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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
26 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
158 pound novel,
By lookingin2you "lookingin2you" (The Pacific Northwest) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The 158-Pound Marriage (Mass Market Paperback)
"The 158 Pound Marriage" is another example of John Irving at his best. He masterfully explores the consequences of infidelity in a modern marriage through a story of two couples, each in love with another's spouse. Though the wrestling imagery can get tiresome after a while, it's a fitting theme for a book whose characters are wrestling with the choices they have made in their marriages. The characters are all well developed, and the non-linear plot flows with ease. The one warning I would give is not to pick up this book looking for another "Garp." There is, was, and will always be only one "Garp." Let "The 158 Pound Marriage" stand on its own merits and you will not be disappointed.
16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Only for the true Irving fans,
By
This review is from: The 158-Pound Marriage (Mass Market Paperback)
After falling in love with Irving's more well known works, I went back to read his earlier novels. This is a decent read, but clearly less well developed that something like The World According to Garp, or A Prayer for Owen Meany. I wouldn't recommend it as your first Irving book.
We have some of the same plot elements that are seen again and again in Irving's works--life in Vienna, wife-swapping, wrestling, and prostitutes in Europe. The subject of Vienna is given a much more beautiful treatment in The Hotel New Hampshire, in my opinion. Children are an afterthought in this novel. They were written in only when convienent and completely ignored when more adult matters were at hand. The book is darkly tragic, more dark than other Irving novels. I didn't find the beauty of being human as a relief from the tragic undertones. Enjoy this if you are desperate for more Irving, but try some of his later works if you want a better read.
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Mind of a Menage a Quatre,
By A Customer
This review is from: The 158-Pound Marriage (Ballantine Reader's Circle) (Paperback)
John Irving is a mastermind for rich characters. From the get go, he engages the reader with the less than pleasing imagery of a young Austrian girl, Utchka, who experiences the torture and and murder of her family by Russians from inside the belly of a gutted-out cow. It kept me reading! By intertwining the disturbing pasts of two married couples as they embark on a menage a quatre, Irving leads you through the mindful manipualtions and selfishness that inevitably follow the couples in their quest for open sexuality...or is it? Extremely saucy, all characters are completely unique and interesting. Irving's use of the wrestling metaphors through the eyes of Severin Winter,the washed up wrestling coach, are completely obtainable to those,like myself, who are totally negligent of wrestling terms. And of course, like any long standing novel should, Irving leaves plenty of questions unanswered about marriage, fidelity, and the value of trust. This was my first introduction to Irving, mostly because "Garp" and "Owen Meany" were checked out at the Library. The 158-Pound Marriage truly lives up to his more well-known novels!
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