Chapter 18 & 19; Final post

When Garp and his family begin to accept the loss of their loved ones they then deal with what was left to them; namely, Dog’s Head Harbor.  They decide to keep Jenny’s refuge for women running, naming it ‘The Jenny Fields Foundation’.  Along with running the foundation Garp decides to take up Ernie’s position as wrestling coach at Steering Academy, and Helen accepts a teaching position.  These chapters mostly describe the general lives of Garp, Helen, Roberta, Ellen, and Duncan.  Garp would run often, Roberta would sometimes join him.  One day while running an Ellen Jamesian tried to kill him, a hit and run attempt.  Garp was lucky enough to dodge this.  He then changed.  Garp began writing again.  He and John Wolf re-published The Pension Grillparzer with pictures painted by Duncan.  Garp seemed to be happier, as though he realized his mortality and this cheered him up.  When I read this it reminded me of The Life of Pi, because just like Pi, Garp seemed happier when he realized his mortality.

            Garp’s life was a good one until one day at wrestling practice.  A woman in a nurse uniform walked into the wrestling room, drew a gun, and shot Garp.  Garp died before they could move him from the wrestling room.  The book is a summary of the lives of everyone Garp knew; they all ended in death, mostly very sad deaths.  It would seem that this is a fitting ending, seeing how death was such a huge part of his life.  The book is ironic in that way; death is a part of life.  And so, the book ends, in a very fitting statement: “In the world according to Garp, we are all terminal cases.”