#41: The World According to Garp by John Irving
When I saw John Irving last week, he carefully explained to the audience that everything he writes is somehow related to his biggest fears. Of course, this is exceptionally true in Garp, where just about everything everyone is ever afraid of actually happens. Some parts of life are scary, such as death or loss of a great love, and when I was reading about them here I felt what I can only describe as overwhelming appreciation. Not only was Irving able to develop characters with depth but he also gave them the flaws that so many of us attribute to a single defect within ourselves. I guess what I mean is, the characters in Garp have the kind of quirks I like to see in real life.
On a somewhat related note, I’ve been trying to write this review for a couple of days now and the above paragraph is all I’ve been able to get out. There were times when I became sort of angry that I didn’t have a whole lot to put out there. What I think this means about the book is that it offers a story - not much more, not much less. It tells a multi-generational family tale that and while it certainly had an effect on me, it does not leave a whole lot for discussion. The novel just is what it is. I used to think I had to be able to discuss themes and characters and ongoing issues here, but I understand now that this interpretation isn’t always necessary. Sometimes it’s best to let a book be and move on to the next.
I’ll be there for sure. And for the John Irving enthusiast, Ryan has pointed out this great chart of recurring themes.
While I find this painting by the tolliop Etsy shop to be quite endearing, it’s the description of the paper that really takes the cake. She says:
This is a print of an original painting. The print measures 8.5” x 11”, although the actual image size is about 5.5” x 6”. I use Hahnemühle Fine Art Paper, an acid free, all cotton watercolor paper with a parchment surface and special coating for excellent image sharpness and optimum color gradation.
But all this minutae is neither here nor there. It doesn’t tell you what you really need to know about this paper, which is that I would use some to line a nest and bear my young in it. And the first word out of my baby’s mouth would be Hahnemühle. Then I’d slip a piece of it into my pocket, and when no one was looking, I would take it out and we’d gaze at each other for hours. And I would start talking to my paper, telling it all kinds of stuff, I mean I would really let it into my mind. We’d have all these inside jokes that only WE would laugh at. And that paper would just get me, you know? Because Hahnemühle paper? It’s THAT good.
In fact, her love of paper may just be equal to my love of cake. So I guess it’s not too weird.
When I got to work this morning, I realized I was using an accidentally stolen diner knife as a bookmark. Guess you could say I was so busy slicing through my reading that I didn’t even notice it.
This is a story about how I tried out for VH1’s World Series of Pop Culture.
As the notable Zach Linder and my non-blogging roommate have pointed out to me, Chuck Klosterman is speaking at Barnes and Noble. I have only read one of Klosterman’s books but found it to be exactly my style. More importantly, I mention in the review that I once tried out for VH1’s World Series of Pop Culture. This is probably as good a time as any to tell you and Mr. Klosterman, should he decide to google his own name, the story because it was a fun time and influenced how I read his books. Here it goes:
My little sister and I were avid fans of the World Series and had watched from the beginning as Pat Kiernan schooled teams of three on everything from 80’s hip-hop to soap opera madness. Being that the two of us could easily answer questions from the comfort of our living room, we signed up to be contestants as soon as we had the chance. All it took was an an online questionare with attached pictures of ourselves. I pulled in a friend from college and we immediately had a team we thought could cover music, TV, and movies.
So we practiced a bit and after various team names were compiled, we settled on “Team Agrocrag”. My personal favorite of the name suggestions, ”Lisa Burned the House Down”, was nixed early on because my sister thought people wouldn’t get it. The response I had this was, “If they haven’t seen TLC’s Behind the Music, they don’t deserve to be on the show anyways!” But apparently my opinion didn’t matter and once we had a name, we had to go to Austin for the first round of competition. There we had to sit in a room with about 20 different teams and take a timed multiple choice test. Astonished, we learned every team member had to pass the written test in order to move on to the next round, no 2 out of 3 business. This whole time, we thought we had it covered. The plan was, each member would have a different specialty. Each member was supposed to help out the other. OOOHHHH but we were wrong. This strategy clearly hadn’t worked because on the test I could fill in Beyonce lyrics and I knew Elvis’s record label but I sure didn’t know that one quote from Jurassic Park. Turns out our individual strengths added up to make an overall weakness.
Afterward, we didn’t know who or if any of us had passed the test. The production assistant got up and said not a single team in the room would be continuing to the next round. NOT ONE! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? WE WEREN’T AS NERDY AS WE HOPED WE’D BE! NOT EVEN “JENNIFER GREY’S ORIGINAL NOSE” COULD PASS THAT TEST! I THOUGHT THEY LOOKED PRETTY INTIMIDATING! But alas, it felt nice knowing it wasn’t just our team who was let down. The trio sitting next to us had been dumb enough to fly from Arizona for this. All we had to do was drive 3 hours south on I-35. Plus, we had the luxury of treating ourselves to some Chuy’s mexican food as a consolation prize, so all was not lost. We just went home and back to school.
The story’s a bit anticlimactic, right? But whatever, I just hope Mr. Klosterman understands that not all pop culture people know how to use this knowledge for good. It’s like, I could try and try but unless I decide I want to date Bret Michaels, I’m never going to be featured on a VH1 reality show. So you know what? I’m going to go this event tonight, try to get a book signed, and go home. And it will be ok because just as I watched those crazy NYU kids win the World Series of Pop Culture I was supposed to be on, I’ll watch Mr. Klosterman shame me with his never ending trivia. It’s a sport for the indoor kids who always have fun learning just a little bit more.
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