The world according to Garp - J. Irving

The first thing I would like to mention is to never, ever buy books edited by Ballantine Books, even if the format is appealing: an editor that allows for the very last sentence of the book to appear in the short description on the back is also capable of every other editorial mischief.

Having taken this off of my chest I would like to add that a smarter person than me would probably be able to work out something interesting from the two following observations:

1. This is a vaguely autobiographical book following its protagonist growing up to be a novelist;
2. David Copperfield also matches this description.

So one can compare the two and see what interesting things come out of it. In no particular order and without having spent too much thinking about it:

• Il personaggio maschile è debole e dreamy;
• La formidable aunt di David Copperfield può essere paragonata alla madre di Garp;
• Dickens sembra un odioso bigotto, ma ho l’impressione che il suo romanzo fosse liberal rispetto ai tempi, e lo stesso si può dire di Garp;
• What I am trying to say is that if you adjust for the evolution/degeneration of the mores both books are liberal in the same way;
• Gli amici rimangono amici, i nemici rimangono nemici, I start thinking this is also a fact of life;
• Roughly speaking, the role played by lust Garp book is played by greediness in Copperfield;
• After adjusting for mores I think also the use of comedy is similar;
• Parenthood plays a huge role in Garp, this is maybe the main difference;
• Garp is socioeconomically more homogeneous, Dickens is culturally more homogeneous.

Mitbringen kann man this line:

In modern times, in my opinion, either everything is a moral question or there are no more moral questions. Nowadays, there are no compromises or there are only compromises.