SOURCE: King, Francis. “'Arping On.” Spectator 241, no. 7842 (21 October 1978): 27-8.

In the following review, King praises the elements of macabre farce in The World according to Garp, but faults the novel for its lack of a central organizing theme.

Whereas, in the days before efficient contraception, many women would worry about how to have a man without having a baby, Jenny Fields's worry is precisely the opposite. She longs for motherhood but she also longs for a life without any sexual attachment. Nursing in a hospital for second World war casualties, she gets her wish when a ball turret gunner with irreparable brain damage becomes her patient. Called Garp, he is gradually regressing into a state of infantilism, able first to say no word other than his name, then only ‘Arp’, and finally only ‘Ar’.

Jenny offers this man-sized baby her breast in order to comfort him; then, shortly...