Talk:John Irving

Education

He was educated at Philip Exeter Academy and Upper Canada College.

I'm not sure that the above is true; I've found other information elsewhere, so until someone can confirm where Irving actually studied, I'll move it to the talk page. Here's what I found:

He attended the University of Pittsburg, and the Institute for European Studies in Vienna

I don't know which one is true. MikeCapone 06:28, Apr 26, 2004 (UTC)

Hey All,

From certain school records, there is evidence that he did attend both Philip Exeter and Upper Canada College. I am, however, not confident that he graduated from either school.

In the least, Upper Canada College appears in many of Irving's novels. An example would be "A Prayer for Owen Meany" in which Irving describes UCC with such accuracy, it might suggest that he was a student at the College.

For the record, John Irving is viewed as a 'friend of the College' by members of the UCC Community. From what I am told, to be considered a "Friend of the College" - would usually mean that either the individual: graduated, is a parent and/or a donor to the College. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.185.84.80 (talk) 00:16, 3 May 2004 (UTC)

there may be elements of Upper Canada College in A Prayer for Owen Meaney, but other parts of the description definitely reference Exeter.--Samuel J. Howard 00:21, 3 May 2004 (UTC)

So in reality, there are indications of both UCC and Exeter...Would it be possible that he attended both schools? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.194.224.121 (talk) 17:57, 9 May 2004 (UTC)

From what I know, he definately attended Exeter when he was a teen. But i don't know about the UCC. I'm also sure that he attended Pittsburgh ("Imaginary Girlfriend"). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.69.207.253 (talk) 08:39, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Ever consider his wife is from Toronto - home of UCC? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.29.128.130 (talk) 19:27, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

In "My Movie Business," part of which is autobiographical on other topics, doesn't Irving state he attended Iowa U for grad school?

Regroce (talk) 03:43, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

He certainly never attended UCC as a student. He did not live in Canada until he became an adult. --Mathew5000 (talk) 07:43, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Birth name

There seems to be disagreement about his early life (prior to his adoption and name change), viz.

 John Irving was actually born with the name John Blunt, and was later
 changed to Irving when his mother remarried.
 

The Dictionary of Literary Biography offers additional details:

 "...John Irving was born in Exeter, New Hampshire, on 2 March 1942.
 His birth name was John Wallace Blunt Jr., in honor of his biological
 father, a World War II flyer who was shot down over Burma. Irving's
 mother, Frances Winslow Irving, legally changed his name to John
 Winslow Irving when he was six years old after he had been adopted by
 her second husband, Colin F. N. Irving..."
 

Another take on the story is provided by the Wikipedia entry on John Irving:

 ...  
 
 "...John Irving was born John Wallace Blunt, Jr. in Exeter, New
 Hampshire. His mother Helen, a descendant of the Winslows, one of New
 England's oldest and most distinguished families, divorced Irving's
 biological father, an airman serving in the pacific, when Irving was
 two years old. The family maintained a strict silence regarding his
 natural father. When her son was six years old, Helen Winslow married
 Colin F.N. Irving, a Russian History teacher at the prestigious
 Phillips Exeter Academy. John Wallace Blunt, Jr. was adopted by Colin
 Irving and became John Winslow Irving in name..."

This comes from here, and is quoting an earlier version of the WP article. Some clarification would be nice! -- Slowmover 15:02, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

There is no disagreement here; both of those "takes" are correct. John Blunt (Irving's biological father) was shot down over Burma, but survived. According to various newspaper and magazine articles, Irving's parents divorced when he was two years old and his mother made it a condition of the divorce that Blunt have no parental access. Sample sources: [1] [2] [3] --Mathew5000 (talk) 06:07, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

There may have technically been no disagreement, but the implication of the first account was definitely that his biological father died in the crash. --Saforrest (talk) 02:20, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

The Imaginary Girlfriend

I found it very strange that the article does not mention the autobiographical The Imaginary Girlfriend , which was published in 2002 (http://www.powells.com/biblio?show=TRADE%20PAPER:USED:0345458265:6.95).

Fls 12:44, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I have added information about the Imaginary Girlfriend (under other projects) and the children's book A Sound Like Someone Trying Not to Make a Sound (among the novels). I have no information about how these books were received by critics or the audience, though.

Fls 10:44, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Fourth Hand reviews

While I think the Fourth Hand deserved to be "savaged by critics", there is some evidence that it wasn't. The following site -- http://www.powells.com/biblio/17-0375506276-3 -- includes some excerpts from half a dozen quality reviews (including one from Richard Eder of The New York Times Book Review) who seem to give the book a largely positive review.

Should the claim be substantiated by a reference or two? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.77.36.219 (talk) 03:27, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

(mis)spellings?

I am wondering if the spellings "begining", "sentance", "books" [instead of book's], "pulication" and "semicolin" in one of the Irving quotes are satirically intentional misspellings or not? Sorry for asking but I'm not an English native speaker. Wikipedia has masses of (unintentional) misspellings everywhere but when they occur in a quote one supposes they are original and intentional. 82.212.50.163 16:18, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

JOHN IRVING VIDEO!!!

Hey yall! there's a good John Irving video and he's being interviewed by Ernie Manouse...

go to: www.houstonpbs.org/InnerVIEWS

scroll down and look on the right side. there are other great celebrity interviews too! You can also buy any of the interviews. check it out! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fleetswimmer (talk • contribs) 20:22, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Hello and welcome to Wikipedia!. You can sign you name with four tildes ~~~~ so that we know who is talking. Anyway we agree the interview is good as we already link to it in the article. Look under the external links section. Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 20:29, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Recurring Themes: Small People

One theme not already in the discussion is that of unusually small people or dwarfs, also having some extraordinary abilities of empathy, insight, or wisdom. Hotel New Hampshire, Owen Meany, and Son of the Circus all have such characters... I haven't read over half of his body of work, but I'll bet that a similar character appears in some of his other books too. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cheesegunner (talk • contribs) 05:01, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Boarding School as a recurring theme

May I suggest that the Boarding School be included as a recurring theme in the table shown in the article? I am not knowledgeable enough to complete it, but maybe someone else can help. Arved Deecke (talk) 22:15, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

oral sex recurring theme

along with the other sexual variants mentioned, perhaps oral sex should be mentioned. It is quite important in Garp and keeps occuring in a number of other novels (Til I find You, Last Night at Twisted River, etc) (79.190.69.142 (talk) 22:56, 27 December 2009 (UTC))

I for once don't understand exactly why sexual variants should be mentioned at all as a theme. In my opinion, this can lead to misunderstandings and prejudices.Reykholt (talk) 06:28, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

The table

Heavy kudos to whoever did the table of recurring themes. If you've ever thought that John Irving has been writing essentially the same book for forty bleedin' years, you now have scientific proof. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.86.13.230 (talk) 17:01, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Recurring themes: wrestling

Weren't Owen Meany and/or the narrator in wrestling at school? Tcdpenn (talk) 22:09, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Owen and Hestor wrestle several times in the attic. 207.167.42.62 (talk) 18:49, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

I question the inclusion of wrestling as a theme in The Cider House Rules. Apart from some very brief, passing mentions of horseplay between Angel and Wally, there's no wrestling in the book. Consider revising the table? 58.177.241.177 (talk) 04:04, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Recurring Themes: Canada

In addition to New England, Canada (Toronto) has popped up in quite a number of books. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.183.230.185 (talk) 06:26, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Copyright problem

This article has been reverted by a bot to this version as part of a large-scale clean-up project of multiple article copyright infringement. (See the investigation subpage) This has been done to remove User:Accotink2's contributions as they have a history of extensive copyright violation and so it is assumed that all of their major contributions are copyright violations. Earlier text must not be restored, unless it can be verified to be free of infringement. For legal reasons, Wikipedia cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or printed material; such additions must be deleted. Contributors may use sources as a source of information, but not as a source of sentences or phrases. Accordingly, the material may be rewritten, but only if it does not infringe on the copyright of the original or plagiarize from that source. Please see our guideline on non-free text for how to properly implement limited quotations of copyrighted text. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously. VWBot (talk) 13:19, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

I looked over User:Accotink2's contribution to this article and it was a reference to the Paris Review website with an interview with Irving. No copyrighted material just a journal citation with a link in it. So I'm going to restore reference since it seems useful. The smilodon (talk) 20:40, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

The table - Original research? Inaccurate?

I've read all the books... I'm finding myself doubting the accuracy of the table of themes. Even if it is accurate, I think it most likely it is original research. Is there a source which sets out/cross references themes on which the table is based? If so, could it please be linked? TheOverflow (talk) 05:13, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

I have removed the table but included it below for reference.TheOverflow (talk) 06:05, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

I have restored the table to the page, since it does not meet the definition of WP:OR. The table does not add new information, constitute an invented secondary source, or synthesize conclusions from existing data; it merely lists, in context, facts which can be easily verified from WP:PRIMARY sources (the novels of Irving himself, in this case). If we take issue with a list of themes and plot elements side-by-side, we'd have to delete any number of articles. — chro • man • cer  02:00, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

John Irving is aware of this table. It was discussed when he played 'Not My Job' on NPR's "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" (16 June 2012). He and the host Peter Sagal laughed it off, but Irving did say it was a "fair list of what I would call superficial details." For a section on "recurring subjects," this table illustrates the repetition of themes more effectively than the text itself, and any reader who raises inaccuracies should feel free to edit. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.110.241.2 (talk) 16:13, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Whether Irving is aware of this table is not relevant. It's OR and trivia. Wikipedia should strive to be based on secondary, not primary sources. Jonathunder (talk) 00:14, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

I hate to pile on but I agree that the table should not be in the article. With all due respect to its originator for their hard work, I feel that it distorts the article's look and feel and gives undue weight to its own ideas. What other articles do is a separate question; we are talking about this article, not OTHERSTUFF. Wikipedia is already full enough of infoboxes and other attempts to summarize and categorize; to me, this table feels like a bridge too far. It should stay out. Sorry, and with best wishes to all DBaK (talk) 09:43, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

"Look and feel" is not a valid objection in accordance with any Wikipedia policy I know of. If the styling of the table does not suit you, I suggest you be bold and make cosmetic changes to the table—perhaps make it smaller? But as far as "its own ideas" go, that is not valid at all. There are no new ideas introduced in the table—it's merely a listing of common themes in his novels, all of which are easily cited to primary sources, and none of which include any editorializing or original research of any kind whatsoever.

The burden of proof falls on those who remove content from the page. I'm restoring the table. Until an argument can be made that doesn't resort to "I don't like this here," it should stay. In the meantime, I'm happy to discuss these points of policy with anyone on the talk page, but simply reverting is not helpful. — chro • man • cer  21:12, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

I too agree that the table in question appears to be OR based on information assembled from primary sources. If the table were based on a published and citable literary analysis, the table's inclusion in the entry could be given serious consideration. However, I do not see such source here. So the burden of proof that the content of the table is not OR but is based on a reliable source falls on those who want to include the table. Malljaja (talk) 22:54, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Can you name any part of it that is analysis? Or criticism? Or research at all? It's a list of things that are in each book- not open to interpretation. If these were not immediately evident to an untrained observer, I'd agree, but they are immediately evident. We must as well ask for a secondary source to confirm a plot summary, and this is even less detailed than a plot summary. What part of it is OR? — chro • man • cer  00:12, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

In my view, all of the table is OR. You say,"if these are not immediately evident to an untrained observer, I'd agree." I would go even further that even selecting themes that are evident to readers of the novels would be OR. The table makes a statement, which is that there are certain recurring themes in Irving's books. This is a conclusion that requires detailed knowledge of the novels, collecting the themes or topics in them, and establishing which ones show overlap among the novels. That's clearly research. And since there is no source given such as, for example, a literary expose of Irving's work, it's OR. Finding an appropriate source(s) maybe the way to go, but given the specific content in this table, that could be a bit of a tall order. Malljaja (talk) 01:39, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

And yet it doesn't require any of that- "detailed knowledge" in this case simply means reading the book. In my view, these would better be classed as recurring elements rather than themes, as we've discussed them. Bears, for example, or New England, are not "themes" that require any research. All you have to do is open the book to a page, and see the words "New England." In either case, you haven't rebutted the primary thesis here, which is that if listing plot elements from primary sources constitutes original research, what right do we have to create a plot summary of the work? This requires far less knowledge of the novels than a plot summary.

For reference, I quote here the relevant section of WP:OR that states directly what we're talking about: "A primary source may only be used on Wikipedia to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the source but without further, specialized knowledge. For example, an article about a novel may cite passages to describe the plot, but any interpretation needs a secondary source." Nothing in this table is anything more than a straightforward fact; everything in it can be verified by an educated person with access to the source; it does not require any special knowledge and does not presume to interpret, for example, which elements are meaningful or have discrete significance. In conclusion, then, I'd agree that referring to it as a list of "themes" is inaccurate and misleading, and probably should be amended from here on out. But as a table of recurring elements, policy makes clear that such citations are perfectly acceptable: after all, if we said "John Irving has written many books which reference New England" in the body of the article, no one would have batted an eye. But here we have listed such elements so concisely, albeit unusually, that people are stopping short. — chro • man • cer  06:35, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

The table in question does not contain "straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the source but without further, specialized knowledge." It contains themes or elements that have been identified and selected by someone (you?), some of which are indeed reasonably straightforward (like New England), but others are not (for example, "deadly accident" and "sexual variations," a term that is probably less familiar to many, and one that I, frankly, don't quite understand). Thus, choosing these terms and identifying overlaps in them among Irving's novels requires research. Moreover, it also raises questions about how complete this table is; perhaps there are other themes that have been left out (eg, "living in a foreign country," a topic that if I remember correctly recurs in several of Irving's books). I'm not advocating to try to aim for completeness of the table, because this activity would be again OR. What needs to identified is source(s) for this table. I actually like the table, but I do not think that without sources it can be retained. I'll await others' comments and will go with the consensus. Malljaja (talk) 20:14, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

I have no objection to removing "sexual variations"; it seems less than precise. And no, I didn't create this table; I just have a fondness for useful information, especially well-collected useful information, which as an actual reader of John Irving's novels, this happens to be. "Deadly accident" seems straightforward. If I said one novel included a plane crash and another included a gun being dropped, firing, and killing someone, would you be hard pressed to refer to a specialized source in order to label those "deadly accidents"? A deadly accident is an accident which causes death, full stop. A refusal to acknowledge the plain fact seems incredibly obtuse. And you're right, "living in a foreign country" is a common point (Vienna touches on that). However, no one said this table had to be completely comprehensive. Any urge to refuse to include information because it is not completely comprehensive is antithetical to the summarizing, tertiary nature of Wikipedia itself.

Nevertheless, there are a number of people repeatedly reverting the article without even discussing it here, and I'm not inclined to get into an edit war over easily cited material, so I'm going to collect sources for every element present in the table. It's going to look like garbage once I have every element cited to primary sources and their commonalities cited to secondary sources, since at no point in Wikipedia do we ever do that with plot elements, but I suppose it's better than simply losing the gut of this section because no one will bother looking up the facts to confirm that none of this is OR. — chro • man • cer  15:48, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

If any of you would like to actually contribute to improving this page rather than simply removing material, I've put up a User:Chromancer/IrvingTable and I think you'll find it's easy to locate sources for each one of these plot elements. — chro • man • cer  16:01, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

I own a copy of each of Irving's books and have read all of them. I can think of a great deal of trivia found in many of his works, and some of that might even be interesting if detailed in some reader forum or blog, but absolutely not here. This is an encyclopedia. Do we have a table for Charles Dickens with checkmarks for mentions of orphans in his works? Ships in Shakespeare? Robots in Asimov? No. No. No. Jonathunder (talk) 17:15, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Title	New England	Sex workers	Wrestling	Vienna	Bears	Deadly accident	Absent Parent	Film-making / Screen Writing	Writers	Sexual variations
Setting Free the Bears				Y	Y	Y	Y		Y
The Water-Method Man	Y	Y	Y	Y				Y	Y	adultery
The 158-Pound Marriage	Y		Y	Y					Y	swinging, ménage à trois, adultery
The World According to Garp	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y		Y	asexuality, rape, pedophilia, transsexualism, swinging, adultery
The Hotel New Hampshire	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	rape, gang rape, older woman/younger man, incest, homosexuality, lesbianism, bestiality
The Cider House Rules	Y	Y	Y		Y	Y	Y		Y	buggery, lesbianism, adultery, rape, incest, bestiality
A Prayer for Owen Meany	Y	Y				Y	Y	Y	Y	asexuality, incestuous desires
A Son of the Circus		Y		Y		Y	Y	Y	Y	transsexualism, homosexuality
A Widow for One Year	Y	Y				Y	Y		Y	older woman/younger man, rape, lesbianism
The Fourth Hand	Y					Y	Y		Y	older woman/younger man
Until I Find You	Y	Y	Y	Y		Y	Y	Y	Y	older woman/younger man, lesbianism, pedophilia, cross-dressing
Last Night in Twisted River	Y	Y	Y		Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	older woman/younger man, ménage à trois
In One Person	Y		Y	Y		Y	Y	Y	Y	bisexuality, transsexualism, older woman/younger man, incest, lesbianism, cross-dressing, homosexuality, bears/gay males

The National Public Radio show "wait wait, don't tell me" has a transcript of the author discussing this:

PETER SAGAL, HOST: We found a chart on your Wikipedia page. I don't know if you've ever looked at it.

JOHN IRVING: That's true.

SAGAL: On the Wikipedia page, somebody has developed a chart of all of your novels and lists of themes and checkmarks for the theme.

IRVING: Oh yeah, somebody sent that to me, actually. I didn't know where it came from.

SAGAL: The themes are, and these are the ones: New England, sex workers, wrestling, Vienna, bears, deadly accidents and absent parents are on the list. Are there any others that are missing? We kind of imagine you there with a checklist, checking them off yourself as you went through it.

IRVING: Well, you know, that's a fair list of what I would call superficial details.

SAGAL: Yeah.

(LAUGHTER)

This is an encyclopedia, not a list of superficial details. Jonathunder (talk) 02:57, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Good point. I agree. Malljaja (talk) 17:50, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

I: I completely disagree with your assessment. Just because no one came up with these lists for Dickens or Shakespeare doesn't mean they wouldn't be interesting additions to the entry. Additionally, just because the author - who was put on the spot on a comedic radio program - said they are superficial details doesn't diminish the fact that they are recurring themes in his books. Blueshoc12 (talk) 18:16, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't doubt it would interest someone somewhere. If you want to publish that kind of original research, perhaps you could start a blog. But not here, please. This is an encyclopedia. Jonathunder (talk) 18:35, 23 January 2015 (UTC)