Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #201162 in Books
• Published on: 1986-07-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

Review
Involving a plot to free all the animals from the Hietzing Zoo in Vienna, this was Irving's first novel, published in 1968. With an almost dream-like purposefulness, Graff and Siggy drop out of college, pour all their money into a motorbike and set off on a great unplanned journey. Much of the dialogue is hilarious, and often rude, and the story oozes a 1960s mirth and derision that has not forgotten World War II. (Kirkus UK)

A wonderfully fresh, wildly imaginative notion of a book. The major portion consists of a journal addressed to Graft from Siegfried Javotnik, "Siggy," as he spends a long night in a Vienna zoo plotting out details for a "zoo bust." His observations center on the night keeper O. Schrutt who torments the small mammal house by deliberately setting the animals against each other. Interspersed in this midsummer night's diary are lengthy portions of Siggy's "Highly Selective Autobiography." The "Autobiography" is his imaginative recap of the lives of his grandparents and parents before he was born. And it's a black humorous sketch of Austria reacting to the war. Then there is an abrupt switch to Graft who, with his new girlfriend Gallen, is wandering through Europe. We learn of Siggy's death in a motorcycle accident but Graft has his journal and is becoming obsessed with the idea of the zoo. In a final, outlandish and bizarre scene Graft and Gallen indeed bust the zoo with horrendous consequences. One does not stop to question the madness or the meaning - youth in its blind vision? comic revolution? It's actively, overwhelmingly alive. (Kirkus Reviews)

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
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. John Irving's latest and most ambitious novel is A Widow for One Year.

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

A good start
I read this a long time ago, and picked it up off the shelf again in anticipation of a trip to Vienna later this week. I had good memories of the style of this first novel by Irving, and the account of two friends on a road trip through Austria which opens up into memories of the Anschluss and Siggy's family history has held up well. This long central section, which is bookended by the account of the journey away from and back to Vienna, is probably my favourite part; historical events, accidents and incidents are described in terms of their effect on family members and other individuals, many of whom perished in capricious circumstances. This is movingly echoed in the statement which Irving quotes from the Serbian general Drazha Mihailovich at his trial after the war: "I wanted much, I started much, but the gales of the world have carried away both me and my work." It's a poignant image, which was also memorably used in Ian Fleming's "Casino Royale".

setting free the bears
an earlier outing from john irving possibly my favourite writer ever. a good yarn as you might expect from the man who wrote the cider house rules,garp, a prayer for owen meany and countless other classics but without the hook of a truly brilliant character to both detest and love as you do with his other books.
for newcomers i wouldnt reccomend this. go with the world according to garp, cider house rules or a prayer for owen meany. there is no real urgency to the story.
for those who came to this book for further antics of the kind got up to by earl the bear in the hotel new hampshire, you won't find them, which is not to say that this isnt delightful just not priority reading where irving is concerned

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.