John Irving has a place in my heart as the first "real" author I read of my own volition when I was a kid. That place just got smaller. While I grew up, I'm wondering if Irving did and it makes me question my previous impression.

I made it a couple hundred pages in and had to stop. It was contrived, implausible, self-laudatory and patronizing. But even with all that, I still might have made it through the book. The unbearable part was the absurd, juvenile and just-plain-sexist depictions of women. The tropes he conjured from his fantasy world and attached names to should have been left there instead of being inflicted on paper undeserving of such a burden. Gives me the creeps just reflecting on it.