John Irving and How He Sees the World

With novels like Garp and How He Saw the World, The Hotel New Hampshire or God's Work and the Devil's Contribution, John Irving has established himself as one of the most important representatives of contemporary American literature. His works are full of bizarre characters, cryptic humour and various plot levels in which one is only too happy to get lost. But how do the sometimes extremely complex books come about, how does Irving come up with his rather unusual ideas, and what people or places inspire him to write? Just in time for the writer's 70th birthday, filmmaker André Schäfer gets to the bottom of these and other questions in his documentary John Irving and How He Sees the World.

In doing so, Schäfer not only visits Irving at home or on a small island on Lake Huron that has been owned by his wife's family for decades and is a perfect writing retreat for him. He also accompanies him on a promotional tour for his latest book, Ine one Person, traveling to various places that were significant to John Irving's novel world. For example, he meets in the red light district of Amsterdam with the former policeman Joep De Groot, who helped Irving with the research for Widow for a Year and later for Until I Find You, and who also introduced him there to some prostitutes and the tattoo artist Henk, who then also find themselves as characters in the books. The same goes for servants at a sanatorium in Zurich or the staff of a restaurant where Irving worked for research purposes for Last Night in Twisted River.

So the documentary takes us from Toronto to the USA to Austria and finally to Cologne, where Irving gives a reading to an enthusiastic audience of 900. In the process, he reveals that he doesn't really enjoy the public part of his work, as any form of promotion, and that he only really loves the process of creating his books. And it is precisely this process of creation that the film then makes tangible through some very revealing interviews. For example, Irving reveals that he often transfers parts of his own biography to his novel characters, but then completely changes the trappings, so that a certain personal reference is created, but not an autobiographical image of his life. He talks about why he likes to write first drafts by hand, the connection he sees between wrestling - a sport he played himself for twenty years - and writing, why he always sits on a swivel chair when he works on his books, and how his view of his work differs from his view of life.

Irving proves to be an extremely engaging narrator. Listening to him talk about his work is especially, but not only for connoisseurs of his work, really exciting. And when he then also demonstrates his cooking skills for the film crew and repeatedly lets his rudimentary knowledge of German, which he acquired during his studies in Vienna, flow in, he also comes across as really likeable. It is interesting that Schäfer's film takes a very intimate look at the writer's work, but his private life plays no role in most moments. Only when Irving tells us that it was only with the birth of his son Colin that he learned what it means to be afraid, afraid of not always being able to protect his child, and that it was precisely this fear that provided him with a subject for his writing, does John Irving's private life come more into focus in the documentary. And the last minutes, in which Irving talks about his biological father, whom he never met, also belong to this aspect. It's a very emotional moment, but at the same time a very nice ending to an all-around great documentary.

So if you want to know how John Irving sees the world, how a writer of his stature comes up with his ideas, how his work is influenced by real life, though of course his writing also shapes his life, or if you just want to see an entertaining, at times amusing, at times moving and simply informative documentary about the process of writing and researching, you should not miss John Irving and How He Sees the World. Absolutely recommended!

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp