John Irving Trivia Quiz

Answer: India

Main character Dr. Daruwalla travels from his Canadian home to his native land of India, where he writes scripts for popular suspense movies and even attempts to solve crime himself.

Answer: Bear

Used metaphorically to indicate base and unrefined masculinity, bears are found in "The World According to Garp", "The Hotel New Hampshire", and (of course) "Setting Free the Bears".

Answer: Maine

The bear named "State o' Maine" is featured in the beginning of the novel. Narrator John Berry's father Win Berry traveled with the (somewhat) trained circus bear, using the money earned from its performances to pay for a college education. State o' Maine remained with the family until an unexpected demise while John was still a child.

Answer: The 158-Pound Marriage

All of the aforementioned novels were written in the 20th century, but only "The 158-Pound Marriage" had not been made into a movie by its end. "The Cider House Rules" film made in 1999 won two Academy Awards, as did the 1982 movie version of "The World According to Garp". The film version of "The Hotel New Hampshire" was produced in 1984.

Answer: The Cider House Rules

"The Cider House Rules" is set in an orphanage operated by a doctor who also delivers babies and performs abortions. In the author's notes included at the end of the novel, Irving says he used his grandfather's publication "The Expectant Mother's Handbook: A Textbook of Obstetrics and Safe Deliverance" as a source for the story's detailed accounts of childbirth.

Answer: John Wheelwright

John Wheelwright tells the story of his best friend Owen Meany, a young man who is small in size but large in character, and who knew of his upcoming, martyr-like demise while still a child.

Answer: True

In 1999's "My Movie Business", Irving tells of the film production of his novel "The Cider House Rules", for which he received an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Answer: The Hotel New Hampshire

In 1984 the movie version of the 1981 novel "The Hotel New Hampshire" was released to cinemas. "The World According to Garp" motion picture was released in 1982 (following its initial print publication in 1979), while "The Cider House Rules" hit movie theaters in 1999. A film variation of Irving's "A Widow for One Year" was released in 2004 under the title "A Door in the Floor."

Answer: National Book Award for Fiction-Paperback (1980)

In 1980 Irving was honored with a National Book Award for the novel, but for its paperback edition that came out that year. The hardcover edition was a finalist in the preceding year, but didn't win top honors. "The World According to Garp" was also a finalist for the 1979 Pulitzer, but the award was given to another author's book. (There is, of course, no "John Irving Lifetime Achievement Award".)

Answer: Heavyweight champion of the World Wrestling Foundation

Irving competed in traditional Greco-Roman wrestling in high school and in college, and helped his sons do the same in their youth, too. He never participated in the field of "professional wrestling", however.