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Couldn't finish this one. Just not my cup of tea.
I read this book by accident and discovered how rich a a story can be.
Returning for a second novel by John Irving, I was transported to India, where the culture shock was massive and the storytelling proved to be quite non-linear. All that being said, with patience and perseverance, I made it through this unique piece of writing and even feel that I enjoyed it. The circus is preparing for its next performance and, as always, there is something going on that is of interest. In India, the use of Achondroplastic dwarfs is quite common in the circus, allowing for some...
I am a big fan of Irving, but I found this one disappointing.
My favorite John Irving - I'm having a bit of hard time to single out what makes this one a notch above the rest (and above a huge number of others), but I'm certain that the intriguing setting of India and (this time) perfect blend of joy of telling a story and strange but likeable characters are keys to the whole.
I bought my battered, brown paged copy of “A Son of the Circus” second-hand at Blossoms Book House in Church Street, Bangalore. A previous owner had left an old used Bangladesh Biman (airways) boarding pass inside it. I used this souvenir of a journey, completed long ago, as a bookmark. By the time I finished this long book, this fragile strip of paper was a mere shadow of its former self. The book begins with some pages of ‘Author’s Notes’. These start with the words: “This novel isn’t about In...
At long last I got around to reading Irving's long, LONG, LOOONG "A Son of the Circus", and despite its faults (and there are many, given its bloated 600+ page length), it's one of his best efforts, right up there with "A Prayer for Owen Meany", "...Garp", and "A Widow for One Year". I thought he'd be out of his element (if not out of his mind) writing about India, and put off reading it for more than a decade, although I wish I hadn't. Irving lets the reader know in advance, however, that (alth...
This is the 8th book in my John Irving Challenge. I only have five books left. As I said in my review of the previous book, A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving was not the best choice for a year-long chronological study of an author's growth and decline. His books and characters are far too similar. I do not suggest recreating this project with this author. On with the review.By Goodreads standards, two stars equals "okay". I wish there was something between "okay" and "I hated it", because tha...
It's a couple of years i read my first irving ever, and it's one of the few books which made me laugh out loud...hilarious situations, incredible characters, highly recommended....
I love John Irving with an unbridled and, to be fair, probably pretty biased passion. I really haven't met an Irving book I didn't like. Despite the chaos, despite the coincidence, despite the crazy, I'm always irrevocably hooked from start to finish. A Son of the Circus was no exception.A Son of the Circus is about Dr. Farrokh Daruwalla, and his practice as an orthopedist, and his quasi-adopted son John, and his career as a screenwriter, and his unlikely connection to an idealistic but clueless...
January/February 2010Dwarfs and beggars, whores and transvestites, murderers and movie stars and twins separated at birth, and the doctor/amateur geneticist/really amateur writer who knows them all...Of what I’ve read, this is John Irving’s most sprawling novel yet, a wild circus with a half-dozen acts all scrambling for the center spot. Easily worth five stars, but I probably read it wrong. Often, with Irving, you can set the book down and come back to it after a long absense, or even just pick...
I dropped this after the first 100 pages as I found it hard going getting into the life of circus dwarfs. A couple of months later I picked it up again and WOW it really did take off for me. A fascinating story and set of characters, generally based in India, but I found it a shocking story at times. I've read several books based in India and I am always taken aback at the poverty, dire living conditions, insanitary conditions and the lack of human respect for women. It is very difficult to unde...
My favorite Irving book. I have a love/hate relationship with Irving's work. "Son" is a madhouse of a novel, even for Irving. The plot(s) are dizzyingly complicated; the characters as bizarre as always, but somehow believable. I loved the feeling for India in the book; and the humor--oh my! The scene in the cab made me laugh until I cried, thus waking up my husband, as I was reading in bed. If you can tolerate really, really weird situations, don't mind some mild but off-the-wall sexual referenc...
Somewhere in a vacuous universe of this tube, Joey bumped into GR. Joey: Hi, you look familiar with me. Have we met before? You must be … one of my friends on Good Reads!GR: Oh, yeah! You are …Joey! ( overwhelmed )Joey: And you are ...GR! Oh, it’s nice to see ya here! ( shaking hands with GR)GR: Oh, yeah! As though we haven’t seen each other for ages! ( laughs) ( then she saw a book Joey holding) Oh, you must be reading something. ( trying to look through it) Wait ! wait! Wait! You have been rea...
On some level, it hurts me to write this review. I first discovered Irving’s books in high school and fell for them hard. The obsession quieted down after a few years, but seeing his name was enough to give me nostalgia. A Son of the Circus has been in my to-read pile for literal years, and if I hadn’t procrastinated so much, maybe I would have been kinder in this review. Maybe I would have found some enjoyment in it. Unfortunately, this book was an absolute slog, to say the least. The actual pl...
The son of the circus from the title is Doctor Farokh Daruwalla, a somewhat surprising choice as main character that has to carry on his shoulders such a hefty narrative. At first glance he is a placid little man, of a rather short stature and rotund girth, neat and fussy but in general shy and insecure. As I followed his interior monologues for page after page I have come to compare him to a still pond that hides great depths beneath the calm surface. as a Parsi and a Christian, a Bombayite an...
I've always been a John Irving fan, but this one took me by surprise. It has a very slow start - I found myself struggling to get into it, thinking, "Why on earth would I care about an Indian circus and an Orthopedist's quest for dwarf blood?" (And yeah - it's exactly as weird as it sounds, at least at first.) I almost gave it up. Suddenly, though, after I pushed through the first two chapters, the dozens of characters started to gain their own identities, and all of a sudden, bang! , I was i...
I used to love John Irving, read most of what he wrote (The World According to Garp, A Prayer for Owen Meany, Cider House Rules, The Water Method Man, The 158 lb Marriage) until A Widow for One Year and The Fourth Hand, which I hated and quit him over. So I was hesitant about A Son of the Circus, but then ended up falling in total love with it, and all the characters, even the minor ones. The story is wacky, the main character Dr. Farrokh Daruwalla lives part-time in Canada and part-time in Bom...
2.5 stars. My least favorite John Irving book and the only one I can say that I did not especially like, not that it isn't written with his usual level of skill and attention to detail. But I found the plot and the characters far less addictive than that of the typical John Irving book. I probably would have rated this a little higher if it was written by someone else but I have the highest of expectations for Irving novels. He set a standard for himself with masterpieces such as The World Accor...
DNF @ Page 355. Yep, I'm giving up after investing so much time into this shaggy dog of a novel. I wanted to like it, really. Irving is one of my favorite authors and reading his stuff is always an unique experience. But this thing is ALL over the place: it doesn't know what it wants to be, or why. I can't keep up with the ever-expanding cast of characters nor can I find a reason to care about them. I don't know where the hell this thing is going, and I'm only halfway done. I just cannot keep go...