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Fb2 A Widow for One Year : A Novel ePub

by John Irving

Category:	Literary
Subcategory:	Fiction
Author:	John Irving
ISBN:	0676971946
ISBN13:	978-0676971941
Language:	English
Publisher:	Random House of Canada, Limite; First Edition edition (1999)
Pages:	560
Fb2 eBook:	1740 kb
ePub eBook:	1733 kb
Digital formats:	rtf azw mobi lit

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A Widow for One Year is a 1998 novel by American writer John Irving, the ninth of his novels to be published. The first third of the novel was adapted into the film The Door in the Floor in 2004.

A Widow for One Year is a 1998 novel by American writer John Irving, the ninth of his novels to be published. The year is 1958 and Ruth Cole is 4 years old. Although she is a loved child, her parents do not have a happy marriage

A widow for one year : a novel, John Irving.

A widow for one year : a novel, John Irving. eISBN: 978-0-37550447-1. Praise for John Irving.

A Widow for One Year book. This sentence opens John Irving’s ninth novel, A Widow for One Year, a story of a family marked by tragedy. Ruth Cole is a complex, often self-contradictory character-a difficult woman. By no means is she One night when she was four and sleeping in the bottom bunk of her bunk bed, Ruth Cole woke to the sound of lovemaking-it was coming from her parents’ bedroom.

I first read a John Irving book many years ago when my brother told me I must read 'Garp'. John Irving has been nominated for a National Book Award three times-winning once, in 1980, for the novel The World According to Garp. This is the third book of his I've read and it really is quite something. As always, his characters are real. In 1992, Mr. Irving was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Stillwater, Oklahoma. In 2000, he won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for The Cider House Rules-a film with seven Academy Award nominations. Библиографические данные.

John Irving's A Widow For One Year is the epic story of a family, dysfunctional at best, unable to cope with . Perhaps Irving's other brilliant books created impossible and unfair expectations, but I just did not care for A Widow For One Year. 3 people found this helpful.

John Irving's A Widow For One Year is the epic story of a family, dysfunctional at best, unable to cope with tragedy-or with each other. The unabridged audiobook, narrated by George Guidall (The Cat Who Sang for the Birds, The Inner Sanctum, The Legacy) draws the listener in with a crisp, methodical vocal presentation.

This sentence opens John Irving’s ninth novel, A Widow for One Year, a story of a family marked by tragedy. Richly comic, as well as deeply disturbing, A Widow for One Year is a multilayered love story of astonishing emotional force. By no means is she conventionally nice, but she will never be forgotten. Ruth’s story is told in three parts, each focusing on a critical time in her life. Both ribald and erotic, it is also a brilliant novel about the passage of time and the relentlessness of grief. Note from John Irving.

A Widow for One Year delivers everything John Irving fans have come to expect from the beloved author of The World According to Garp: a funny, sad, sprawling saga full of oddball yet believable characters. There’s only one thing wrong with John Irving novels: They have to end. Readers won’t easily part with the characters in his latest work, A Widow for One Year.

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Irving is among the few novelists who can write a novel about grief and fill it with ribald humor soaked in irony. The pleasures of this rich and beautiful book are manifold. To be human is to savor them. -Richmond Times-Dispatch.

John Irving's A Widow For One Year is an intricate narrative of several .

John Irving's A Widow For One Year is an intricate narrative of several love stories. The second section of the book occurs in 1990, while Ruth Cole, a famous novelist, is on tour. The third and final segment of the book happens in 1995, where the turmoil in her life is resolved and "everything" falls into place. In this novel John Irving incorporates many of his own experiences into the story line. John Irving was born in Exeter, New Hampshire, in 1942. He later attend Exeter academy and has written many successful novels.

Comments to eBook A Widow for One Year : A Novel

tamada

I have read and loved Irving novels for years and especially like the ones where I can relate to the protagonist and other characters. This is one of those!
Do not be put off by its length. It reads fast and can be one of those that keep you up at night. I found myself thinking of this book during the day and anxiously waiting to find out what the four main characters were up to next.
It moves back and forth between these wonderfully drawn characters - while still moving forward through the years. The first quarter of the book takes place when Ruth is four years old. You can feel how that summer would affect her the rest of her life. It is also a fun read while going forward with the tragedy of the lives involved.
This is the first Irving book that, I now realize, was made into a movie by another name. This film only took place in that first quarter of the book when she was four. Very unusual to discover. See if you can figure it out.

Now to the ending. Don't read it ahead since it would make no sense without the whole book under your belt. However, I have never read a book where I gasped and sobbed at the last sentence.
Mr Irving - you have completely gotten me on this one.

Finally - it is about all the characters being writers of one kind or another. This is fun since Irving has the opportunity to talk about how different people write and succeed, or not.

Enjoy this great read

Vital Beast

I have read thousands of novels and this is one of my favorites. It is true, as other reviewers say, that John Irving is a scattered writer who often shifts story-lines and tone. But that is part of the charm of a John Irving novel, along with his humor and bitterness. There are at least 2 plots here and I thought both of them were interesting and entertaining. And there are four or five or six important characters, all of whom are interesting and flawed. I think most readers would enjoy reading A Widow for One Year. It is never boring.

Wenaiand

If this were written by another author, I would say it was decent. But John Irving is an exceptional writer - one of my all-time favorites - and I was a bit disappointed. The story became more interesting toward the end of the book, but much of what preceded that seemed unnecessary and even self indulgent. For example, a number of passages seemed like independent short stories that just didn't belong (or had a tenuous connection). He's included such passages in other books, but not nearly as many.

I'm glad I read Garp, Owen Meany and Cider House Rules first. Had I started with A Widow For One Year, I doubt that I would have been interested in those masterpieces. Indeed, I would not even have completed this book had it been written by just about anyone else; although it was engaging in many places, it dragged for long stretches.

Perhaps Irving's other brilliant books created impossible and unfair expectations, but I just did not care for A Widow For One Year.

Gralsa

Every John Irving fan will doubtlessly once again get totally engrossed in the characters which he so masterfully creates. Not many authors are capable of creating a depth to his characters as John Irving does. It is patently clear that every detail of the fiction is planned by the author in detail before he writes his novel and there is no haphazard development or happenings that do not ultimately falls within the ambit of the plot. I do believe however that John Irving is better at writing from the perspective of a male than from a female, as is done in this book. He typifies female characters and fails to give them the depth that he gives his male main characters of his fiction. The story of Ruth (the widow for a year) and the main character fails to fully portray the feelings and thoughts of a female and so it does of her mother and her best friend, Hannah. He fails to give them the complexity of a woman. He can give Ruth the characteristics of an author, but as aforesaid, fails to give her the complexity of a woman. John Irvings main characters normally invoke a feeling of like and admiration however he does not make Ruth a very likeable persona.Normally when finishing a John Irving book I miss the main character, like a friend that has left my world but I did not feel like that about any of his characters he creates in this book, including her two best friends, Hannah and Eddie. Hannah is stereocast as a "woman always between bad boyfiends" and Eddie's character is confusing in that he is a real weakling at times and other times just "nice". There are however some very compelling parts to the book and a John Irving fan will enjoy this book as well.

Mazuzahn

I absolutely love John Irving. A Prayer for Owen Meany and The Cider House Rules are two of my favorite books and definitely five star reads. A Widow for One Year also has its strong points, however it also has some weaknesses. I personally like Irvings writing style so that did not disappoint. The story was good and at times very engaging. I believe that Irving excels at creating unique characters that are not people that we come across very often and this book is no exception. My reasoning behind three stars instead of four is that in the two previously mentioned novels there seemed to be much more research put into the story. For example, cider house rules had characters that performed medical procedures and worked in Apple orchards to name a couple and Irving went into great detail about both which I can only imagine took a great amount time to learn to be able to convincingly write on the topic. Owen Meany had a lot of political history and ideology. A Widow for One Year had characters with unique backgrounds but it is a topic that is all to easy for an author to write about. The characters are writers. So I guess I am more disappointed that Irving possibly may have took an easy and in my opinion a much to often used route in this book. That being said I still enjoyed it and think that it was well written. Thanks for reading.

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