books tagged “American literature” (american literature / American Literature)

books tagged “American literature”

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Alice Walker
by Alice Walker

ISBN 0671922548 (0-671-92254-8)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster

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- Alice Walker: ISBN 0671922548 (0-671-92254-8)
  Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
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All the Pretty Horses
by Cormac McCarthy

ISBN 0679744398 (0-679-74439-8)
Softcover, Random House Inc

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Book summary:
Part bildungsroman, part horse opera, part meditation on courage and loyalty, this beautifully crafted novel won the National Book Award in 1992. The plot is simple enough. John Grady Cole, a 16-year-old dispossessed Texan, crosses the Rio Grande into Mexico in 1949, accompanied by his pal Lacey Rawlins. The two precocious horsemen pick up a sidekick--a laughable but deadly marksman named Jimmy Blevins--encounter various adventures on their way south and finally arrive at a paradisiacal hacienda where Cole falls into an ill-fated romance. Readers familiar with McCarthy's Faulknerian prose will find the writing more restrained than in Suttree and Blood Meridian. Newcomers will be mesmerized by the tragic tale of John Grady Cole's coming of age. [via]
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Babbitt
by Sinclair Lewis

ISBN 1591020239 (1-59102-023-9)
Softcover, Prometheus Books

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Babbitt, by Sinclair Lewis, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics:All editions are beautifully designed and are printed to superior specifications; some include illustrations of historical interest. Barnes & Noble Classics pulls together a constellation of influences-biographical, historical, and literary-to enrich each reader's understanding of these enduring works. In the small midwestern city of Zenith, George Babbitt seems to have it all: a successful real-estate business, a devoted wife, three children, and a house with all the modern conveniences. Yet, dissatisfied and lonely, he's begun to question the conformity, consumerism, and competitiveness of his conservative, and ultimately cultureless middle-class community. His despairing sense that something, many things are missing from his life leads him into a flirtation with liberal politics and a fling with an attractive and seemingly "bohemian" widow. But he soon finds that his attempts at rebellion may cost more than he is willing to pay. The title of Sinclair Lewis's 1922 satire on American materialism added a new word to our vocabulary. "Babbittry" has come to stand for all that's wrong with a world where the pursuit of happiness means the procurement of things-a world that substitutes "stuff" for "soul." [via]
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The Beautiful and Damned
by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Pagan Harleman

ISBN 1593082452 (1-59308-245-2)
Softcover, Barnes & Noble

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The Beautiful and Damned, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics:
All editions are beautifully designed and are printed to superior specifications; some include illustrations of historical interest. Barnes & Noble Classics pulls together a constellation of influencesbiographical, historical, and literaryto enrich each reader's understanding of these enduring works.
In 1921 F. Scott Fitzgerald was twenty-five and heralded as the most promising writer of his generation, owing to the success of his first novel This Side of Paradise. Recently married to the girl of his dreams, the former Zelda Sayre, Fitzgerald built upon his sudden prosperity with The Beautiful and the Damned, a cautionary tale of reckless ambition and squandered talent set amid the glitter of Jazz Age New York.
The novel chronicles the relationship of Anthony Patch, a Harvard-educated, aspiring writer, and his beautiful young wife, Gloria. While they wait for Anthonys grandfather to die and pass his millions on to them, the young couple enjoys an endless string of parties, traveling, and extravagance. Beginning with the pop and fizz of life itself, The Beautiful and the Damned quickly evolves into a scathing chronicle of a dying marriage and a hedonistic society in which beauty is all too fleeting.
A fierce parable about the illusory quality of dreams, the intractable nature of reality, and the ruin wrought by time, The Beautiful and the Damned eerily anticipates the dissipation and decline that would come to the Fitzgeralds themselves before the decade had run its course.
Pagan Harleman studied literature at Columbia College, then traveled extensively in the Middle East and West Africa before receiving an MFA from New York Universitys graduate film program. While at NYU she made several award-winning shorts and received the Deans Fellowship, the Steven Tisch Fellowship, and a Directors Craft Award.
[via]
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- The Beautiful and Damned: ISBN 1593082452 (1-59308-245-2)
  Softcover, Barnes & Noble
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Breakfast at Tiffany's
by Truman Capote

ISBN 0679745653 (0-679-74565-3)
Softcover, Random House Inc

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Book summary:
Contains:

Breakfast at Tiffany's
House of Flowers
A Diamond Guitar
A Christmas Memory [via]
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Breakfast at Tiffany's and Three Stories
by Not Available

ISBN 0606192166 (0-606-19216-6)
Hardcover, Demco Media

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Book summary:
In this seductive, wistful masterpiece, Truman Capote created a woman whose name has entered the American idiom and whose style is a part of the literary landscape. Holly Golightly knows that nothing bad can ever happen to you at Tiffany's; her poignancy, wit, and naïveté continue to charm.

This volume also includes three of Capote's best-known stories, House of Flowers, A Diamond Guitar, and A Christmas Memory, which the Saturday Review called one of the most moving stories in our language. It is a tale of two innocentsa small boy and the old woman who is his best friendwhose sweetness contains a hard, sharp kernel of truth.
[via]
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- Breakfast at Tiffany's and Three Stories: ISBN 0606192166 (0-606-19216-6)
  Hardcover, Demco Media
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The Call of the Wild
by Jack London

ISBN 1561560944 (1-56156-094-4)
Softcover, Kidsbooks

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Written at a point of crisis in his life, A Tale of Two Cities is the embodiment of Dickens' own passions and fears: the revolution which engulfs the characters symbolizes his own psychological revolution, and the three main characters become projections of Dickens himself. [via]
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The Call of the Wild
by Dalmatian Press Staff

ISBN 1577595459 (1-57759-545-9)
Hardcover, Dalmatian Press

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Book summary:
6-1/4" x 9-1/4" Hardcover. Illustrated [via]
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- The Call of the Wild: ISBN 1577595459 (1-57759-545-9)
  Hardcover, Dalmatian Press
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The Call of the Wild and White Fang
by Jack London

ISBN 1853260266 (1-85326-026-6)
Softcover, Lb May & Assoc Inc

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Book summary:
With an Introduction and Notes by Lionel Kelly, University of Reading The Call of the Wild (1903) and White Fang (1906) are world famous animal stories. Set in Alaska during the Klondike Gold Rush of the late 1890s, The Call of the Wild is about Buck, the magnificent cross-bred offspring of a St Bernard and a Scottish Collie. Stolen from his pampered life on a Californian estate and shipped to the Klondike to work as a sledge dog, he triumphs over his circumstances and becomes the leader of a wolf pack. The story records the decivilisation of Buck as he answers the call of the wild , an inherent memory of primeval origins to which he instinctively responds. In contrast, White Fang relates the tale of a wolf born and bred in the wild which is civilised by the master he comes to trust and love. The brutal world of the Klondike miners and their dogs is brilliantly evoked and Jack London s rendering of the sentient life of Buck and White Fang as they confront their destiny is enthralling and convincing. The deeper resonance of these stories derives from the author s use of the myth of the hero who survives by strength and courage, a powerful myth that still appeals to our collective unconscious. [via]
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- The Call of the Wild and White Fang: ISBN 1853260266 (1-85326-026-6)
  Softcover, Lb May & Assoc Inc
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The Color Purple
by Alice Walker

ISBN 0156028352 (0-15-602835-2)
Softcover, Harcourt

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Book summary:
Celie is a poor black woman whose letters tell the story of 20 years of her life, beginning at age 14 when she is being abused and raped by her father and attempting to protect her sister from the same fate, and continuing over the course of her marriage to "Mister," a brutal man who terrorizes her. Celie eventually learns that her abusive husband has been keeping her sister's letters from her and the rage she feels, combined with an example of love and independence provided by her close friend Shug, pushes her finally toward an awakening of her creative and loving self. [via]
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The Deerslayer
by James Fenimore Cooper

ISBN 0140390618 (0-14-039061-8)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA

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Book summary:
The Deerslayer (1841) is the last of the Leatherstocking Tales, but the first in the development of the hero Natty Bumppo. This novel marks Cooper's return to historical romance after more than a decade given largely to social and political commentary. This edition provides the authoritative text of the novel and prefaces to The Deerslayer (1841 and 1850) and to the Leatherstocking Tales (1850). [via]
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The Deerslayer, or the First Warpath
by James Fenimore Cooper, N. C. Wyeth

ISBN 0684192349 (0-684-19234-9)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing

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Book summary:
This is an electronic edition of the complete book complemented by author biography. This book features the table of contents linked to every chapter. The book was designed for optimal navigation on the Kindle, PDA, Smartphone, and other electronic readers. It is formatted to display on all electronic devices including the Kindle, Smartphones and other Mobile Devices with a small display. ****************** The Deerslayer, or The First Warpath (1841) was the last of James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking tales to be written. Its 1740-1745 time period makes it the first installment chronologically and in the lifetime of the hero of the Leatherstocking tales, Natty Bumppo. The novel's setting on Otsego Lake in central, upstate New York, is the same as that of The Pioneers, the first of the Leatherstocking tales to be published (1823). The Deerslayer is considered to be the prequel to the rest of the Leatherstocking tales. Fenimore Cooper begins his work by relating the astonishing advance of civilization in New York State, which is the setting of four of his five Leatherstocking tales. Excerpted from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. More e-Books from MobileReference - Best Books. Best Price. Best Search and Navigation (TM) All fiction books are only $0.99. All collections are only $5.99Designed for optimal navigation on Kindle and other electronic devices Search for any title: enter mobi (shortened MobileReference) and a keyword; for example: mobi ShakespeareTo view all books, click on the MobileReference link next to a book title Literary Classics: Over 10,000 complete works by Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Mark Twain, Conan Doyle, Jules Verne, Dickens, Tolstoy, and other authors. All books feature hyperlinked table of contents, footnotes, and author biography. Books are also available as collections, organized by an author. Collections simplify book access through categorical, alphabetical, and chronological indexes. They offer lower price, convenience of one-time download, and reduce clutter of titles in your digital library. Religion: The Illustrated King James Bible, American Standard Bible, World English Bible (Modern Translation), Mormon Church's Sacred Texts Philosophy: Rousseau, Spinoza, Plato, Aristotle, Marx, Engels Travel Guides and Phrasebooks for All Major Cities: New York, Paris, London, Rome, Venice, Prague, Beijing, Greece Medical Study Guides: Anatomy and Physiology, Pharmacology, Abbreviations and Terminology, Human Nervous System, Biochemistry College Study Guides: FREE Weight and Measures, Physics, Math, Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, Statistics, Languages, Philosophy, Psychology, Mythology History: Art History, American Presidents, U.S. History, Encyclopedias of Roman Empire, Ancient Egypt Health: Acupressure Guide, First Aid Guide, Art of Love, Cookbook, Cocktails, Astrology Reference: The World's Biggest Mobile Encyclopedia; CIA World Factbook, Illustrated Encyclopedias of Birds, Mammals [via]
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- The Deerslayer, or the First Warpath: ISBN 0684192349 (0-684-19234-9)
  Hardcover, Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
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Dharma Bums
by Jack Kerouac

ISBN 0140042520 (0-14-004252-0)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA

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One of the best and most popular of Kerouac's autobiographical novels, The Dharma Bums is based on experiences the writer had during the mid-1950s while living in California, after he'd become interested in Buddhism's spiritual mode of understanding. One of the book's main characters, Japhy Ryder, is based on the real poet Gary Snyder, who was a close friend and whose interest in Buddhism influenced Kerouac. This book is a must-read for any serious Kerouac fan. [via]
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The Golden Bowl
by Henry James

ISBN 1853262498 (1-85326-249-8)
Softcover, Lb May & Assoc Inc

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Book summary:
Henry James's 1904 novel "The Golden Bowl" is the story of Prince Amerigo, an impoverished but charismatic Italian nobleman who travels to London to marry Maggie Verver, only child of the wealthy American financier and art collector, Adam Verver. While in London, Prince Amerigo meets his former mistress, Charlotte Stant, and the two are soon engaged in an adulterous affair. Considered by some to be the last work of Henry James's "major phase", "The Golden Bowl" is a complex examination of marriage and adultery. [via]
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The Last Tycoon
by F. Scott Fitzgerald

ISBN 0684153114 (0-684-15311-4)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster

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Book summary:
F. Scott Fitzgerald died before he could finish this novel, better known as "The Last Tycoon". Its central character, the great film producer Monroe Stahr, is based on Irving Thalberg and, like Fitzgerald, is a desperately sick man, disenchanted with life, but striving still to work. [via]
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Life on the Mississippi
by Mark Twain

ISBN 0060955678 (0-06-095567-8)
Softcover, Harpercollins

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This is Mark Twain's description of life on the Mississippi River, with observations and anecdotes about the culture and society along the river valley. It includes character sketches, historical facts, information and reminiscences of Twain's boyhood and experiences as a steam-boat pilot. Part travel book, part autobiography, and part social commentary, "Life on the Mississippi" is a memoir of the cub pilot's apprenticeship, a record of Twain's return to the river and to Hannibal as an adult, a meditation on the harsh vagaries of nature, and a study of the varied and sometimes violent activities engaged in by those who live on the river's shores. [via]
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Life on the Mississippi (1883
by Mark Twain, Shelley Fisher Fishkin

ISBN 0195114078 (0-19-511407-8)
Hardcover, Oxford Univ Pr

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Book summary:
Twain reflects on the people and places of his childhood, the way things looked and felt in the memorable locales of his growing up and his later return to them in maturity. [via]
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- Life on the Mississippi (1883: ISBN 0195114078 (0-19-511407-8)
  Hardcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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Love of the Last Tycoon
by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Matthew Joseph Bruccoli

ISBN 0020199856 (0-02-019985-6)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster

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Book summary:
Cecilia Brady, the daughter of a great motion-picture producer, reminisces about events that began five years earlier when she was an undergraduate at Bennington College, starting with a flight home to Hollywood on a plane whose other passengers included Wylie White, a script writer down on his luck, Manny Schwartz, once an influential producer, and Monroe Stahr, another producer and partner of Cecilia's father, Pat Brady. Cecilia is attracted to Stahr, and he turns to her at the very time that he has a falling out with her father. Each of the partners conceives the idea of murdering the other. On the way to New York to establish an alibi, Stahr repents and decides to revoke his orders that will result in Brady's death, but his plane crashes before he can carry out his new plan and Cecilia loses both her father and the man she loves. Even in its incomplete form, The Love of The Last Tycoon: A Western has achieved a reputation as the best Hollywood novel. When F. Scott Fitzgerald died in 1940 he had written seventeen of thirty projected episodes. In 1941 the "unfinished novel" was published in a text for general readers by Edmund Wilson under the title The Last Tycoon. For more than fifty years this edition has been the only one available. This critical edition of The Love of the Last Tycoon utilizes Fitzgerald's manuscript drafts, revised typescripts, and working notes to establish the first authoritative text of the work. This volume includes a detailed history of the gestation, composition, and publication of the novel; full textual apparatus with editorial notes; facsimiles of the drafts; and explanatory notes on topical allusions and historical references for contemporary readers. The reconstruction of Fitzgerald's plan for the thirteen unwritten episodes is particularly useful. F. Scott Fitzgerald's incomplete masterpiece is restored to its 1940 state, and thus made fully accessible for the first time. [via]
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Main Street
by Sinclair Lewis

ISBN 1573920487 (1-57392-048-7)
Softcover, Prometheus Books

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The first of his major novels of the 1920s, Sinclair Lewis' "Main Street" satirises the manners of the American Midwest. Here is the story of Carol Kennicott, who, to be accepted, must adapt to the ways of Gopher Prairie, Minnesota. This ground-breaking novel attacks conformism, commercialism, money-grabbing, and the decline in what Lewis saw as the American ideals of freedom and respect for individuality. [via]
More editions of Main Street:
- Main Street: ISBN 1593080360 (1-59308-036-0)
  Softcover, Barnes & Noble
- Main Street: ISBN 1573920487 (1-57392-048-7)
  Softcover, Prometheus Books
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The Mind-Body Problem
by Rebecca Goldstein

ISBN 0394524748 (0-394-52474-8)
Hardcover, Random House Inc

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Book summary:
Wonderful book from perhaps the greatest living author today. Volume One of his "Border Trilogy." Hardcover. Original jacket. Stated First Edition. Light bumping. PO writing on front end page. Jacket price intact. Looks great. Very Good/Near Fine condition. [via]
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- The Mind-Body Problem: ISBN 0394524748 (0-394-52474-8)
  Hardcover, Random House Inc
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Native Son
by Wright

ISBN 156849694X (1-56849-694-X)
Hardcover, Buccaneer Books

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Book summary:
Bigger Thomas is doomed, trapped in a downward spiral that will lead to arrest, prison, or death, driven by despair, frustration, poverty, and incomprehension. As a young black man in the Chicago of the '30s, he has no way out of the walls of poverty and racism that surround him, and after he murders a young white woman in a moment of panic, these walls begin to close in. There is no help for him--not from his hapless family; not from liberal do-gooders or from his well-meaning yet naive friend Jan; certainly not from the police, prosecutors, or judges. Bigger is debased, aggressive, dangerous, and a violent criminal. As such, he has no claim upon our compassion or sympathy. And yet...
A more compelling story than Native Son has not been written in the 20th century by an American writer. That is not to say that Richard Wright created a novel free of flaws, but that he wrote the first novel that successfully told the most painful and unvarnished truth about American social and class relations. As Irving Howe asserted in 1963, "The day Native Son appeared, American culture was changed forever. It made impossible a repetition of the old lies [and] brought out into the open, as no one ever had before, the hatred, fear and violence that have crippled and may yet destroy our culture."
Other books had focused on the experience of growing up black in America--including Wright's own highly successful Uncle Tom's Children, a collection of five stories that focused on the victimization of blacks who transgressed the code of racial segregation. But they suffered from what he saw as a kind of lyrical idealism, setting up sympathetic black characters in oppressive situations and evoking the reader's pity. In Native Son, Wright was aiming at something more. In Bigger, he created a character so damaged by racism and poverty, with dreams so perverted, and with human sensibilities so eroded, that he has no claim on the reader's compassion:
"I didn't want to kill," Bigger shouted. "But what I killed for, I am! It must've been pretty deep in me to make me kill! I must have felt it awful hard to murder.... What I killed for must've been good!" Bigger's voice was full of frenzied anguish. "It must have been good! When a man kills, it's for something... I didn't know I was really alive in this world until I felt things hard enough to kill for 'em. It's the truth..."
Wright's genius was that, in preventing us from feeling pity for Bigger, he forced us to confront the hopelessness, misery, and injustice of the society that gave birth to him. --Andrew Himes [via]
More editions of Native Son:
- Native Son: ISBN 156849694X (1-56849-694-X)
  Hardcover, Buccaneer Books
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The New York Trilogy: City Of Glass, Ghosts, The Locked Room
by Paul Auster

ISBN 0140131558 (0-14-013155-8)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA

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Book summary:
Three stories on the nature of identity. In the first a detective writer is drawn into a curious and baffling investigation, in the second a man is set up in an apartment to spy on someone, and the third concerns the disappearance of a man whose childhood friend is left as his literary executor. [via]
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A Prayer for Owen Meany
by John Irving, Diane Podnar

ISBN 1560774142 (1-56077-414-2)
Softcover, Center for Learning

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- A Prayer for Owen Meany: ISBN 1560774142 (1-56077-414-2)
  Softcover, Center for Learning
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The Reivers
by William Faulkner

ISBN 0679741925 (0-679-74192-5)
Softcover, Vintage Books

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Faulkner offers the reader high comedy in a tale of three Mississippi travellers in Memphis. [via]
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Richard Wright's Native Son
by Harold Bloom

ISBN 1555460550 (1-55546-055-0)
Hardcover, Facts on File

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Book summary:
Bigger Thomas is doomed, trapped in a downward spiral that will lead to arrest, prison, or death, driven by despair, frustration, poverty, and incomprehension. As a young black man in the Chicago of the '30s, he has no way out of the walls of poverty and racism that surround him, and after he murders a young white woman in a moment of panic, these walls begin to close in. There is no help for him--not from his hapless family; not from liberal do-gooders or from his well-meaning yet naive friend Jan; certainly not from the police, prosecutors, or judges. Bigger is debased, aggressive, dangerous, and a violent criminal. As such, he has no claim upon our compassion or sympathy. And yet...
A more compelling story than Native Son has not been written in the 20th century by an American writer. That is not to say that Richard Wright created a novel free of flaws, but that he wrote the first novel that successfully told the most painful and unvarnished truth about American social and class relations. As Irving Howe asserted in 1963, "The day Native Son appeared, American culture was changed forever. It made impossible a repetition of the old lies [and] brought out into the open, as no one ever had before, the hatred, fear and violence that have crippled and may yet destroy our culture."
Other books had focused on the experience of growing up black in America--including Wright's own highly successful Uncle Tom's Children, a collection of five stories that focused on the victimization of blacks who transgressed the code of racial segregation. But they suffered from what he saw as a kind of lyrical idealism, setting up sympathetic black characters in oppressive situations and evoking the reader's pity. In Native Son, Wright was aiming at something more. In Bigger, he created a character so damaged by racism and poverty, with dreams so perverted, and with human sensibilities so eroded, that he has no claim on the reader's compassion:
"I didn't want to kill," Bigger shouted. "But what I killed for, I am! It must've been pretty deep in me to make me kill! I must have felt it awful hard to murder.... What I killed for must've been good!" Bigger's voice was full of frenzied anguish. "It must have been good! When a man kills, it's for something... I didn't know I was really alive in this world until I felt things hard enough to kill for 'em. It's the truth..."
Wright's genius was that, in preventing us from feeling pity for Bigger, he forced us to confront the hopelessness, misery, and injustice of the society that gave birth to him. --Andrew Himes [via]
More editions of Richard Wright's Native Son:
- Richard Wright's Native Son: ISBN 1555460550 (1-55546-055-0)
  Hardcover, Facts on File
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Separate Peace
by John Knowles

ISBN 055323224X (0-553-23224-X)
Softcover, Bantam Pr Ltd

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Book summary:
Set at a boys' boarding school in New England during the early years of World War II, A Separate Peace is a harrowing and luminous parable of the dark side of adolescence. Gene is a lonely, introverted intellectual. Phineas is a handsome, taunting, daredevil athlete. What happens between the two friends one summer, like the war itself, banishes the innocence of these boys and their world.
A bestseller for more than thirty years, A Separate Peace is John Knowles's crowning achievement and an undisputed American classic. [via]
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Separate Peace
by Christopher R. Reaske

ISBN 0671008897 (0-671-00889-7)
Hardcover, Pearson Education, Limited

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- Separate Peace: ISBN 0671008897 (0-671-00889-7)
  Hardcover, Pearson Education, Limited
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The World According to Garp
by John Irving

ISBN 034536676X (0-345-36676-X)
Softcover, Ballantine Books

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Book summary:
"Garp was a natural storyteller," says the narrator of John Irving's incandescent novel, referring to the book's hero, the novelist Garp, who has much in common with Irving himself. "He could make things up one right after the other, and they seemed to fit."
Irving packs wild characters and weird events into his classic--officially recognized as such in a Modern Library edition with a new introduction by the author--while amazingly maintaining the rough feel of realism in every scene and the pulse of life in every heart. Many novelists of his time might have populated a novel with a novelist protagonist whose life and books comment on each other and the novel we're reading. Transsexual football players, ball turret gunners lobotomized in battle, multiple adultery, unicycling bears, mad feminists who amputate their tongues in sympathy with the celebrated victim of a horrifying rape--Irving made them all people. Even the bear is a fitting character.
In a crucial episode, Garp's wife's seduction of a young man coincidentally occurs at the moment when Garp is delighting their young sons with a reckless car trick (one of the few scenes beautifully, eerily, heartbreakingly captured in the film version as well). Many authors would have been content with the harsh comedy of the scene, but Irving respects its integrity, and he builds the rest of the book on the consequences of the event. How does he get away with his killer cocktail of slapstick and horror? Because it's simply what we all face daily, rearranged into soul-satisfying art. "Life is an X-rated soap opera," according to Garp, and who can contradict him?
Rereading Garp 20 years later, one is struck by how elegantly Irving structures his bizarre and complex story. Take the two most celebrated bits in the book, the Under Toad and Garp's story "The Pension Grillparzer," which shimmers like an exquisite Kafkaesque insect in the amber of the novel. When Garp warns his son about the "undertow" at the beach, the boy imagines a monster out of Beowulf who lurks beneath the waves to suck you under: the "Under Toad." It's funny at first, but we soon find that the Under Toad is a metaphor with teeth--he connects with a prophetic dream of death in "The Pension Grillparzer," set in Vienna. Garp's son's last words are, "It's like a dream!" And as Irving--who studied at the University of Vienna--can certainly tell you, the German word for "death" sounds precisely like the English word "toad."
All that death, and yet Garp is mainly exuberant. This story is, as Garp's stuttering writing teacher puts it, "rich with lu-lu-lunacy and sorrow." It enriches literature, and our lives. --Tim Appelo [via]
More editions of The World According to Garp: