"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title. Irving’s second and third novels were ‘ The Water-Method Man ’ and ‘ The 158 Pound Marriage ’ also mediocre success. The 158-Pound Marriage is as lean and concentrated as a mine shaft." "One of the most remarkable things about John Irving's first three novels, viewed from the vantage of The World According to Garp, is that they can be read as one extended fictional enterprise. Irving's cool eye spares none of his foursome, he writes with genuine compassion for the sexual tests and illusions they perpetrate on each other but the sexual intrigue between them demonstrates how even the kind can be ungenerous, and even the well-intentioned, destructive. The darker vision and sexual ambiguities of this erotic, ironic tale about a ménage a quatre in a New England university town foreshadow those of The World According to Garp but this very trim and precise novel is a marked departure from the author's generally robust, boisterous style. Irvings cool eye spares none of his foursome, he writes with genuine compassion for the sexual tests and illusions they perpetrate on each other but the sexual intrigue between them demonstrates how even the kind can be ungenerous, and even the well-intentioned, destructive. "Irving looks cunningly beyond the eye-catching gyrations of the mating dance to the morning-after implications." The 158-pound marriage by Irving, John, 1942.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |