John Irving on why The World According to Garp is more relevant now than he ever imagined

John Irving how are you I'm fine thank you nice to have you here thank you so you wrote a new introduction to this edition the 40th anniversary of the world according to GARP and you write this 40 year old novel isn't out of date but it should be so a two-part question for you why should gar be at a date and why isn't it well it's a novel about sexual hatred a mother is killed by a man who hates women her son is killed by a woman who hates men it was a novel I wrote both angrily and comically I thought protesting that the women's movement had been stopped had not gone as far as it could have gone should have gone sexual liberation so-called had still left us with hatred between the sexes hatred of sexual difference intolerance of sexual differences and I even imagined as I was writing this novel more than forty years ago now that it would be out of date before I finished it it seemed to me that the kind of sexual discrimination I was writing about was truly too backward to last well I was wrong things may be better but in many areas of the world in my birth country the United States included women are still treated as if they were sexual minorities and from the sympathy I have always felt for women being treated as sexual minorities I recognized that smaller actual sexual minorities gay men lesbian women transgender men and women were treated even worse I'm dismayed that sexual intolerance is still tolerated 40 years after I was writing about it but it is so that's why I say that's why I say it's not to me entirely good news that the world according to GARP is is still relevant and why I say it should be a period piece yeah I reminded me of I don't know if when you saw the coverage of the women's march in Washington or here in Toronto as well I've said this before on the show but one of the signs that really stuck out to me was I can't believe I'm still protesting this [ __ ] well that's that's exact that exactly right the novel begins with a woman garbs mother being sexually assaulted in a movie theater and guess what no one believes her no one believes that she was really assaulted do you see other parallels between this now and 2018 and-and-and back when you were writing the world according to GARP to the time well there's certainly no end of hatred or intolerance of the other whoever the other is perceived to be I got my politics from my mother what what passes for my social conscience came from her and my first coming to a political point of view was being aware of sexual politics of my 14 novels 15 if you count the one on trying to finish I would estimate by my own count that not more than six seven of them are what I would call political or what I would describe as novels with a social conscience or that take a poll position toward toward a certain political issue and the issues aren't always sexual but they're my other interest in politics began with sexual politics that's where I kind of got into it does it get you down does it does it make you cynical well I know I don't know that cynical is the right word I mean as a storyteller not only in the world according to GARP I've always been interested in worst-case scenarios I've always felt it I've always felt comically and and not comically that my job is to create characters for whom you empathize and then make terrible things happen to them terminal cases yes mm-hmm so but even now I mean given that we just said you're still observing some of the things you saw 40 years ago I mean I just mean I mean personally not as not in your writing are you finding yourself able to be hopeful at all well I I have to say as a writer I don't know that hopeful is what I do or what I look for as a as a storyteller there aren't too many of my novels that have upbeat or what I would call upbeat endings no there's no where I'm generally headed but I'm dismayed as a political person at how all the bad things in the world don't go away that is dismaying fascism and xenophobia aren't new by sadly I'm not sure that the people who are always referred to as mr. Trump's base in the United States are well enough informed to recognize fascism narcissism and Jena phobia for what they are they don't they don't have the history I love how often this theme is coming up now I mean I just when we had Margaret Atwood offered The Handmaid's Tale she said the exact same thing she said I was really thought I was gonna be reading about a dystopia here that hopefully would never come to pass right yeah seems to be a theme can we go back a little bit to when you first wrote it because I think that this book is about so many things it's about let's refer to a sphere I really see it as anxiety it's about love but one of my favorite parts of it just is someone who makes things myself is that it's about just the difficulty that no one sees of making something out of nothing like the challenge of creating work was it challenging for you when you go back to write this yes it was it was my fourth novel I had learned something from the experience of writing the first three yes but it was my first novel with a social subject my first political novel my first protest novel as I would describe it yeah and it was written at a time personally of considerable duress I was a full-time wrestling coach a full-time English teacher and I had two young children and I was lucky if I got to write for as many as two hours a day and not every day of the week so whatever I think of GARP with hindsight looking back however much I'm depressed by the relevance of the subject matter I'm eternally grateful to it because it is the book that made me a full time writer it is the book that eventually enabled me to write seven hours a day eight days a week it free me from having to have other jobs and I never imagined at the time I was writing it that I would ever be self-supporting as a writer I had no reason to think I would be when did you know that that was the case like I'm always I'm always so curious and musicians will often say to me I remember hearing it on the radio when I was in New York and I'm from Scarborough you know R I remember I remember hearing my song in LA and I'm from Winnipeg was there a distinct moment where you ain't you buddy this this thing's getting kind of big you know actually I on by nature so pessimistic I always doubted it it was a Book of the Month Club selection which was brand new to me it was my first bestseller and even its appearance as a hardcover on the bestseller list seemed dubious to me and then when my editor and and you know my friends in publishing and older more knowledgeable people said you can quit your job now you know you know I I didn't really believe it I kept working for another year I you kept working it took another job yeah because I thought well they'll tell they're talking about you know people really aren't arbor they're not really reading this book yeah and and I was terribly disappointed in myself because the next book the fifth book the hotel New Hampshire was the first book I wrote when I really did have more time to write I really could have written four or five six hours a day I was coaching full-time but I'd stopped teaching and and yet I realized that I needed to learn how to do this I had never before concentrated on my writing for more than two hours at a time I never had more than two hours at a time and I felt deeply disappointed in myself that I just couldn't do it I'd worked for three or four hours and I'd get distracted and it wasn't until the next novel after that The Cider House Rules my sixth novel that I finally learned how to extend my concentration span to an 1/8 our writing day and so I I didn't really appreciate what GARP did for me until two books later is it similar to outside of the content of the book is it similar to again a musician having a complicated relationship with their first big hit I often talk to musicians about that I can't play my it took me a long time to learn how to play stairway to heaven because I didn't ever want to play it again because it was so big something like that well you know because it was the first book that gave me an audience because it was for a lot of my readers the first book they came to and because there are what 10 million copies in print I think I forgot the number but it's um it's actual success has been somewhat overrated among my best sellers it's it's my fourth it's down the list and it's had a longer head start than the books that are ahead of it a prayer for Owen Meany is the most widely read of my novels is my biggest it was there was the first book of yours I ran oh and meaning yep The Cider House Rules is the second a widow for one year yes is third so and and these books are later books then Garf they haven't had as long to be out there in the various languages I'm translated into but the one that changes your life is is there's a big difference ask anybody to be full-time at what they do or or to do it part-time and they'll tell you I used to complain bitterly when I was writing GARP and then those first four novels that ask a doctor or ask a lawyer what kind of practice would they have if they got to see patients for two hours a day maybe three or four days a week yeah you know it's inconceivable yeah I think about you know writing songs at least some of my favorite song writer doesn't even like me a little bit I'm less level but you know John Prine is one of my favorite songwriters and he he carries around a little notebook where he would write down just a line he heard in the grocery store and then write all the news just repeats itself he would just line it's a beautiful line oh it's a great long gourd down he would do the same thing carry around a little build notebook in his back pocket I heard someone say something at the grocery store at the restaurant write it down mm-hmm and then a whole beautiful song would come from it was there a germ of an idea that led to the world according to GARP like that well I always knew that GARP and his mother would both be killed and and that the that I oh I always knew it was an assassination story really and and I knew that Roberta the transgender woman who formerly was a tight end for the Philadelphia Eagles I knew that Roberta would be the most balanced character emotionally and psychologically in the novel she's the only one who loves GARP and his mother equally this came to you this yeah this would this was a the beginning thing that that that in in the world of sexual hatred the the comest most likable presence is this transgender woman who's not had an easy time but but but she was some kind of the the moral guidance to the story she would I knew be the principal voice of the epilogue after GARP and Jenny were gone so there was that concept that to give the role of the peacemaker to the smallest sexual minority in this story right that's that's so interesting to me because um I feel like in the mid 1970s I think it's fair to say in the mid nineteen seventies or the early 1970s there weren't many characters like Roberta being written there weren't many gender characters being written no there weren't and and and Roberta is the one who's who's lasted the longest for me miss Frost the transgender librarian in in one person comes from Roberta floor the transgender prostitute in Avenue of mysteries comes from Roberta and miss Frost so you know I I haven't created another GARP or another Jenny but I've created a few more Roberta's she stayed with me why why why do you think well it's always the smallest minority that picked on the most right and in the world of sexual minorities the trans woman the trans man is the smallest among them it's not missed on me for example that in May of 2016 President Obama recognized transgender people by instructing his Department of Education to insist to schools that a student's gender identity was their own business and they got to go to the bathrooms of their choice and their gender identity was not defined by the particulars on their birth certificates or their genitalia right that was one of the first decisions that Trump's Education Secretary overturned almost immediately upon taking office in October of last year Trump's Attorney General Jeff Sessions ruled that transgender people were not protected from workplace discrimination and as recently as two weeks ago the US Department of Health and Human Services revealed that they were working on a definition of sex defining gender as determined at Birth determinate birth right now these people in the Trump administration have an anti LGBTQ agenda across the board mm-hmm but who did they hurt first the smallest minority within the LGBTQ group and that would be the trans community right they wouldn't dare try to get away with that uh against all gay men all lesbian women but they're they're seeing what they can get away with with the smallest most vulnerable group among them so it is the smallest most vulnerable that as a writer or was interested me in you know if you want to if you want to see how discriminatory or not if you want to see how tolerant or not people are look at the smallest minority around and ask yourself how are they it's an interesting time job to be an American writer living in Toronto well III think it's um it's a challenging time to be an American living anywhere this month by the way having having passed the three-year mark of my permanent residence in Canada this this month I become eligible to apply for Canadian citizenship which I will you think you're gonna do it yes I am it that doesn't mean that that I will give up my US citizenship or I'm not planning to principally because I want to vote you want to vote in my water I want to continue to be able so I my u.s. citizenship matters a great deal to me I think it's more important to vote than ever um don't forget that the the the principle reason that Donald Trump is president is not because he won that election but because my fellow Liberal Democrats in my opinion lost it six and a half million Democrats who voted for President Obama in 2012 did not show up for mrs. Clinton in 2016 I mean I think that's why you're seeing so much of it get out the vote campaign right now in a conversation around who can vote and who can't vote well we'll see what happens so why the Canadian citizenship well my wife is Canadian yeah oh she's a benadryl citizen for some time she has a u.s. and a Canadian passport and because of my circumstances when we met now 30 years ago she moved to the US and the US was our primary residence I've lived for as many as four or five months of the year in Canada for 30 years but I've only been a full-time resident in Canada for the last three and Counting almost four years now but um so I was in a position where I couldn't leave the United States and so my my wife moved there as her primary residence - and now were freer to move where we want and and coming back to Toronto was always a part of the plan as to when we would do it yep that was up in the air depending on what the children and grandchildren were doing and both kinds of things Congrats though it's nice to have you thank you one of us thank you I'm happy to be here I'll buy you a Neil Young record or something that's okay you know John Irving this is an interesting thing to ask because I see this is an interesting thing I'm gonna ask terrible things happen in this book I was reading the world according to GARP partly as a book and I was listening to it also as an audiobook that I think was recorded by Edison judging by the guy who read it it was it was a sound like a bit of a tape hiss behind it but some horrible things were happening in this book and yet I was finding myself sort of chuckling on the subway a little bit and I was chuckling while going down the street and chuckling while in the mine for Tim Hortons and I found this review from the New York Times from 1978 that said things in this book ought not to be funny still the way that mr. Irving writes about them they are we not only laugh at the world according to GARP but we also accept it and love it rapes murders assassination appendages are lost here does does that review ring true to you well to the extent that any review ring you have to be careful of the reviews you like because the next thing you know the same reviewer will be hating you for some other reason yeah you know you should be a little cautious about you say that but I understand I certainly understand what the reviewer says and I think it's an accurate on description I will always be interested in a writer in making bad things happen because I think that's where that's at the heart of the most serious story telling that I loved and the nineteenth-century novel that made me want to be a writer in the first place and that was these are Dickens Hardy Melville [ __ ] song these are not happy people for the most part and terrible things happen in those stories I didn't make that up terrible things happen in Shakespeare terrible things happen in the Greek classical tragedies these are the things that made me want to be a writer these very old-fashioned tragedies where the worst imaginable thing happens in conceivably imagine awful things happen I mean look at the B deepest place for God's sake what could be worse then but I'm not laughing at those on the audio I know I under I understand but the comic Jean wherever it comes from I think I learned this best from the persona of my old mentor and first reader of my first novel Kurt Vonnegut who was my teacher at Iowa workshop who was one of the funniest writers alive and one of the most depressed men I ever knew and terrible things happened in his novels too but if you if you have an instinct for comedy you can't control it we all know people who try to be funny who can't be funny and they shouldn't even try but if if if you are a comic writer you will be comic even and perhaps especially at the most awful times because you just you it may not affect at all the way you behave in real life if your children are struggling you're not laughing but in literature I've always felt that the better time the reader the audience is having right up until the car hits the wall the more emotionally unprepared they are for the car hitting a wall and so more impact I like I like the idea of telling a story in a way that makes my audience feel oh this is fun mm-hmm this is until it isn't until it isn't it isn't it isn't as wilfully an act of deceit as I may make that sound sure and people who've read more than one book of mine certainly know what I'm up to and what to expect but what I'm saying is you can't help it if you are funny and you know being funny about things that other people think are not funny gets writers in trouble more than writing about sex oh yeah two things get writers in trouble most of the time writing about sex and being funny about things that other people in the world don't think are funny I witness what happened to have summoned Rushdie with the Satanic Verses he told a joke it was the joke that brought the fatwa Tom right yeah joke yeah something you have in the back of your mind when you're writing even now how could every writer must have that in the back of his or her mind sure yeah and instill in your mind in 2018 I mean it's there's so much dialogue right now around what do we find funny in 2018 yeah it's it's um and one of the casualties of one of what one of the casualties of there being so much trouble so much violence so much hatred in the atmosphere around us we have to be careful of the instinct to be overly politically correct um which would be extremely down the road detrimental to the best instincts in poetry and fiction now yeah I mean it bears the mind because when I was reading the world according to GARP I was thinking she said wonder if you could write this now well that's a good point yeah I I think you have to the good taste police need to be careful to not police too much well you're turning it into a miniseries for HPA over five parts no not for HBO it's it's um I'm developing it with Warner Brothers television Warner Brothers and and I are the co-owners of the theatrical rights to the world according to GARP and we'll see who our distribution production partner is when we connect with that element which we are still searching for that must be fun though or at least interesting to be revisiting it yet again not just with a forward but for trying to I'm guessing you're you know being involved in the new screenwriting or adapting your work to the screenplay it's got to be interesting to do it's a better format for a novelist a limited series a television series it's a better format for me especially for a novel the length of the world according to GARP then a feature-length film unquestionably I'd rather be given 275 minutes then 120 minutes 275 minutes is good that would be a five part mini series which right now is the structure I've given to this limited series five episodes fifty-five minutes I like the shortness of that 55 minute episode it's very chapter esque there is something over the course of a feature-length film that always feels like a sag to me you know even 90 minutes but it's basically 120 minutes it's a long time to not have a break that's longer than a chapter huh so I like those I like those 55 minute episodes say they they suit me but with every screenplay or teleplay you write you have to recognize it's a crapshoot there's no assurance that anybody will actually make it I waited 13 years to see cider house made by the fourth director I worked with wine GARP was made to you know carp was made into a film let's hear what's your relationship with with that film now well I don't dislike it George Roy hill was a friend of mine George asked me to write that screenplay but I knew that he did not see in that novel the same movie I saw we talked about it oh yeah and I thought I declined I stepped away um Steve sessions wrote that screenplay because George asked me first and I said no I don't think so um because I knew he wouldn't do it my way we would do it his way and and and George would have done it his way he was one of those old old-fashioned guys back when directors had a lot more authority than most of them have now that you know I was not going to persuade him to do it my way as I said we were friends we knew each other we talked about it um I did a cameo in the film I spent a little time on on the set that's nice I looked at at audition tapes but I I kept a certain distance because I had declined to be the screen writer and and so I felt you know if when when when when someone asks you first and you say no you don't really have any justification to [ __ ] about the results because you could have been you could have you know you could have been a part of it and and I had a a similar but slightly different experience with Tony Richardson I actually knew Tony better than I knew George um with Tony Richardson in the hotel New Hampshire Tony asked me to write that screenplay too in Tony's case however I knew that he was simply asking me as a courtesy in Tony's case I knew that he wanted to write it himself so it was an easier decision on my part to say no thanks I why don't you do that um but in both cases I declined I declined more than I say yes right is it um in the case of cider house I knew even as I was finishing the manuscript of that novel I saw how to do it as a film I saw I saw how to do it well so is there anything you want you want to make sure happens in this five-part miniseries that maybe didn't happen in the original film certainly mahad's [Music] pulao mission in in the 1982 film is is I I think the character of Roberta is portrayed strictly for laughs Donna Karan strictly for comedy which was in my estimation with hindsight a a shame because John Lithgow could have done Roberta the way I wanted to see Roberto Don I wanted to give Roberta a much bigger part I wanted Roberta be more the voice of the epilogue as she is in the novel of and George chose to do giver and and and Lithgow is is such a wonderful actor he could have done it so I thought that was a wasted opportunity but you know I again I I I don't have I don't have grounds to complain about the film George made because he asked me to be involved and I said no get to hang with Robin at all Robin Williams he's a good guy I like I like Robin he would not have been mine I would not have cast him as GARP I thought he was entirely too saccharine sweet nice for the character I had in in in in mind I'm more on Jenny side than I am on carbs in the book and I I thought Robin was was too sweet for for that character but that had more to do with Steve sesterces screenplay writing relative and once again I what they asked me first and I I said don't you've been really generous they were talking to me about all this I really appreciate it it's fun I'm having a good time good in the in the introduction you described giving the manuscript to the world according to GARP to your then twelve-year-old son Colin to read cons 53 now might be 54 now I guess that's true you know why was it important take me back there why was it important that he read this book first well it was the first time Colin was old enough to be considered as a reader for one of my books and it just so happened that when I finished the manuscript of GARP and he was aware that i'd finished a novel I'd been writing for as almost as long as he could remember he said what can I read it and put me kind of on a spot I think anyone would have felt immediately that as I did that there were scenes moments events in in that novel story shaping events in that novel that are of questionable subject matter for a twelve-year-old so I was a little anxious about that but I you know as as a as a liberal in every political and otherwise sense of the word I would have felt like a terrible hypocrite if I said no Colin you're too young and or things here in totally unsuitable for you I couldn't I mean it wouldn't been me you know and and so I kind of felt put in a difficult position and that that a twelve-year-old became that manuscripts first reader which he was was an unusual situation and I look back on it extremely fondly now because it turned out to be a very positive reading experience for him and and for the two of us but I did have as I write in this introduction I did have some trepidation about that moment does he still talk to you about it have you spoken to him about it now we talk all the time but it we haven't spoken specifically of that of that moment he knows he was the first reader of that novel and and that novel this is dedicated to him and his younger brother one of my favorite moments of the new forward you wrote for the 40th anniversary is you talk about Colin being 14 going on 50 when someone asks him hey is your is your dad GARP and he says I know the book is about the fears of a father and my father shares those fears does that still hold up for you but this book is about a father's fear well yes and and I think Colin was was the first person to say that about my work and and more generally it is true of me I think that I write about what I fear there is in every novel not only in the world according to GARP there is in every novel something that happens that I am conscious of knowing I hope who never happens to me or to anyone I love there's always such a moment in my novels and in fact if there weren't such a part in the novel if there wasn't something that not only do I hope never happens to me or to anyone I love but a part of the novel that I'm dreading the actual writing of that I'm hating the idea of writing that scene or those scenes if a novel doesn't have that element I won't begin it because if if there isn't something in it of that nature I have a hard time imagining that it's good enough to give four or five years in my life - and that it will have the desired impact on a reader if if there isn't something that makes me most uncomfortable just to imagine I have to know that I have to know that that's in the store that's coming during drive you'll indulge me just just two quick questions at the end I'm you mentioned something earlier that really fascinated me because I had someone on the show about six months ago who hung out with Charlie Chaplin and one of the things I said to her was hey Charlie Japanese is not a real person he's like Mickey Mouse you know he's a creation I don't see him as a real guy and she was like oh no he was a lovely guy you know you know he always had a boiled egg where she told me some kind of stories about him I have to mention when you when you mentioned Kurt Vonnegut I had the same kind of reaction that to me Kurt Vonnegut is again Mickey Mouse he's another he's sort of a larger than life figure to me can you tell me what was he what was he like no he was a great guy he was some very kind and generous to me as younger writer I was his student at Iowa but he he was always kind to me a kind of father figure to me um we watched the Six Day War together because I didn't have a television I knew him when I lived in New York he lived not far from where I lived in the city we saw a lot of each other there when I lived in the Hamptons he lived a bicycle ride away um so I was fortunate later in our lives to be his friend too after I'd written four or five books but to have had him as my first reader for the first one was a was a great kindness to me a great sort of benefit to me I really loved the guy in the last year's the later years he he was a little unhappy and not always the sunniest of people anyway comic but pessimistic to his core on and I would often find him sitting on my front porch waiting for me to get up to make coffee in the mornings when I would get up and one of my kids was would always come and say Curtis here Curtis on the step now I'd say well Colette him him you know welcoming him inside and and one time my my son Brendan when Kurt came in and I say how long have you been here he said here always say you always tell me you get up early you don't get up early at all and well you know it was like seven o'clock in the morning and he'd be sitting on the porch having a cigarette and one morning Brendan went out with a with a cereal bowl and picked up all the butts around where Kurt had been sitting he came in with like eight or nine bucks from that morning from that morning and so we we tried to piece together in our minds how early had Kurt been there we imagined that he must have come when it was still dark smoking on the porch from 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning until the coffee got made you know he was a good guy he was right you don't wake up early is there anything you keep with you from them they're like is there a piece of advice you keep in your back pocket you know well sure it's in one of his novels above all he said you have to be kind oh yeah by that just as a cautionary word for um civilization um you have to be kind the opposite instinct to threatening to send fifteen thousand troops to the Mexican border to ward off hungry women and children you have to be kind it's a good principle to follow you you've been very kind in talking to me today I appreciate it fifteenth novel by there anything you want to say about that is to go story I'm I'm in the last half of it [Music] it's called darkness as a bride and I expect I'll finish it sometime in 2019 and it probably will not be published before sometime in 2020 if I had to guess I it's hard to say well I'm looking forward to it John Irving nice to meet you and you thank you thank you for coming in

Channel: Q with Tom Power

Views: 21,212

Keywords: John Irving, The World According to Garp, John Irving interview, John Irving The World According to Garp interview

Id: LoRUhkWfyR8

Length: 46min 53sec (2813 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 13 2018