#incredibly relatable bits too. with some intersections with the previous category | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

dividedskylane · 2 months ago

Text

the saddest thing that can happen to me when i'm reading a book is when it turns out to be not good, but with enough moments of brilliance scattered through that i keep reading it — and don't even feel like dismissing it as just plain bad would be fair. sigh

#john irving in one person you had so much potential. and yet #i should never have ventured into mr. irving's back-catalogue and i know that now #i think two books from him were enough. i think maybe even one could've been the optimal number #like i genuinely loved the world according to garp and now i think in part because it was his first book i read #and then a widow for one year was quite a nice read — i really enjoyed ruth as a character #and i think one of the things i appreciate the most about these two is how deeply the horrible things these characters go through are felt #whereas here my guy billy goes through truly horrendous shit including the death of many people he loved in the aids epidemic #and yet it felt like he was so completely detached from all that. which tbf is stated in the text!#but then maybe i missed the point. but i just don't get why you would tell this life story in this way #i also disliked the pacing very very much. i feel like he was just fluttering around time and not settling anywhere #which obviously didn't help with the impression that the emotions were shallow. it's just weird!#is it the first person voice that sucked actually? wait. i might be onto something here #oooh. oh yeah that's definitely at least part of the problem. the first-person narration sucks!!#also how come do we never get to read any of billy's writing? anyway. that's nitpicking. i have bigger problems #i think that making almost your entire cast of characters queer requires some research and tact that mr irving partially lacks here.#and truly like with everything else about this book there are occasionally wonderful bits. truly great #incredibly relatable bits too. with some intersections with the previous category #but also one of my main problems here is really that i think this is not a well-written book #the prose felt clunky and repetitive. genuinely bad at times #the narration wandered around so much that every recurrent character was re-introduced with a two-sentence summary of who they were #even if we'd last heard of them five pages previously. even some people who got mentioned all the time because they were his literal family #i think at some point it's either you commit to a simpler narrative timeline OR you trust the reader to be focusing on the words you wrote #but this constant hand-holding was painful. also because it led to some characters being reduced to like 1.5 traits each #when really if as many words had been devoted to developing their depth as to reminding us who they were already. they'd be in 6D #(not how that works. i know. this is a joke. haha etc.)#ooh i'm being such a raging hater right now this feels great!#i truly loved some bits. but i really disliked too many others #the handling of the aids crisis. i will not speak about this because it makes me wanna scream #ok i am ready to admit it now. i think john irving's in one person is bad #sigh. i'll steer clear of mr irving for some time and re-read garp in 5-10 years and hopefully enjoy it again

1 note · View note