My only familiarity with his writing is 'The World According to Garp' from the movie starring Robin Williams.
On religion Irving writes:
“In school and university I took every academic course in religion and the history of religions. Because I was always interested in the power of belief and what it was that people believed in, without feeling that I much resembled a believer myself,” Irving said. “In the same vein, I would say that I’m often as resistant to the confidence of atheists as I am to the confidence of true believers.”
“I find the most outspoken atheists and true believers also have in common the desire to bring you into their fold. It is not sufficient for them to have their beliefs and to allow you to have yours. It is necessary that they bring you on board. Pot smokers are a lot like that too.”
In a review of A Prayer for Owen Meany for The Washington Post in 1989, Stephen King put it another way. Irving, he said, “writes novels in the unglamourous but effective way Babe Ruth used to hit home runs….He does not dance, duck, dodge or beat around the burning bush; he simply walks up to the subject of divinity and briskly smites it, hip and thigh.”
The God-haunted fiction of John Irving | America Magazine
On religion Irving writes:
“In school and university I took every academic course in religion and the history of religions. Because I was always interested in the power of belief and what it was that people believed in, without feeling that I much resembled a believer myself,” Irving said. “In the same vein, I would say that I’m often as resistant to the confidence of atheists as I am to the confidence of true believers.”
“I find the most outspoken atheists and true believers also have in common the desire to bring you into their fold. It is not sufficient for them to have their beliefs and to allow you to have yours. It is necessary that they bring you on board. Pot smokers are a lot like that too.”
In a review of A Prayer for Owen Meany for The Washington Post in 1989, Stephen King put it another way. Irving, he said, “writes novels in the unglamourous but effective way Babe Ruth used to hit home runs….He does not dance, duck, dodge or beat around the burning bush; he simply walks up to the subject of divinity and briskly smites it, hip and thigh.”
The God-haunted fiction of John Irving | America Magazine
