Given all that, perhaps it is more useful to try to discern what it is Irving is trying to say so artfully and colorfully in each of his novels, rather than compare one to another or make comparisons among them. I remember reading once that great novels were like fantastic gems, many of them flawed, but all of them brilliant, colorful, and beautiful to the well-trained eye. So viewed, so is this book brilliant, colorful, and beautiful. This is the tragicomic story of a family trying again and again, regardless of the personal consequences or absurdities of fate, to get it right, attempting to live one after another of their father's fatally flawed dreams, and finally coming to terms with what it most important, most lasting, and singularly true for them as people and as a family.

In my humble opinion, the last few pages of this novel read as poignantly, as meaningfully, and as beautifully as anything anyone has been writing for the last half century in so-called contemporary fiction. Who but John Irving could essay with such whimsy and wile to invoke the strange totem powers of his ever-present bears to conjure up whatever magic it takes for each of us to be kind and strong and present for each other in our mutual times of need, to ask each of us to care? What he has to say about the contemporary state of relationships in our times, and about the obligations, joys and pains of living purposefully, meaningfully, and for the long haul as a loving and understanding family is as dead-on inspiring as I have ever read. How do you live meaningfully in a world full of horror, unexpected tragedy, and overwhelming purposelessness? Perhaps in the world according to John Irving, as a loving family. Enjoy.

This story is just so incredible, and it does manage to capture the magic of Irwings other classics, I for one love his continued obsession with Bears and Vienna, and I pity people who feel he is being narrow. His imagination for an off the wall eccentric sorry is just phenomenal. I think this book started well, it lost something in the middle with the early years in Vienna, but the end was wonderful, and so typically heart wrenching. Finally, John Irwings stands alone in development of colorful characters; right now the world is obsessed (and rightly so) with the wave known as Harry Potter, but I feel even JK Rowlings has a distance to go before she achieves what Irwing achieves with his characters... Here we have prostitutes, quarterbacks, writers, terrorists, an elusive man in a white jacket, midgets, and not forgetting a talking bear... what could be better?

Übrigens habe ich auch den Film dazu gesehen. Er kann nicht einmal annähernd dem Buche das Wasser reichen. Voll von Fehlbesetzungen und diese Off-Stimme treibt einen zum Wahnsinn. Ich war kurz davor den Fernseher samt Videorecorder aus dem Fenster zu schmeißen. Ich bitte euch, dass ihr euch diesen Schrottfilm "Das Hotel New Hampshire" niemals antut.