And Setting Free the Bears is also glorious. As are Cider House, Garp and Owen Meany. I don't think I could read HNH again due to a bone-deep incest squick, but I'm not at all sorry I read it the once (so much good writing all around the squick, and I might never have found Donald Justice's poetry without it). And the nonfiction collection, Trying to Save Piggy Sneed, is fantastic.
Sophia Brooks - Oct 28, 2009 2:28:44 pm PDT #10280 of 28377
Cats to become a rabbit should gather immediately now here
I've read them all, and though Hotel New Hampshire was my favorite, until Widow for One Year, which I just fell in love with.
However, Until I Find you creeped me out beyond belief with the young boy having sex with the teenage girl. Somehow, I was OK with the incest, but that just seemed really self indulgent and gross. I think perhaps because somehow the young boy was really good at sex (supposedly). It could be my age, however, but I feel like the boy in Until I Found you was way younger than the Hotel New Hamphire guy.
DavidS - Oct 28, 2009 2:49:49 pm PDT #10281 of 28377
"Look, son, if it's good enough for Shirley Bassey, it's good enough for you."
Wasn't Until I Find You based on Irving's own experience of sexual abuse as a child?
Sophia Brooks - Oct 28, 2009 5:19:29 pm PDT #10282 of 28377
Cats to become a rabbit should gather immediately now here
It felt that way, actually, but it also felt that he was protecting himself by being "good" and having prowess. It just really, I think, felt to personal?
ETA: or maybe defensive-- as if it wasn't abuse because what kid wouldn't want an older lover. But it felt like abuse to me immediately. So maybe it did what he intended...
DavidS - Oct 28, 2009 5:21:35 pm PDT #10283 of 28377
"Look, son, if it's good enough for Shirley Bassey, it's good enough for you."
It just really, I think, felt to personal?
Curious. He wrote the whole novel in the third person, wasn't satisfied with it, and then rewrote the whole thing in the first person.