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The Imaginary Girlfriend
Dedicated to the memory of two wrestling coaches and two writer friends, The Imaginary Girlfriend is John Irving's candid memoir of his twin careers in writing and wrestling. The award-winning author of best-selling novels from The World According to Garp to In One Person, Irving began writing when he was fourteen, the same age at which he began to wrestle at Exeter. He competed as a wrestler for twenty years, was certified as a referee at twenty-four, and coached the sport until he was forty-seven. Irving coached his sons Colin and Brendan to New England championship titles, a championship that he himself was denied.
In an autobiography filled with the humor and compassion one finds in his fiction, Irving explores the interrelationship between the two disciplines of writing and wrestling, from the days when he was a beginner at both until his fourth wresting related surgery at the age of fifty-three. Writing as a father and mentor, he offers a lucid portrait of those—writers and wrestlers from Kurt Vonnegut to Ted Seabrooke—who played a mentor role in his development as a novelist, wrestler, and wrestling coach. He reveals lessons he learned about the pursuit for which he is best known, writing. “And,” as the Denver Post observed, in filling “his narrative with anecdotes that are every bit as hilarious as the antics in his novels, Irving combines the lessons of both obsessions (wrestling and writing) . . . into a somber reflection on the importance of living well.”
In an autobiography filled with the humor and compassion one finds in his fiction, Irving explores the interrelationship between the two disciplines of writing and wrestling, from the days when he was a beginner at both until his fourth wresting related surgery at the age of fifty-three. Writing as a father and mentor, he offers a lucid portrait of those—writers and wrestlers from Kurt Vonnegut to Ted Seabrooke—who played a mentor role in his development as a novelist, wrestler, and wrestling coach. He reveals lessons he learned about the pursuit for which he is best known, writing. “And,” as the Denver Post observed, in filling “his narrative with anecdotes that are every bit as hilarious as the antics in his novels, Irving combines the lessons of both obsessions (wrestling and writing) . . . into a somber reflection on the importance of living well.”
180 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1996
212 people are currently reading
2532 people want to read
About the author
John Irving
159 books16.2k followersJOHN IRVING was born in Exeter, New Hampshire, in 1942. His first novel, Setting Free the Bears, was published in 1968, when he was twenty-six. He competed as a wrestler for twenty years, and coached wrestling until he was forty-seven.
Mr. Irving has been nominated for a National Book Award three times—winning once, in 1980, for his novel The World According to Garp. He received an O. Henry Award in 1981 for his short story “Interior Space.” In 2000, Mr. Irving won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for The Cider House Rules. In 2013, he won a Lambda Literary Award for his novel In One Person.
An international writer—his novels have been translated into more than thirty-five languages—John Irving lives in Toronto. His all-time best-selling novel, in every language, is A Prayer for Owen Meany.
Avenue of Mysteries is his fourteenth novel.
Mr. Irving has been nominated for a National Book Award three times—winning once, in 1980, for his novel The World According to Garp. He received an O. Henry Award in 1981 for his short story “Interior Space.” In 2000, Mr. Irving won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for The Cider House Rules. In 2013, he won a Lambda Literary Award for his novel In One Person.
An international writer—his novels have been translated into more than thirty-five languages—John Irving lives in Toronto. His all-time best-selling novel, in every language, is A Prayer for Owen Meany.
Avenue of Mysteries is his fourteenth novel.
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December 29, 2024
Most memories I have of John Irving’s body of work stem from my grandma and her sister, who was really an additional grandma to me. That normally will get me way off track, but both of when factored in my reading and writing life for as long as they were lucid. When Forrest Gump came out, I happened to be visiting them, and none of us were blown away by the movie, myself only rating the soundtrack an A. Their critique is that Gump’s story did not rate as high as Being There, Zelig, or The World According to Garp. I had just finished ninth grade at the time and had never heard of any of these books or movies, so I researched all three the pre-internet way: at the library. Selecting Garp, I found the story to hold my interest as a summer reading book even if it did not end up on my all time favorites list. Years later, my other exposure to Irving was again with my grandma and her sister. This time we saw The Cider House Rules. The story was not my favorite either but I remember clearly the last line, “goodnight you princes of Maine, you kings of New England.” It has been years since either of these memories occurred; however, last week a review for The Imaginary Girlfriend appeared on my feed. After some vetting, I discovered that Irving spent time in Iowa City and had been an athlete concurrent as a writer. I need of shorter books to complete my reading year, I selected this memoir as part of my celebrity memoir December lineup.
John Irving comes from Maine and quotes other top flight authors including Stephen King in this gem of a novella memoir. After the reading year that I have just nearly completed I knew that it was divine providence that I added Irving to my year’s canon. Irving was not a top student in school. He attended Exeter Prep as a faculty kid and did not achieve the grades of the students who had to apply to the academy on merit. His father even gave him a C in a Russian Literature class, showing Irving that there are no freebies in life. One activity that young Irving gravitated to was wrestling. His coach Ted Seabrooke was an old school New Englander and imparted more lessons in the wrestling room than Irving learned in the classroom. Irving always wrestled at 130 or 137 pounds. He was the weakest link on a strong prep school squad. Seabrooke noted that wrestling is “seven eighths ability and one eighth preparation and enjoyment.” No one prepared more than John Irving because he wrestled for the love of the sport. He broke many bones and sustained a myriad of other injuries and never won a New England prep school championship. In baseball we would say that Irving wrestled for the love of the game. The sport was indeed his first love before either of his two marriages or before he settled on writing as a profession. One did not need to preclude the other; Seabrooke had encouraged a youth with little ability to become a wrestler for life.
Irving’s wrestling journey took him to Pitt, where he never got to participate. He then listened to Seabrooke and completed a year in Vienna to get the unhappy memories of Pitt out of his system. If he wanted to pursue wrestling rather than a career, Irving would have attended the University of Wisconsin; yet, he did not want to go halfway across the country from his family. To this I can relate. His journey took him from Vienna back to New England. He married his first wife Shyla and became a father at the young age of twenty three. Coaching for Exeter, Irving also began his journey on the writing life. He then became a student at the prestigious Iowa Writing Workshop but felt removed from the other students because he was already a husband and father at the time. He developed lifelong friendships with other writers such as John Cheever and Kurt Vonnegut and found solace in a place that Iowa is now famous for: the wrestling room. Although retired, Irving entered the renowned Iowa wrestling room from time to time, even meriting to train with Coach Dan Gable when he returned to teach at the Workshop five years later. Gable is on wrestling’s Mount Rushmore. Irving, not so much. At this point, Irving was a developing writer and wrestled for the fun of it, just as Seabrooke had predicted. The fact that he discovered this balance at Iowa made me wax nostalgic for my own time there, and for a more detailed description check out Petergiaquinta’s review.
Irving achieved his first big break with the publication of The World According to Garp. He was all of age twenty six. To put this into perspective, Americans cite Carson McCullers as being young at twenty three when she published The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. Her career did not span as long as Irving’s, who is still writing today. Irving wrote in a tool shed to have space away from his sons Colin and Brendan. As a release away from writing, Irving entered wrestling rooms, coaching both sons, who turned into far superior wrestlers to their dad. The fact that both boys won New England Prep Wrestling titles gave Irving far more pride and joy than any of his own achievements in life. He wrote The Imaginary Girlfriend while recovering from his own wrestling related injuries. His publisher wanted another novel soon, but rehabbing did not mesh with writing. His second wife and editor Janet suggested a memoir, which could be shorter than a novel, and Irving knew to center it around wrestling. At the time of publication, Brendan had won his wrestling title, and Irving knew that his days as a wrestling coach were over. Driving back from the meet with his sons, he notes was the happiest moment in his life. He had a third son Emmett from his marriage to Janet, and he could turn out to be a superior wrestler as well. His dad is now a renowned author, so Emmett would have to achieve victory with another coach. With his genetics, he probably did.
It has been years since I read Garp or watched Cider House Rules. Moments like these make me wax nostalgic and think about the happy memories with my grandparents. A professor of Irving’s at the Iowa Writers Workshop noted that he read like a writer because he was critical of most characters and related them to his own life. I try to do the same thing at least in reviews, which I primarily write for myself. The other week, my fourteen year old asked me if I ever wanted to write full time. My honest answer is that if money was no object, then, yes, I would. I have both family histories and a lifetime of having an overactive imagination to preserve. One day maybe. One day soon I will have to reacquaint myself with one of John Irving’s novels. I feel I know him after reading this introspective memoir about his life as both an author and athlete. He views life from the lens of seven eighths ability and one eighth preparation and enjoyment, even after finding success in his profession. That he writes for the enjoyment he once brought to the wrestling mat tells me that he is a big name author who writes for the love of writing. For that reason, I will give him his due and hopefully read one of his chunky novels in the coming year. I just hope that it turns out as well as this unplanned gem of a memoir.
4.5 stars
John Irving comes from Maine and quotes other top flight authors including Stephen King in this gem of a novella memoir. After the reading year that I have just nearly completed I knew that it was divine providence that I added Irving to my year’s canon. Irving was not a top student in school. He attended Exeter Prep as a faculty kid and did not achieve the grades of the students who had to apply to the academy on merit. His father even gave him a C in a Russian Literature class, showing Irving that there are no freebies in life. One activity that young Irving gravitated to was wrestling. His coach Ted Seabrooke was an old school New Englander and imparted more lessons in the wrestling room than Irving learned in the classroom. Irving always wrestled at 130 or 137 pounds. He was the weakest link on a strong prep school squad. Seabrooke noted that wrestling is “seven eighths ability and one eighth preparation and enjoyment.” No one prepared more than John Irving because he wrestled for the love of the sport. He broke many bones and sustained a myriad of other injuries and never won a New England prep school championship. In baseball we would say that Irving wrestled for the love of the game. The sport was indeed his first love before either of his two marriages or before he settled on writing as a profession. One did not need to preclude the other; Seabrooke had encouraged a youth with little ability to become a wrestler for life.
Irving’s wrestling journey took him to Pitt, where he never got to participate. He then listened to Seabrooke and completed a year in Vienna to get the unhappy memories of Pitt out of his system. If he wanted to pursue wrestling rather than a career, Irving would have attended the University of Wisconsin; yet, he did not want to go halfway across the country from his family. To this I can relate. His journey took him from Vienna back to New England. He married his first wife Shyla and became a father at the young age of twenty three. Coaching for Exeter, Irving also began his journey on the writing life. He then became a student at the prestigious Iowa Writing Workshop but felt removed from the other students because he was already a husband and father at the time. He developed lifelong friendships with other writers such as John Cheever and Kurt Vonnegut and found solace in a place that Iowa is now famous for: the wrestling room. Although retired, Irving entered the renowned Iowa wrestling room from time to time, even meriting to train with Coach Dan Gable when he returned to teach at the Workshop five years later. Gable is on wrestling’s Mount Rushmore. Irving, not so much. At this point, Irving was a developing writer and wrestled for the fun of it, just as Seabrooke had predicted. The fact that he discovered this balance at Iowa made me wax nostalgic for my own time there, and for a more detailed description check out Petergiaquinta’s review.
Irving achieved his first big break with the publication of The World According to Garp. He was all of age twenty six. To put this into perspective, Americans cite Carson McCullers as being young at twenty three when she published The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. Her career did not span as long as Irving’s, who is still writing today. Irving wrote in a tool shed to have space away from his sons Colin and Brendan. As a release away from writing, Irving entered wrestling rooms, coaching both sons, who turned into far superior wrestlers to their dad. The fact that both boys won New England Prep Wrestling titles gave Irving far more pride and joy than any of his own achievements in life. He wrote The Imaginary Girlfriend while recovering from his own wrestling related injuries. His publisher wanted another novel soon, but rehabbing did not mesh with writing. His second wife and editor Janet suggested a memoir, which could be shorter than a novel, and Irving knew to center it around wrestling. At the time of publication, Brendan had won his wrestling title, and Irving knew that his days as a wrestling coach were over. Driving back from the meet with his sons, he notes was the happiest moment in his life. He had a third son Emmett from his marriage to Janet, and he could turn out to be a superior wrestler as well. His dad is now a renowned author, so Emmett would have to achieve victory with another coach. With his genetics, he probably did.
It has been years since I read Garp or watched Cider House Rules. Moments like these make me wax nostalgic and think about the happy memories with my grandparents. A professor of Irving’s at the Iowa Writers Workshop noted that he read like a writer because he was critical of most characters and related them to his own life. I try to do the same thing at least in reviews, which I primarily write for myself. The other week, my fourteen year old asked me if I ever wanted to write full time. My honest answer is that if money was no object, then, yes, I would. I have both family histories and a lifetime of having an overactive imagination to preserve. One day maybe. One day soon I will have to reacquaint myself with one of John Irving’s novels. I feel I know him after reading this introspective memoir about his life as both an author and athlete. He views life from the lens of seven eighths ability and one eighth preparation and enjoyment, even after finding success in his profession. That he writes for the enjoyment he once brought to the wrestling mat tells me that he is a big name author who writes for the love of writing. For that reason, I will give him his due and hopefully read one of his chunky novels in the coming year. I just hope that it turns out as well as this unplanned gem of a memoir.
4.5 stars
June 25, 2014
I pulled into Iowa City yesterday afternoon, not planning to be in Iowa at all when I had woken up that morning. But while I was mowing my front yard, my son came up to me and said his ride back to college had fallen through; there was something about a texted dispute with the girl driving him about how much gas money he would owe her, and he told me that he had told her to stick it...
I suggested to him that he needed to work on his interpersonal communication skills, especially with women, but secretly I was not displeased because I was hoping to get back to Iowa City, even if it was in such an unexpected manner and for only a quick visit.
So what does one do in Iowa City on an unexpected Saturday afternoon? Well, after a walk through the pedestrian mall and a gander at the vagrants, I headed over to a used book store, Murphy-Brookfield Books on Gilbert Street, and took a look, a rare pleasure for a guy like me who grew up in Iowa City with its used book shops (as well as Prairie Lights, one of the better bookstores in the world) and who finds himself sadly living now in a part of the world with barely any bookstores at all, and none of them used. And I enjoyed myself tremendously, browsing the tall shelves crammed with second hand books. I even enjoyed the cat there, and I'm not much of a cat person.
And when I left, I had a couple of books in hand, one of which was an attractive copy of the British Bloomsbury edition of John Irving's memoir, The Imaginary Girlfriend, which I started reading later that evening and then finished in the middle of the night when the paper thin walls of the crappy Days Inn where I was staying failed to keep out the noise of the Coralville Strip and the voices from my neighbors' television.
So what? you might ask, and I'd reply that sometimes a book's rating might be more than just in response to the words on the page; the rating could be based on an entire sequence of events, a process of sorts involving an infinite number of factors like a surprise visit to Iowa City and a cat in a bookstore and a photo on the book cover of a young John Irving in his wrestling gear, captain of the Exeter Academy wrestling team, staring into the camera without any sense of where his life would be taking him over the next fifty-some years.
And so the five stars is partly based on all that, and it's based of course on my fondness for John Irving, who you'll see over to the right in my profile, listed as one of my favorite authors, and it's also based on how much of the book takes place in Iowa City (just about my most favorite place in the world) and how much of it focuses on wrestling and writing. And if you don't understand the relationship between Iowa City and wrestling and writing, then you probably don't get the attraction here because, more than anything, that is what this book is all about, Irving's lifelong relationship with wrestling and writing and about how those two pursuits have informed his life.
When Irving first came to Iowa City as a student in the Writers Workshop, Dave McCuskey was coach of the Hawkeye wrestling team. Irving had wrestled for Pitt and not done particularly well there, but unlike most former wrestlers he wasn't content to just let that part of his life slide. Irving visited McCuskey's wrestling room on the top floor of the Fieldhouse and wrestled with the team now and then. Later, when Irving returned to Iowa City in the mid-70s as an instructor in the Workshop, he wrestled in the room with Kurdelmeier's squad and then with Dan Gable's team. In fact, there's a hilarious photo at the end of the book of Dan Gable throwing Irving to his back with a wicked foot sweep. And he kept wrestling, and reffing wrestling and coaching wrestling all the way through the first part of his writing career. One of the last chapters in the book is called "My Last Weigh-in," about the final tournament he wrestled after publication of The World According to Garp. And he also devotes a great deal of time talking about his two older sons' wrestling careers, and all of this adds up to the point where many of the reviewers of the book here on GoodReads have complained about "too much wrestling" in the pages of this memoir. Maybe these folks haven't been reading their Irving very closely, and maybe they just haven't read much about Irving up till now, but beyond Garp and Iowa Bob and all the other wrestling references in his novels, John Irving really loves wrestling. Maybe they just didn't know that about him. But if you aren't in it for the wrestling, and if you don't understand the way wrestling has helped create the man John Irving is today, then you don't want to read this book, and you certainly wouldn't give it five stars.
Speaking of wrestling and Iowa City, in what might be considered a tremendous coincidence (a word that Irving uses several times in The Imaginary Girlfriend--and what sprawling nineteenth-century novel does not make use of the coincidence, and where would Irving [the closest writer we have to Charles Dickens today] be without ample use of the coincidence in his novels?), yesterday afternoon as I was walking in downtown Iowa City I passed Dan Gable right in front of the old Post Office by the little drive-in bank where my mother would often do her banking and where as a small boy I was constantly amazed by the little door that would pop out from the side of the wall when you pulled in for your transaction. There was Dan Gable and his wife and a group of what I could only imagine were his grandchildren on their way to some event in downtown Iowa City. Gable's old now and his hips are bad, but he's still the greatest wrestler in the world, and he's still a tremendous part of the fabric of Iowa City. As a lad I spent a lot of time in the Fieldhouse watching his teams wrestle, and I spent a lot of time in his wrestling room watching his practices before my wrestling club would use the room. Who knows, but maybe Irving was even there. Gable was relentless, and he would often stay after his practices were done, drilling alone in the room on the dummies, working on technique. Back then, even though he was long finished as a competitive wrestler on the mat, he could still beat everyone in that room, and watching him was a joy, so seeing him on the street yesterday was its own special kind of joy, as well.
So that's all part of why this book gets five stars from me, even though I'm one of the few reviewers to give it five stars. And there's a lot more, but I'm sure you're tired of reading this. And I could easily understand why someone else without a keen interest in Iowa City or wrestling or the Writers Workshop might give it a one-star review. After all, the book is a bit of a toss-off, written while Irving was recuperating from shoulder surgery. It's rambling and discursive, while at the same time maddeningly brief and undeveloped (it's less than 150 small pages). Irving tosses out names without much background, and the reader is left wanting to know a whole lot more about the author than what he gives here. No doubt there is a larger, more developed autobiography coming one day from Irving, and no doubt there will be biographers both sleazy and academic who will unfold more of the mysteries of John Irving's life, but this small book isn't going to give a lot of insight to the fan who is looking for profound revelations into the life of the artist.
As for me, I enjoyed it quite a bit. Here's something, though: on the "By the same author" page, the list of works ends with A Son of the Circus. And this might be another reason why I have taken so well to this small book published in 1996--it seems to me that despite the slapdash quality of the book, it's written at the peak of Irving's career, or at least at that part of his career that matters most to me as a reader. After A Son of the Circus, my appreciation of Irving's works begins to dwindle...maybe it's after Owen Meany. Even A Widow for a Year, which a lot of Irving fans seem to enjoy, fails to captivate me as well as those first seven or eight books, and what has followed Widow really hasn't impressed me too much. (I admit I haven't read the most recent book, but I'll get there soon enough.)
Here's what Kurt Vonnegut told John Irving all these many years ago back in Iowa City: "You may be surprised...I think capitalism is going to treat you very well." And it has, oh yes it has. Just maybe, though, it's treated him too well, and what's left now in the second half of Irving's career is only a shadow of what he put into those first books. But The Imaginary Girlfriend has little to do with that second part of Irving's life. This is the Irving of Exeter Academy and the Writers Workshop, of New Hampshire and Iowa City, and it's the Irving who sits on my Favorite Authors list.
I suggested to him that he needed to work on his interpersonal communication skills, especially with women, but secretly I was not displeased because I was hoping to get back to Iowa City, even if it was in such an unexpected manner and for only a quick visit.
So what does one do in Iowa City on an unexpected Saturday afternoon? Well, after a walk through the pedestrian mall and a gander at the vagrants, I headed over to a used book store, Murphy-Brookfield Books on Gilbert Street, and took a look, a rare pleasure for a guy like me who grew up in Iowa City with its used book shops (as well as Prairie Lights, one of the better bookstores in the world) and who finds himself sadly living now in a part of the world with barely any bookstores at all, and none of them used. And I enjoyed myself tremendously, browsing the tall shelves crammed with second hand books. I even enjoyed the cat there, and I'm not much of a cat person.
And when I left, I had a couple of books in hand, one of which was an attractive copy of the British Bloomsbury edition of John Irving's memoir, The Imaginary Girlfriend, which I started reading later that evening and then finished in the middle of the night when the paper thin walls of the crappy Days Inn where I was staying failed to keep out the noise of the Coralville Strip and the voices from my neighbors' television.
So what? you might ask, and I'd reply that sometimes a book's rating might be more than just in response to the words on the page; the rating could be based on an entire sequence of events, a process of sorts involving an infinite number of factors like a surprise visit to Iowa City and a cat in a bookstore and a photo on the book cover of a young John Irving in his wrestling gear, captain of the Exeter Academy wrestling team, staring into the camera without any sense of where his life would be taking him over the next fifty-some years.
And so the five stars is partly based on all that, and it's based of course on my fondness for John Irving, who you'll see over to the right in my profile, listed as one of my favorite authors, and it's also based on how much of the book takes place in Iowa City (just about my most favorite place in the world) and how much of it focuses on wrestling and writing. And if you don't understand the relationship between Iowa City and wrestling and writing, then you probably don't get the attraction here because, more than anything, that is what this book is all about, Irving's lifelong relationship with wrestling and writing and about how those two pursuits have informed his life.
When Irving first came to Iowa City as a student in the Writers Workshop, Dave McCuskey was coach of the Hawkeye wrestling team. Irving had wrestled for Pitt and not done particularly well there, but unlike most former wrestlers he wasn't content to just let that part of his life slide. Irving visited McCuskey's wrestling room on the top floor of the Fieldhouse and wrestled with the team now and then. Later, when Irving returned to Iowa City in the mid-70s as an instructor in the Workshop, he wrestled in the room with Kurdelmeier's squad and then with Dan Gable's team. In fact, there's a hilarious photo at the end of the book of Dan Gable throwing Irving to his back with a wicked foot sweep. And he kept wrestling, and reffing wrestling and coaching wrestling all the way through the first part of his writing career. One of the last chapters in the book is called "My Last Weigh-in," about the final tournament he wrestled after publication of The World According to Garp. And he also devotes a great deal of time talking about his two older sons' wrestling careers, and all of this adds up to the point where many of the reviewers of the book here on GoodReads have complained about "too much wrestling" in the pages of this memoir. Maybe these folks haven't been reading their Irving very closely, and maybe they just haven't read much about Irving up till now, but beyond Garp and Iowa Bob and all the other wrestling references in his novels, John Irving really loves wrestling. Maybe they just didn't know that about him. But if you aren't in it for the wrestling, and if you don't understand the way wrestling has helped create the man John Irving is today, then you don't want to read this book, and you certainly wouldn't give it five stars.
Speaking of wrestling and Iowa City, in what might be considered a tremendous coincidence (a word that Irving uses several times in The Imaginary Girlfriend--and what sprawling nineteenth-century novel does not make use of the coincidence, and where would Irving [the closest writer we have to Charles Dickens today] be without ample use of the coincidence in his novels?), yesterday afternoon as I was walking in downtown Iowa City I passed Dan Gable right in front of the old Post Office by the little drive-in bank where my mother would often do her banking and where as a small boy I was constantly amazed by the little door that would pop out from the side of the wall when you pulled in for your transaction. There was Dan Gable and his wife and a group of what I could only imagine were his grandchildren on their way to some event in downtown Iowa City. Gable's old now and his hips are bad, but he's still the greatest wrestler in the world, and he's still a tremendous part of the fabric of Iowa City. As a lad I spent a lot of time in the Fieldhouse watching his teams wrestle, and I spent a lot of time in his wrestling room watching his practices before my wrestling club would use the room. Who knows, but maybe Irving was even there. Gable was relentless, and he would often stay after his practices were done, drilling alone in the room on the dummies, working on technique. Back then, even though he was long finished as a competitive wrestler on the mat, he could still beat everyone in that room, and watching him was a joy, so seeing him on the street yesterday was its own special kind of joy, as well.
So that's all part of why this book gets five stars from me, even though I'm one of the few reviewers to give it five stars. And there's a lot more, but I'm sure you're tired of reading this. And I could easily understand why someone else without a keen interest in Iowa City or wrestling or the Writers Workshop might give it a one-star review. After all, the book is a bit of a toss-off, written while Irving was recuperating from shoulder surgery. It's rambling and discursive, while at the same time maddeningly brief and undeveloped (it's less than 150 small pages). Irving tosses out names without much background, and the reader is left wanting to know a whole lot more about the author than what he gives here. No doubt there is a larger, more developed autobiography coming one day from Irving, and no doubt there will be biographers both sleazy and academic who will unfold more of the mysteries of John Irving's life, but this small book isn't going to give a lot of insight to the fan who is looking for profound revelations into the life of the artist.
As for me, I enjoyed it quite a bit. Here's something, though: on the "By the same author" page, the list of works ends with A Son of the Circus. And this might be another reason why I have taken so well to this small book published in 1996--it seems to me that despite the slapdash quality of the book, it's written at the peak of Irving's career, or at least at that part of his career that matters most to me as a reader. After A Son of the Circus, my appreciation of Irving's works begins to dwindle...maybe it's after Owen Meany. Even A Widow for a Year, which a lot of Irving fans seem to enjoy, fails to captivate me as well as those first seven or eight books, and what has followed Widow really hasn't impressed me too much. (I admit I haven't read the most recent book, but I'll get there soon enough.)
Here's what Kurt Vonnegut told John Irving all these many years ago back in Iowa City: "You may be surprised...I think capitalism is going to treat you very well." And it has, oh yes it has. Just maybe, though, it's treated him too well, and what's left now in the second half of Irving's career is only a shadow of what he put into those first books. But The Imaginary Girlfriend has little to do with that second part of Irving's life. This is the Irving of Exeter Academy and the Writers Workshop, of New Hampshire and Iowa City, and it's the Irving who sits on my Favorite Authors list.
February 17, 2011
Let me save you a lot of time and offer the sixty-second summary of this book:
"I'm John Irving. I have written lots of excellent books. This memoir offers no information on any of them. Instead, please enjoy a long list of people I have wrestled with, or against, and the people they have wrestled with, or against, and the names of the coaches who watched us wrestle, and the names of the wrestlers that I have coached. I will also provide details like how much all these people weighed, at the time of wrestling and at the time of this writing, and whether they won or lost various matches. If at any time the narrative strays towards a humourous or informative anecdote, it's time to end the chapter and change the subject."
If this sounds fun to you, then by all means, read the book!
"I'm John Irving. I have written lots of excellent books. This memoir offers no information on any of them. Instead, please enjoy a long list of people I have wrestled with, or against, and the people they have wrestled with, or against, and the names of the coaches who watched us wrestle, and the names of the wrestlers that I have coached. I will also provide details like how much all these people weighed, at the time of wrestling and at the time of this writing, and whether they won or lost various matches. If at any time the narrative strays towards a humourous or informative anecdote, it's time to end the chapter and change the subject."
If this sounds fun to you, then by all means, read the book!
June 8, 2023
Irvingov vlastný 100 stranový životopis. Napriek tomu, že kniha pojednáva hlavne o jeho zápasníckej vášni, dosť som si to užil. Najmä výlet na jeden zápasnícky turnaj. O písaní je tam pomenej a ku koncu striela rôzne mená, s ktorými sa stretol na žinienke, človek až stráca pochopenie pre zmysel tejto knihy, no i tak by som ju fanúšikom jeho románov odporúčal!
April 28, 2008
One of the beautiful things of reading his collection of short vignettes on his life is that I now truly feel I understand more about my favorite writer. Any Irving fan should read it.
June 14, 2018
I expected wise and witty notions on writing, and I got them. But 80% of the book consisted of to me rather pointless wrestling stories full of detail but I guess that's what I get for picking up a random autobiography by a famous author I've never read anything by.
June 8, 2020
Too short a book for an autobiography and even shorter to qualify as a John Irving novel, "The Imaginary Girlfriend" is easily one of the most endearing books ever written by this marvelous author who has created a formidable niche for himself in the American literary landscape. Dedicated to two of his most beloved wrestling coaches and a close friend, this condensed memoir blends the bustling contact sport of wrestling with the more personal and imaginative art of Creative Writing.
A "half decent" wrestler (in his own words) on account of an inflexible athletic bent, and a more than good (as recognised by the world) author, John Irving started his academic career in a none too luminous manner. Afflicted by Dyslexia which made reading an enormous niggle, Irving overcame this hiccup to blossom into one of the most essential and celebrated authors of our time. His discomfort in academics was as prominent as his comfort on a wrestling mat. Under the able tutelage of his beloved coach Ted Seabrooke, Irving developed an incorrigible affection towards this sport. An affection that lasted for more than four decades as he served the sport in the capabilities of a competitor, referee and coach. Immersion in the gymnasium halls however did not detract from his literary aspirations as Irving went on to pen some of the most indelible works of fiction including the "The World According to Garp", and "A Prayer For Owen Meany".
What makes this condensed work worth reading is the boldness and candour employed by Irving. Not shying away from his own disabilities, he lays down with utter simplicity the trajectory which his life took crisscrossing between classrooms and competition venues. He also shares with the reader some invaluable lessons drilled into him by mentors of the likes of the inimitable Kurt Vonnegut. The book is an assortment of spontaneous wit and sedate wisdom. A perilous taxi ride costing $100 and involving a driver petrified of the dark (and who also turns out to be a suspected thief) is enough to have the reader in splits. Poignant and pertinent, this book by Irving is one which unlike the rest of his work will not leave the reader enervated, but instead will generate a feeling of insatiability for being over too soon!
"The Imaginary Girlfriend" - John Irving at his honest best!
A "half decent" wrestler (in his own words) on account of an inflexible athletic bent, and a more than good (as recognised by the world) author, John Irving started his academic career in a none too luminous manner. Afflicted by Dyslexia which made reading an enormous niggle, Irving overcame this hiccup to blossom into one of the most essential and celebrated authors of our time. His discomfort in academics was as prominent as his comfort on a wrestling mat. Under the able tutelage of his beloved coach Ted Seabrooke, Irving developed an incorrigible affection towards this sport. An affection that lasted for more than four decades as he served the sport in the capabilities of a competitor, referee and coach. Immersion in the gymnasium halls however did not detract from his literary aspirations as Irving went on to pen some of the most indelible works of fiction including the "The World According to Garp", and "A Prayer For Owen Meany".
What makes this condensed work worth reading is the boldness and candour employed by Irving. Not shying away from his own disabilities, he lays down with utter simplicity the trajectory which his life took crisscrossing between classrooms and competition venues. He also shares with the reader some invaluable lessons drilled into him by mentors of the likes of the inimitable Kurt Vonnegut. The book is an assortment of spontaneous wit and sedate wisdom. A perilous taxi ride costing $100 and involving a driver petrified of the dark (and who also turns out to be a suspected thief) is enough to have the reader in splits. Poignant and pertinent, this book by Irving is one which unlike the rest of his work will not leave the reader enervated, but instead will generate a feeling of insatiability for being over too soon!
"The Imaginary Girlfriend" - John Irving at his honest best!
August 12, 2014
هذا أول عمل أقرأه للروائي الأمريكي جون إيرفينغ، ولا أظن أنه سيكون الأخير. أردت أن أجربه، أن أدخل عالمه ببطء، فسرني ما وجدت. اشتهر هذا الروائي الأمريكي بجمعه بين نوعية كتابته الأدبية العالية، والنجاح التجاري الضخم الذي رافق أعماله، مما مكنه من التفرغ التام لـ"مهنته" الأدبية في سن مبكرة، والعيش بمستوى معيشي مريح للغاية.
والحقيقة أن إيرفينغ يختلف عن الراوئيين الأمريكيين الذين اطلعت على أعمالهم حتى الآن، فهو لا يعتمد على جمل "هيمنغواي" البرقية القصيرة، ولا على مونولوغات "فوكنر" التي تحتل صفحات كاملة، أو إصرار جون أوبداييك على اللعب باللغة وتوسيع آفاقها في صفحات أعماله قدر الإمكان. لا، يذكرني إيرفينغ بكتاب الرواية الإنجليز في القرن 19.
أي أنه لا يخجل من اعتبار نفسه مؤرخاً لشخصية ونفسية الفرد في مجرى الحياة العامة، وبين دوائر المجتمع، مع الحفاظ على شروط الحرفة الروائية. الجميل في إيرفينغ أن بساطة نثره لا تلغي عنه في الوقت نفسه صفة الذكاء، يرسم إيرفينغ لوحة طويلة في كل فصل، هي قصة ما، يبدؤها ببطء ثم ينهيها بسلاسة وجمال، مع الضغط بكل رشاقة على زر التعجب لدى القارىء.
يتحدث جون إيرفينغ في هذا الكتاب (192 صفحة) عن مشواره كمصارع أثناء دراسته في المرحلة الثانوية، لكن المثير للانتباه حقاً هو: حديث إيرفينغ عن الكيفية التي أثرت بها المصارعة على مشواره الكتابي والروائي فيما بعد.
الكتاب خفيف..وشيق..ومسلي لمن يريد أن يتعرف جيداً على تكوين ونشأة أحد أهم روائيي جيل السبعينات والثمانينات في أمريكا.
ملاحظة : شكل هذا الكتاب مصدر إلهام للروائي الياباني الشهير هاروكي موراكامي، وقد قرر موراكامي لدى قراءته لهذا الكتاب أن يكتب هو أيضاً، كتابا عن علاقة مشواره الكتابي مع الرياضة، وقد فعل ذلك. ثم طلب موراكامي من إيرفينغ أن يقابله وجهاً لوجه في نيويورك، ليركض معه في حديقة السنترال بارك الشهيرة. غنى عن الذكر أن موراكامي قام فيما بعد بترجمة عدد من روايات جون إيرفينغ للغة اليابانية.
August 29, 2013
The Imaginary Girlfriend gets three stars rather than five because it's a memoir (though Irving makes it clear he remembers things as an author does, meaning more inventively than actually) and there's nothing jaw-dropping about reality as it happened, in my mind.
It gets three stars rather than none, however, because it's written cleanly and succinctly. For a writer who says he doesn't like Hemingway (and how dare he?!), he seems to prefer sparse prose to overwritten.
The book ties wrestling to writing, showing how one has bolstered the other throughout his life. There are some funny bits about travelling for matches, as well as the authors he's met during his career: "The finals were at night. Scary people from the middle of Maine emerged in the night. (My good friend Stephen King doesn't make up everything; he knows the people I mean.)"
It's peppered with advice for would-be writers ("That you're not very talented needn't be the end of it"... "It is not believable solely for the fact that it happened. The truth is, the imagination can select more plausible details than those incredible-but-true details we can remember.").
Also lots of simple observations about life: "It seems idiotic, but I think it's very common that we meet people of importance to us just before we are going away somewhere."
Unless you're an aspiring writer or a die-hard Irving fan, I'd say skip this one, but otherwise it's a nice read.
It gets three stars rather than none, however, because it's written cleanly and succinctly. For a writer who says he doesn't like Hemingway (and how dare he?!), he seems to prefer sparse prose to overwritten.
The book ties wrestling to writing, showing how one has bolstered the other throughout his life. There are some funny bits about travelling for matches, as well as the authors he's met during his career: "The finals were at night. Scary people from the middle of Maine emerged in the night. (My good friend Stephen King doesn't make up everything; he knows the people I mean.)"
It's peppered with advice for would-be writers ("That you're not very talented needn't be the end of it"... "It is not believable solely for the fact that it happened. The truth is, the imagination can select more plausible details than those incredible-but-true details we can remember.").
Also lots of simple observations about life: "It seems idiotic, but I think it's very common that we meet people of importance to us just before we are going away somewhere."
Unless you're an aspiring writer or a die-hard Irving fan, I'd say skip this one, but otherwise it's a nice read.
May 9, 2012
I bought this thinking it was an Irving title I'd somehow missed -- and a memoir no less! Then it turned out I had read it before, as it was originally featured in Trying to Save Piggy Sneed. No matter; it was good enough to read again. I was amazed that I was so interested in the wrestling parts! Also, apart from the very cool title, chapter titles include: The Half-Pound Piece of Toast, and The Hundred-Dollar Taxi Ride.
August 2, 2016
"Často říkám svým studentům v hodinách tvůrčího psaní: první stránka papíru, která čeká, až na ni napíšete první větu vaší další knihy, je nádherná a děsivá právě tím, že tento nepopsaný list papíru vůbec nezajímá, jestli jste nebo nejste slavní; tato prázdná stránka nečetla žádné vaše dosavadní dílo - nebude vás srovnávat s těmi romány, které se jí od vás líbily, ani se vám nebude posmívat za vaše předchozí neúspěchy. A to je na začátku - na každém novém začátku - to nejúžasnější a zároveň nejtěžší. V takové chvíli se i ten nejzkušenější učitel stává pokaždé znovu žákem."
I když obecně nevyhledávám životopisy a zápasení ani za mák nerozumím, Imaginární přítelkyně mě bavila a zaujala mě svou přímostí a nadhledem. Máte-li rádi Irvingova díla a zvládáte rozplétat jeho složité příběhy a zamilováváte se do jeho nemožně neobyčejných hrdinů, zkuste dát této útlé knížce šanci. Protože ona není jen o tom slibovaném zápasení, které poznamenalo celý Irvingův život a zmínku o něm najdete skoro v každém jeho díle. Je i o jeho osobním životě, rodině, štěstí i neštěstí a o lásce k literatuře a psaní. A nebýt té jedné imaginární přítelkyně, která posloužila Irvingovi jako milosrdná lež pro odchod z Pittsburghu, nikdy bychom se nedočkali jeho geniálních děl.
I když obecně nevyhledávám životopisy a zápasení ani za mák nerozumím, Imaginární přítelkyně mě bavila a zaujala mě svou přímostí a nadhledem. Máte-li rádi Irvingova díla a zvládáte rozplétat jeho složité příběhy a zamilováváte se do jeho nemožně neobyčejných hrdinů, zkuste dát této útlé knížce šanci. Protože ona není jen o tom slibovaném zápasení, které poznamenalo celý Irvingův život a zmínku o něm najdete skoro v každém jeho díle. Je i o jeho osobním životě, rodině, štěstí i neštěstí a o lásce k literatuře a psaní. A nebýt té jedné imaginární přítelkyně, která posloužila Irvingovi jako milosrdná lež pro odchod z Pittsburghu, nikdy bychom se nedočkali jeho geniálních děl.
January 9, 2014
This short little mini-memoir was an interesting read by Irving. Interesting because I feel like he chose to tunnel his life into very specific topics. He spends a lot of time recapping his and his sons' wrestling careers, and while normally I might have found this quite boring, I am almost used to reading about wrestling at length from reading Irving's book before this.
I think what I found most surprising what that he claims to hate Vienna after spending time there in college and after college, and I always assumed to he loved it there and that is why more than one of his books were set there.
I'd really only recommend this one to fanatical Irving fans and not casual Irving fans and definitely not those crazy people who can't appreciate Irving. (You know who you are.)
I think what I found most surprising what that he claims to hate Vienna after spending time there in college and after college, and I always assumed to he loved it there and that is why more than one of his books were set there.
I'd really only recommend this one to fanatical Irving fans and not casual Irving fans and definitely not those crazy people who can't appreciate Irving. (You know who you are.)
June 26, 2020
Portions of this memoir are familiar, having appeared in a "Trying to Save Piggy Sneed," a prior collection in similar form. Irving's unique voice comes through clearly as he uses humor and pathos in this account of his wrestling life and his writing life.
September 11, 2020
This memoir tells us John's history in his own words and includes the importance of wrestling, a trip to Austria, tales of motorbikes and New England all of which are recurrent themes in his fiction. I was just waiting for a pet bear.
May 14, 2022
I decided to pick up this book after reading about Markus Zusak’s love for John Irving and this memoir in particular. ‘The Imaginary Girlfriend’ is my first experience of Irving, so it has likely lessened my view of this memoir, but it was still a great read. Balancing his career as a wrestler with that of a writer, Irving is short and sharp in his anecdotes and chapters, reflecting on his life and moments that were important to him. Overall, a worthwhile read for those who have read John Irving or are interested in the lives of writers.
September 28, 2025
Leuk boekie
Hij vertelt mooi en leuk over zijn leven, worstelavonturen en schrijven.
Wat wil een mens nog meer
Ff een quote ter illustratie:
During the long drive home, Colin picked up a speeding ticket - shortly after delivering a lecture to Brendan and me about the infallibility of his new radar-detection system. But we could laugh about the ticket. Brendan, like his brother before him, had won the New England Class A title. It was the happiest night of my life.
Leuk boekie dus
Hij vertelt mooi en leuk over zijn leven, worstelavonturen en schrijven.
Wat wil een mens nog meer
Ff een quote ter illustratie:
During the long drive home, Colin picked up a speeding ticket - shortly after delivering a lecture to Brendan and me about the infallibility of his new radar-detection system. But we could laugh about the ticket. Brendan, like his brother before him, had won the New England Class A title. It was the happiest night of my life.
Leuk boekie dus
October 9, 2023
Is there actually a single person on earth who cares even a little bit about a single thing he says in this incredibly self-indulgent book?
July 23, 2014
At first I thought this was the other John Irving memoir, the later one, where he talks about being bisexual, which is ironic in some ways because that one sounds really interesting, but this one sounds like the memoir of someone whose life was completely uneventful and without emotional content, which can *hardly* be true of Irving. The arc of this book is from privileged upbringing as a New England faculty brat (struggling with undiagnosed dyslexia) through a mediocre college career through immediately plunging into the politics of academic writing programs and a career as an author of bestsellers. He encounters all sorts of interesting writer friends, including Kurt Vonnegut and Robertson Davies, but all he feels like recounting about those friendships is the writing advice they gave him and what he and they think of each other's books, and through it all he overlays everything with the story of his life as told through his obsession with school and collegiate wrestling. Reading this book is actually a lot like being cornered at a party by a bore whose only interest in life is wrestling and who mistakenly thought you had an interest in the subject. There is so much detail here--so much narcissistic detail, one might say--along the lines of, for each key match in his life, how much he weighed, what the score was and why, which gym it was in, and even, if he can't remember the names of specific opponents, what school they went to and what their names MIGHT have been (was it Carswell or Caswell?! he speculates breathlessly; it must have been one of the two!) that I am even led to wonder if even the other participants in these matches can possibly be as interested as he is in recalling all of this, let alone his poor readers. Some of them, you know, might actually have lives to attend to instead of rehearsing this kind of thing endlessly in their memories. I do know that *I* have a life which I took time away from to read this. And remember, this is just collegiate wrestling, sometimes even high-school wrestling, not even the big time. There is a kind of autistic quality to the level of detail, even. Then, at one point, he mentions how the best part of wrestling is how you get to rub and bang your bodies sweatily against men of your own weight class, and it's like: Ding! okay, it's starting make a bit of sense. Clearly, there's something he's not dealing with but desperately wants to talk about. Sounds like he and Mrs. Irving need to sit down and have a LEETLE bit of a Talk. I guess that's all in the second memoir, which has just GOT to be more interesting than this one.
March 8, 2020
John Irving ist einer meiner absoluten Lieblingsschriftsteller! Insofern gehörte es für mich dazu, irgendwann auch mal seine autobiographischen Ausführungen in "Die imaginäre Freundin" zu lesen. Das war sehr interessant. Und ich habe noch mal viel über das Leben des Autoren gelernt.
Für jemanden, der alles, was er über Ringen weiß, aus John-Irving-Büchern gelernt hat (und keine Ahnung von High-School und College-Sport-Strukturen in den USA hat), sind die langen Passagen über den Ringsport aber teilweise etwas müßig. Ich weiß, wie wichtig der Sport für Irving ist und wie eng er für ihn mit dem Schreiben zusammenhängt, daher war es natürlich total okay für mich, das zu lesen — aber richtig mitteißen konnten die Schilderungen mich einfach nicht.
Sehr interessant wiederum fand ich die Kapitel über seine Schulzeit, seine Lieblingsautoren und seine Zeit in Wien.
Wer sich intensiver mit John Irving beschäftigen möchte, der greift sicher irgendwann zur "Imaginären Freundin" und kann sich einfach sein eigenes Bild machen. Wer einfach nur mehr über den Autoren und sein Leben erfahren möchte, dem empfehle ich die sehr gute Dokumentation "The World according to Irving".
Für jemanden, der alles, was er über Ringen weiß, aus John-Irving-Büchern gelernt hat (und keine Ahnung von High-School und College-Sport-Strukturen in den USA hat), sind die langen Passagen über den Ringsport aber teilweise etwas müßig. Ich weiß, wie wichtig der Sport für Irving ist und wie eng er für ihn mit dem Schreiben zusammenhängt, daher war es natürlich total okay für mich, das zu lesen — aber richtig mitteißen konnten die Schilderungen mich einfach nicht.
Sehr interessant wiederum fand ich die Kapitel über seine Schulzeit, seine Lieblingsautoren und seine Zeit in Wien.
Wer sich intensiver mit John Irving beschäftigen möchte, der greift sicher irgendwann zur "Imaginären Freundin" und kann sich einfach sein eigenes Bild machen. Wer einfach nur mehr über den Autoren und sein Leben erfahren möchte, dem empfehle ich die sehr gute Dokumentation "The World according to Irving".
June 7, 2013
I'm a fan of John Irving's writing. He's one of the few authors who I monitor and when a new novel is out I buy it unseen. I'm a writer and if I could write half as well as Irving... well you probably would have heard of me by now.
I don't 'get' wrestling. Why would two men want to grapple in close proximity to each other's sweaty armpits and crutches? Even in the name of sport. And this mini-biography is more about wrestling than writing.
Nevertheless, Irving makes it interesting because of his facility with words. Some passages have his trademark touch and the book is worthwhile for these alone. But if you're looking for a book to help your writing this isn't it.
I don't 'get' wrestling. Why would two men want to grapple in close proximity to each other's sweaty armpits and crutches? Even in the name of sport. And this mini-biography is more about wrestling than writing.
Nevertheless, Irving makes it interesting because of his facility with words. Some passages have his trademark touch and the book is worthwhile for these alone. But if you're looking for a book to help your writing this isn't it.
February 15, 2016
I first read Irving's 'The World According To Garp' in 4th grade. I haven't read him as consistently as other authors, but he was my first truly mature writer, read as a nearly mature reader. That I later fell into writing and wrestling was a happy coincidence.
I really enjoyed this book and think you will to.
You don't need to be a wrestler, athlete or writer to enjoy 'The Imaginary Girlfriend.' This crisp, autobiography following his athletic and early literary career communicates the joys and pains of both worlds clearly enough you can get it. You also don't need much time. It's a quick read.
And absolute worth it.
I really enjoyed this book and think you will to.
You don't need to be a wrestler, athlete or writer to enjoy 'The Imaginary Girlfriend.' This crisp, autobiography following his athletic and early literary career communicates the joys and pains of both worlds clearly enough you can get it. You also don't need much time. It's a quick read.
And absolute worth it.
December 24, 2015
I have loved everything I have read written by John Irving - some more than others, but every one was enjoyable in its own right. I am not a fan of wrestling, and although many words here are devoted to this aspect of his life, I found myself racing through the book, eager to learn more about the man who is my favorite contemporary author.
September 8, 2014
Surprisingly disappointing given my regard for the writer. This was written by an ? There's very little about his development as a writer. Unless you're interested in the wrestling career of a not-very-successful wrestler, this brief memoir doesn't have much to offer.
February 12, 2010
It should be called "My Obsession with Wrestling"
December 12, 2015
I should have gotten a clue from the cover. It was about wrestling. Kinda boring unless you're into wrestling.
August 10, 2025
Second read, in this case a listen. I’d read anything by Irving.
June 21, 2024
I bought this book at a John Irving talk at Babel - it was one of the few of his books for sale that I hadn’t already read, and the topic appealed to me.
I expected it to be more inclusive, covering his whole life, not just writing and wrestling… though, actually, those two topics do seem to be his main passions and to dominate his life. There is a nod to family life: he briefly discusses his two wives, and, in more depth, writes about the wrestling experiences of two of his three sons (the third was still a child at the time of writing this book).
I knew nothing about wrestling, so found it moderately interesting to learn more about its place in the academic world. I really enjoyed the passages about the process and business of writing, and I loved reading his opinions about different authors and their books. Irving’s early books are some of my all-time favorites; his later books are enjoyable but lengthy, and I haven't found them to be as "fresh" as his earlier books.
It's a short memoir, easily read. I'd rate it a 7 out of 10 (a low 4) - higher if wrestling is your thing!
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
Random Notes:
3- I was surpriosed by how bad a student Irving was - one problem was his undiagnosed dyslexia. "bad spelling like mine was considered a psychological problem"
17 "The Books I Read" - liked Dickens, George Eliot, Robertson Davies, Trollope, Hardy, Hawthorne, Dostoyevsky, Vonnegut, Mann, Greene - not Proust, Henry James, Conrad
21 Freddie Buechner- fun to read about him because of my personal relationship (he was an excellent speaker at a summer "retreat" I went to in high school, andI later found out that he's a nephew of one of my stepfathers, lving nearby at the time)
23 as perfunctory as masturbation "My contemporaries were being shcoked by the Catcher in The Rye, which I thought was as perfunctory as masturbation"
46 his made-up diary - funny (and where we learn of The Imaginary Girlfriend)
47 archaic semicolons - "In Pittsburgh in Freshman English I received the grade of C- and was told by an instructor...that my overuse of the semicolon was archaic". I agree with Irving here, a semicolon can be a delightful thing!
56 the tolerance of intolerance - in Vienna, he and his friend were shocked not as much by the sswastika-wearing skinheads' promotion of anti-Semitism, but rather by the shy citizens who looked away from the skinheads, pretending not to have seen them...The tolerance of intolerance allows the intolerance to persist"
70 Kurt Vonnegut was his teacher and friend at Iowa Writers Workshop
71 beginners' writing problems "I'm talking abouat technical blunders, the perpetration of sheer boredom, point-of-view problems, the different qualities of first-person and third-person voice, the deadening effect of exposition in dialogue, the crippling limitations of the present tense, the intrusions upon narrative momentum caused by puerile and pointless experimentation - and on and on. You just say "You're good at that." And: "You're not very good at this". These areas of complaint are so basic that most talented young writers will eventually spot their mistakes themselves, but perhaps at a time when a substantial revision of the manuscript might be necessary - or worse, after the book is published."
- he hates Oscar WIlde, inferior writer who makes fun of superior writers
-- wrestling terms 63: it's an illegal headlock if you lock up a man’s head, you’re supposed to include one of his arms in the headlock. to encircle just your opponent's head is illegal. -67 finger bending: if you grab your opponents fingers, you must grab all four not just two or one and not just the thumb
-104 Irving’s ongoing relationship to wrestling (John Cheever wrote ‘ John Irving has always struck me as having been saddened by the discovery that to have been captain of the Exeter Wrestling team was a fleeting honor.’. Irving says there's nothing fleeting about it.
I expected it to be more inclusive, covering his whole life, not just writing and wrestling… though, actually, those two topics do seem to be his main passions and to dominate his life. There is a nod to family life: he briefly discusses his two wives, and, in more depth, writes about the wrestling experiences of two of his three sons (the third was still a child at the time of writing this book).
I knew nothing about wrestling, so found it moderately interesting to learn more about its place in the academic world. I really enjoyed the passages about the process and business of writing, and I loved reading his opinions about different authors and their books. Irving’s early books are some of my all-time favorites; his later books are enjoyable but lengthy, and I haven't found them to be as "fresh" as his earlier books.
It's a short memoir, easily read. I'd rate it a 7 out of 10 (a low 4) - higher if wrestling is your thing!
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
Random Notes:
3- I was surpriosed by how bad a student Irving was - one problem was his undiagnosed dyslexia. "bad spelling like mine was considered a psychological problem"
17 "The Books I Read" - liked Dickens, George Eliot, Robertson Davies, Trollope, Hardy, Hawthorne, Dostoyevsky, Vonnegut, Mann, Greene - not Proust, Henry James, Conrad
21 Freddie Buechner- fun to read about him because of my personal relationship (he was an excellent speaker at a summer "retreat" I went to in high school, andI later found out that he's a nephew of one of my stepfathers, lving nearby at the time)
23 as perfunctory as masturbation "My contemporaries were being shcoked by the Catcher in The Rye, which I thought was as perfunctory as masturbation"
46 his made-up diary - funny (and where we learn of The Imaginary Girlfriend)
47 archaic semicolons - "In Pittsburgh in Freshman English I received the grade of C- and was told by an instructor...that my overuse of the semicolon was archaic". I agree with Irving here, a semicolon can be a delightful thing!
56 the tolerance of intolerance - in Vienna, he and his friend were shocked not as much by the sswastika-wearing skinheads' promotion of anti-Semitism, but rather by the shy citizens who looked away from the skinheads, pretending not to have seen them...The tolerance of intolerance allows the intolerance to persist"
70 Kurt Vonnegut was his teacher and friend at Iowa Writers Workshop
71 beginners' writing problems "I'm talking abouat technical blunders, the perpetration of sheer boredom, point-of-view problems, the different qualities of first-person and third-person voice, the deadening effect of exposition in dialogue, the crippling limitations of the present tense, the intrusions upon narrative momentum caused by puerile and pointless experimentation - and on and on. You just say "You're good at that." And: "You're not very good at this". These areas of complaint are so basic that most talented young writers will eventually spot their mistakes themselves, but perhaps at a time when a substantial revision of the manuscript might be necessary - or worse, after the book is published."
- he hates Oscar WIlde, inferior writer who makes fun of superior writers
-- wrestling terms 63: it's an illegal headlock if you lock up a man’s head, you’re supposed to include one of his arms in the headlock. to encircle just your opponent's head is illegal. -67 finger bending: if you grab your opponents fingers, you must grab all four not just two or one and not just the thumb
-104 Irving’s ongoing relationship to wrestling (John Cheever wrote ‘ John Irving has always struck me as having been saddened by the discovery that to have been captain of the Exeter Wrestling team was a fleeting honor.’. Irving says there's nothing fleeting about it.
January 5, 2020
Love the title of the book. The book, however, is not quite what I expected. An autobiography by Irving's own words, but very little about the writing of his novels. Really, we only got a little about Setting Free the Bears. Garp was mentioned, but only to frame the setting of what was to be said. This book was a story of Irving's love of wrestling and how it is more a love (I think he would agree with that terminology) than writing is.
I am a wrestler . . . well, was a wrestler. I have enjoyed the references in his novels and like the discussion here. It takes me back. I like that he kept coaching wrestling long after most of the novels that made Irving a household name were published.
I came to this book in an interesting way. Freedom. I have no To-Read list any longer. My 2019 reading pursuits were all accomplished. I don't really have a plan for 2020. I am back to reading what suits me when the book I'm reading is done. To that end, I signed up for an incredible deal for Kindle Unlimited. I figured I would give it a true try. Costing me virtually nothing, I went searching for something to read. Ah, there's the rub. I am not finding much of interest easily. This came up as the only Irving book. I used to read him quite a lot back in my days in Boston. An interesting tidbit is that I looked at attending Exeter. My mother poo-pooed it as too far away, but I was enamored for a minute back in 1979-80.
This book also came with audio. Instead of me listening on my phone as I read on the Kindle as I have done a few times recently with Hoopla, the Kindle Fire shows me what Amazon can offer: an all-in-one experience. I loved that! Of course, when I clicked wrongly and would advance by mistake, when I returned to the correct page, I had to start over. I can't find a way to fast forward. :( Also, the reader for this particular title did little for me. I was not a fan of his reading style and I don't think he captured Irving's humor well nor his demeanor. I have heard Irving speak and do not think he was served well by Joe Barrett.
Anyhow, an interesting tale for fans of Irving. This is by no means a complete life story of an author told in a traditional autobiographical manner. It's unconventional, but then again, so is Irving.
I am a wrestler . . . well, was a wrestler. I have enjoyed the references in his novels and like the discussion here. It takes me back. I like that he kept coaching wrestling long after most of the novels that made Irving a household name were published.
I came to this book in an interesting way. Freedom. I have no To-Read list any longer. My 2019 reading pursuits were all accomplished. I don't really have a plan for 2020. I am back to reading what suits me when the book I'm reading is done. To that end, I signed up for an incredible deal for Kindle Unlimited. I figured I would give it a true try. Costing me virtually nothing, I went searching for something to read. Ah, there's the rub. I am not finding much of interest easily. This came up as the only Irving book. I used to read him quite a lot back in my days in Boston. An interesting tidbit is that I looked at attending Exeter. My mother poo-pooed it as too far away, but I was enamored for a minute back in 1979-80.
This book also came with audio. Instead of me listening on my phone as I read on the Kindle as I have done a few times recently with Hoopla, the Kindle Fire shows me what Amazon can offer: an all-in-one experience. I loved that! Of course, when I clicked wrongly and would advance by mistake, when I returned to the correct page, I had to start over. I can't find a way to fast forward. :( Also, the reader for this particular title did little for me. I was not a fan of his reading style and I don't think he captured Irving's humor well nor his demeanor. I have heard Irving speak and do not think he was served well by Joe Barrett.
Anyhow, an interesting tale for fans of Irving. This is by no means a complete life story of an author told in a traditional autobiographical manner. It's unconventional, but then again, so is Irving.
September 10, 2017
I can't believe that I finished a book about wrestling. Wrestling is a subject I have absolutely no interest in. I picked it up because I saw that it was written by John Irving and I had heard about the author and knew that many people liked his writing. It was marketed as a memoir of his life.
I give the author a lot of credit for keeping me interested enough to read the whole book in a couple days since I really didn't have any interest in wrestling. He talked a LOT about his wrestling career, his career as a wrestling coach and the wrestling careers of his sons. He name dropped a lot - people I never heard of in the wrestling world and really didn't care about. It's a credit to his writing ability that he kept me interested enough to read the whole book.
He is very passionate about wrestling and also a gifted writer. The two would not seem to go together...so, I found it very interesting to read about. I like being exposed to subjects that I know nothing about. In the process of reading the book, I learned a lot about wrestling - some of which I found interesting. I did not understand the discipline that is required to succeed with the sport. I also was unaware of the unusual things that athletes do to make their weight class for tournaments.
What the book lacked for me as a reader was any real insight into Irving as a complete person. Although he was married twice, he hardly ever mentions his wives. He has three children but only mentions them in terms of their ability to wrestle. There is more to life than wrestling and writing. This book was marketed as a memoir but it's really more about Irving's careers as a wrestler and writer.
I was intrigued by his writing - in the midst of all the wrestling stuff - there was some very good writing. He also has a sense of humor. The title really made me laugh when I understood what it meant after reading the book. I will read another book by this author.
I give the author a lot of credit for keeping me interested enough to read the whole book in a couple days since I really didn't have any interest in wrestling. He talked a LOT about his wrestling career, his career as a wrestling coach and the wrestling careers of his sons. He name dropped a lot - people I never heard of in the wrestling world and really didn't care about. It's a credit to his writing ability that he kept me interested enough to read the whole book.
He is very passionate about wrestling and also a gifted writer. The two would not seem to go together...so, I found it very interesting to read about. I like being exposed to subjects that I know nothing about. In the process of reading the book, I learned a lot about wrestling - some of which I found interesting. I did not understand the discipline that is required to succeed with the sport. I also was unaware of the unusual things that athletes do to make their weight class for tournaments.
What the book lacked for me as a reader was any real insight into Irving as a complete person. Although he was married twice, he hardly ever mentions his wives. He has three children but only mentions them in terms of their ability to wrestle. There is more to life than wrestling and writing. This book was marketed as a memoir but it's really more about Irving's careers as a wrestler and writer.
I was intrigued by his writing - in the midst of all the wrestling stuff - there was some very good writing. He also has a sense of humor. The title really made me laugh when I understood what it meant after reading the book. I will read another book by this author.
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