The World According to Garp is a book of dimensions. It is entertainment on a grand, anyway stylish, scale. It is bravado transfigured into bravery—or maybe the other way around. In fact, I think quite often the other way around—which is not to damn, but to wonder. (p. 77)
Murder is a frequent occurrence in Garp (both Garp and his mother die in this fashion), but it isn't about murder really, it's about how to breathe life into life. Mayhem and mutilation are on every other page, but the theme of the book is addressed to making things whole. The Ellen Jamesians can't speak (and Garp himself smashes his jaw and must communicate by notes), yet the novel is concerned with articulation as perhaps the only saving grace. One of the most unforgettable characters is a football tight end turned transsexual (there is homoerotic awareness everywhere), yet Garp is profoundly centered on heterosexual urges and itches and relationships and fulfillments, and, out of these and beyond them, on families and children. Garp is a true romantic hero: he wants the world safe, not for himself, but for them….
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