The World According to Garp
Critique • Quotes
First editionFirst publication
1978
Literary form
Novel
Genre
Literary, satire
Writing language
English
Author's country
United states
Length
Approx. 213,000 words
Notable lines
Garp's mother, Jenny Fields, was arrested in Boston in 1942 for wounding a man in a movie theater.
— First line
In a school community, someone who reads a book for some secretive purpose, other than discussing it, is strange.
Imagination, he realized, came harder than memory.
"In this dirty minded world, you are either someone's wife or someone's whore. And if you're not either people think there is something wrong with you."
A woman half dressed seemed to have some power, but a man was simply not as handsome as when he was naked, and not as secure as when he was clothed.
Maybe television causes cancer, Garp thinks; but his real irritation is a writer's irritation: he knows that wherever the TV glows, there sits someone who isn't reading.
But in the world according to Garp, we are all terminal cases.
— Last line
Critique • Quotes
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