Garp and how he saw the world (novel)

Garp and how he saw the world (translated by Jürgen Abel ) is the fourth novel by the American writer John Irving and was published in 1978 under the original title The World According to Garp .

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During the Second World War, the nurse Jenny Fields wanted a child, but not a husband. That's why she “gets” the semen in the hospital from a soldier with a serious brain injury who also dies shortly afterwards. She names her son TS Garp after his father, whereby the initials do not stand for a first name: Jenny was not known to Jenny, only his technical sergeant rank .

Garp grew up in the Steering School, a boarding school where his mother found work as a nurse; later he also goes to school there. He often plays with the children of the school founder's heir, her dog bites off part of his ear, and he has his first sexual experience with his daughter, Cushie Percy. But he has a special affection for Helen Holms, the daughter of his teacher for wrestling. Helen is an avid reader and says she just wants to marry a "real" writer. So Garp decides to become a "real" writer.

He hopes to find inspiration in Europe, and after graduating from school he moves to Vienna with his mother. During this time, Jenny wrote her autobiography, which was published after the trip and made her a figurehead of the women's movement. It takes Garp a long time to write his first good short story, "The Pension Grillparzer", with which he convinces Helen to marry him.

After the wedding, Helen teaches literary history at a university, Garp writes his first novel, "Zaudern", and looks after his first child, Duncan. After the birth of their second child, Walt, the Garps get to know the Fletcher couple: In order to dissuade Harrison Fletcher from cheating, the four try to swap partners. During this time, Garp's second novel, "The Cuckold Catches himself", is written.

After the four-sided relationship ends, Helen has an affair with a student, the arrogant Michael Milton, but Garp informs him about it. He wants Helen to break up with Milton right away, so he goes to the movies with the kids. Because of Walt's cold, they return home earlier than planned. There is a rear-end collision with the car in which Michael Milton and Helen are having oral sex. The occupants of both cars are injured and partially mutilated. Michael Milton loses his penis and Walt dies on impact.

During their recovery, they live with Garp's mother Jenny, who, in addition to her family, takes in and supports women seeking help in her house. Garp and Helen are reconciled again and have a third child, this time a daughter, whom they name Jenny after Garp's mother. During this time Garp wrote his third novel: "Bensenhaver and how he saw the world". He asks his publisher John Wolf to market the book as best he can, and Wolf advertises that Garp is the son of the "well-known feminist" Jenny Fields and that he recently lost his son. To save Garp the media hype, he advises him to go abroad for a while. Garp spends some time in Vienna with his family.

Meanwhile, Garp's mother supports the campaign of a woman running for governorship in Maine. At a campaign event, Jenny is shot dead by a man who blamed her book for his divorce. Upon hearing this news, the Garps return home. The funeral service for Jenny, the "first feminist funeral" that her followers want to organize for her, should only be for women. Garp visits her anyway, disguised as a woman, but is recognized and has to flee. On the way he meets a young woman, Ellen James: When she was eleven years old, a man had raped her and cut out her tongue. In order to protest against this injustice, numerous women, the "Ellen Jamesians", have had their tongues removed since then. However, Ellen James rejects the Ellen Jamesians - she did not want to be dragged into public after the fact and does not want to be confused with them. However, she had wanted to get to know Jenny Fields and Garp, "Bensenhaver and how he saw the world" she had liked very much. She subsequently becomes a good friend of the family.

Helen's father had also died, and Garp is now taking over his position as coach of the wrestling team at the Steering School. As his mother's heir, he is now also responsible for a foundation that is supposed to provide scholarships to women seeking help. Ellen James publishes an article “Why I am not an Ellen Jamesian”, and Garp also publishes a text against the Ellen Jamesians. Garp soon escaped an assassination attempt by an enraged Ellen Jamesian by a hair's breadth. A few months later Garp is shot by "Pu" Percy, a playmate from Garp's childhood. Pu Percy had joined the Ellen Jamesians; she mistakenly held Garp responsible for the death of her sister Cushie Percy.

A detailed epilogue describes the further fates of most of the people involved.

subjects

An important theme of the novel is the women's movement. On the one hand, John Irving creates strong women as protagonists; the Ellen Jamesian women, on the other hand, who vehemently rejects Irving's main character, stage women as victims (they cut their tongues to draw accusatory attention to themselves through this grotesque self-mutilation). Sexual violence and transsexuality are also discussed (a good family friend, Roberta Muldoon, was a celebrated football player as a man before her operation).

The problem of safety is not that obvious in the novel: Garp and other characters in the book want to protect their children from all dangers in the world; ironically, it is Garp's caution that leads to the fatal accident for his son.

Garp's books and short stories take up a lot of space:

• The short story “Die Pension Grillparzer” is printed in full. The plot - a family meets strange guests in an Austrian guesthouse - points to Irving's novel Das Hotel New Hampshire .
• We learn the plot from the novel “procrastination”; similar to Let go of the bears! Viennese zoo animals are also liberated here.
• The plot of the novel "The Cuckold Gets Itself" is very similar to Irving's novel A Middleweight Marriage .
• Another short story ("Wachen") is printed in full.
• The entire first chapter of the third novel “Bensenhaver and how he saw the world” is printed. This novel is about a father who, after his wife has been raped, is too eager to protect his family; his youngest child dies through his own fault. The title should be an allusion to Garp and how he saw the world .

This detailed comparison of Garp's life and work enables the reader to compare the two. Even if some parallels can be recognized, Garp's literary processing of actual events is typically exaggerated or enriched with grotesque elements. A good example of the difficulty of recognizing real reality behind a fictional story is the story of a chained watchdog in Vienna: Garp tells three different versions of this, first Walt and then Helen, although it is unclear whether any of the versions actually exist has occurred.

filming

The book was made into a film by George Roy Hill in 1982 under the title Garp and How He Saw the World .