John Irving Holds Forth

Powells.com Interviews - John Irving

But we live in a prudish, stupid country. We live in a country virtually without a culture. And there isn't anything in the arts — film, painting, novels — that can be reviewed without the issue of good taste, so to speak, being brought to bear. Given the sexual explicitness of this novel, I can't imagine that half of the critics, the so-called good taste police, will resist calling it prurient or pornographic. But I don't think readers are going to balk at that.

It's not only a divided country because of Mr. Bush's war in Iraq; it's a divided country culturally, and this is an explicit and a dysfunctional novel. A lot of people will simply be turned away. Aren't we the only country in the world that could have been offended by that brief millisecond of Janet Jackson's breast? Aren't we the only country in the world that could engender a half-time show at a Super Bowl with an aging Beatle — my age! — because he couldn't possibly offend anyone? You're talking about a dog-stupid culture here.

Read the interview. To the end. You wouldn't want to miss the money quote on the Bush administration and gay marriage. In the meantime, Irving disses Joyce, compares himself to Ondaatje, and praises Vonnegut. (O.K., I admit I have not been able to put up with Vonnegut since I got out of high school.)

My one disappointment is that he did not discuss the World According to Garp, the first and best of his novels that I have read. I was on a college tour with a good friend, and we stopped at my friend's cousin's house in Exeter, where his cousin taught school. I threw myself on the couch and read Garp over the weekend, almost straight through. It had to be one of the most compelling books I had read.