🔗 Share this article

If certain authors experience an imperial period, where they achieve the summit time after time, then U.S. novelist John Irving’s lasted through a series of several fat, satisfying works, from his 1978 breakthrough His Garp Novel to the 1989 release His Owen Meany Book. Such were expansive, humorous, big-hearted books, connecting figures he calls “outliers” to social issues from women's rights to termination.

Since A Prayer for Owen Meany, it’s been waning outcomes, except in size. His last work, 2022’s His Last Chairlift Novel, was 900 pages of themes Irving had delved into more skillfully in prior works (inability to speak, restricted growth, gender identity), with a lengthy film script in the middle to pad it out – as if filler were needed.

Thus we look at a latest Irving with reservation but still a tiny spark of expectation, which glows hotter when we learn that Queen Esther – a mere four hundred thirty-two pages – “returns to the world of The Cider House Rules”. That 1985 work is one of Irving’s finest books, taking place primarily in an children's home in the town of St Cloud’s, run by Dr Wilbur Larch and his apprentice Wells.

The book is a disappointment from a author who previously gave such delight

In The Cider House Rules, Irving explored pregnancy termination and belonging with colour, humor and an comprehensive understanding. And it was a major book because it moved past the themes that were evolving into tiresome habits in his works: grappling, bears, Austrian capital, sex work.

This book begins in the imaginary town of Penacook, New Hampshire in the twentieth century's dawn, where the Winslow couple adopt teenage ward the protagonist from the orphanage. We are a several decades before the events of The Cider House Rules, yet the doctor remains identifiable: even then using ether, beloved by his caregivers, beginning every address with “At St Cloud's...” But his appearance in the book is confined to these opening sections.

The couple fret about bringing up Esther properly: she’s of Jewish faith, and “how might they help a teenage girl of Jewish descent understand her place?” To address that, we flash forward to Esther’s adulthood in the Roaring Twenties. She will be part of the Jewish migration to Palestine, where she will join the paramilitary group, the Jewish nationalist militant organisation whose “purpose was to safeguard Jewish communities from hostile actions” and which would eventually form the core of the IDF.

Such are enormous topics to address, but having presented them, Irving backs away. Because if it’s frustrating that the novel is not actually about St Cloud's and the doctor, it’s even more disappointing that it’s also not about the titular figure. For motivations that must involve narrative construction, Esther ends up as a surrogate mother for a different of the family's daughters, and gives birth to a male child, James, in 1941 – and the bulk of this book is Jimmy’s story.

And now is where Irving’s preoccupations return strongly, both common and specific. Jimmy goes to – where else? – the city; there’s mention of avoiding the military conscription through self-harm (Owen Meany); a dog with a significant title (the dog's name, meet the earlier dog from His Hotel Novel); as well as the sport, prostitutes, authors and genitalia (Irving’s recurring).

The character is a duller persona than Esther hinted to be, and the supporting characters, such as students Claude and Jolanda, and Jimmy’s teacher the tutor, are flat as well. There are several enjoyable episodes – Jimmy deflowering; a confrontation where a couple of thugs get beaten with a crutch and a tire pump – but they’re brief.

Irving has not ever been a delicate writer, but that is is not the issue. He has consistently reiterated his points, hinted at narrative turns and let them to gather in the audience's imagination before leading them to fruition in lengthy, jarring, amusing sequences. For instance, in Irving’s works, body parts tend to go missing: remember the oral part in The Garp Novel, the finger in His Owen Book. Those losses echo through the story. In the book, a central character is deprived of an upper extremity – but we merely discover 30 pages the conclusion.

She reappears toward the end in the book, but merely with a eleventh-hour sense of wrapping things up. We not once discover the complete story of her life in Palestine and Israel. The book is a letdown from a author who in the past gave such joy. That’s the negative aspect. The good news is that The Cider House Rules – revisiting it together with this work – yet stands up wonderfully, after forty years. So pick up the earlier work instead: it’s twice as long as Queen Esther, but 12 times as good.