Monday, October 24, 2022

The World According to Irving

I read a lot; always did, still do. Mostly non-fiction and occasionally fiction. 

One fiction I read a long time ago was The World According to Garp by John Irving. Its main attraction to me was that a transexual played a prominent role in the novel (and back in 1978, there weren't too many books, fiction or non-fiction, that touched on trans matters). The book was made into a film in 1982 with John Lithgow playing the transexual.

This year is the 40th anniversary of the film and gave CBS’s Sunday Morning an excuse to interview the book’s author, John Irving. The interview was very interesting and revealed that Irving’s favorite novel was Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick; or, The Whale (my favorite novel, too). It also revealed that one of Irving’s three progeny is a transwoman.

And so it goes.



Source: Venus
Wearing Venus

Robin Williams and John Lithgow
Robin Williams and John Lithgow femulating in the 1982 film The World According to Garp.

6 comments:

  1. What I liked most about the book is that Garp's son ends up marrying a trans woman.

    ReplyDelete
  2. A favorite movie of mine and I saw it a few times for that exact reason, Roberta, played by John Lithgow.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I came across this trans novel a few years back...

    Two Spirit Ranch: A Romance
    By Jaime Stryker

    In this ground breaking romance novel, Terri Lawson, an alluring young attorney, has it all. She's on the fast-track at her firm, widely recognized for her pro bono work, and has a handsome suitor, who she's sure has marriage on his mind. But when her boyfriend abruptly calls off their relationship and her favorite uncle passes away, she suddenly find herself losing all that was important to her. Not sure where to turn next, Terri heads off for a trip to small town Clearview, Montana to explore the sprawling ranch her uncle left her. It's there that Terri while speeding down the highway has a run in with the ruggedly handsome sheriff, Jake Collins. As the two find their mutual attraction too strong to deny, Terri, who had only planned to be in town a few days, finds herself wondering if she can risk opening her heart again and sharing a secret from her past with Jake. ..Terri was once Terrence. Debut novelist Jaime Stryker presents not only a romance with a transgender heroine but a tale of true love and acceptance.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Then is you want to support a struggling transgender author there is the science fiction author Susan Jane Bigelow’s Extrahumans series.
    As an added bonus, she is from Connecticut!
    https://www.goodreads.com/series/64005-extrahumans

    ReplyDelete
  5. I saw this on CBS Sunday morning, it was great to see a positive story and depiction of a transgender woman and her family. Things are changing-- Paula G

    ReplyDelete
  6. That Venus outfit is so cute!!!

    ReplyDelete