Product Description

Written between 1965 and 1967, Setting Free the Bears is 'sensual, moving, truly remarkable' (Time), and concerns a plot to release all the animals from the Vienna Zoo.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #25594 in Books
• Published on: 1986-07-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

From the Back Cover
This 'sensual, moving, truly remarkable novel' (Time) was written between 1965 and 1967. It concerns a plot to release all the animals from the Vienna Zoo. 'Imagine a mixture of Till Eulenspiegel and Ken Kesey and you've got the range of the merry pranksters who hot-rod through Mr Irving's book, tossing flowers, stealing salt-shakers, and planning the biggest caper of their young lives' (New York Times).

Essential reading for all John Irving fans, here is a mouth-watering foretaste of 'The Pension Grillparzer' in The World According to Garp and to the Berry Family's journey to Vienna in The Hotel New Hampshire.

About the Author
John Irving was born in Exeter, New Hampshire, in 1942, and he once admitted that he was a 'grim' child. Although he excelled in English at school and knew by the time he graduated that he wanted to write novels, it was not until he met a young Southern novelist named John Yount, at the University of New Hampshire, that he received encouragement. 'It was so simple,' he remembers. 'Yount was the first person to point out that anything I did except writing was going to be vaguely unsatisfying.' In 1963, Irving enrolled at the Institute of European Studies in Vienna, and he later worked as a university lecturer. His first novel, Setting Free the Bears, about a plot to release all the animals from the Vienna Zoo, was followed by The Water-Method Man, a comic tale of a man with a urinary complaint, and The 158-Pound Marriage, which exposes the complications of spouse-swapping. Irving achieved international recognition with The World According to Garp, which he hoped would 'cause a few smiles among the tough-minded and break a few softer hearts'. The Hotel New Hampshire is a startlingly original family saga, and The Cider House Rules is the story of Doctor Wilbur Larch - saint, obstetrician, founder of an orphanage, ether addict and abortionist - and of his favourite orphan, Homer Wells, who is never adopted. A Prayer for Owen Meany features the most unforgettable character Irving has yet created. A Son of the Circus is an extraordinary evocation of modern day India. He is also the author of the international bestsellers A Widow for One Year, The Fourth Hand and Until I Find You. A collection of John Irving's shorter writing, Trying to Save Piggy Sneed, was published in 1993. Irving has also written the screenplays for The Cider House Rules and A Son of the Circus, and wrote about his experiences in the world of movies in his memoir My Movie Business. Irving has had a life-long passion for wrestling, and he plays a wrestling referee in the film of The World According to Garp. In his memoir, The Imaginary Girlfriend, John Irving writes about his life as a wrestler, a novelist and as a wrestling coach. He now writes full-time, has three children and lives in Vermont and Toronto.

Customer Reviews

breathtaking
This is an incredible, beautiful book, as so many of Irving's are. What sets this apart from his other work is the raw energy that cuts through it. There is an amazing vitality that I haven't seen in other Irving titles (and I've read them all and loved almost all) and it swept me away. Ok, so it doesn't have the overwhelming impact of Meany, or the breadth of his later work, but it crackles with energy, and his use of language is both electifying and lyrical. It reads like a young and brilliant author enjoying himself. To my mind, it is Water Method Man that really reads like a first novel - like a writer trying to establish himself by being contrivedly deep and introverted.

If you like his later work, or indeed any of his work, I'd recommend this wholeheartedly.

Good, but no Owen Meany
After having read Garp, Owen Meany, Widow for a Year and Cider House Rules with such immense enjoyment, I was eager to read Irving's first book. Sadly, I was a bit disappointed. Although the book is enjoyable, it does not have the fluency of his other work and was a lot easier to put down.

Irving fans beware!

Excellent
So much better than Garp. Youth enabled Irving to write with abandon. Setting Free the Bears is by far his best work.