John Irving: The Cider House Rules

[chrisphillips]

Dare I start one of these threads in only my third post?

The Cider House Rules is set in rural Maine in the first half of this century. It tells the story of Homer Wells, an orphan who is raised and mentored by Wilbur Larch, the doctor at the orphanage. Dr. Larch teaches Homer everything about medicine. Yet though his capacity for kindness is saintly, Larch is also an ether addict. He and Homer come into conflict, which is typical of many father-son relationships, but in this case their conflict is intensified by their disagreement about abortion. The result is that Homer leaves the only family he has ever known. Homer's new life provides more excitement than he could have imagined, especially when he falls in love for the first time. But, when forced to make decisions that will change the course of his future, Homer realizes that he can't escape his past. The Cider House Rules is ultimately about the choices we make and the rules that are meant to be broken.

This has been my second Irving after reading The World According To Garp a year or so ago. The novels share a terrific breadth - both span around fifty years. I think Irving demonstrates a high regard for humanity in these two books and across both books, only Mr Rose in The Cider House Rules strikes me as a character for whom it's difficult to have any warm feelings of any sort towards, but even then his poise, assuredness and calnmess provoke a certain level of perhaps wary regard before certain revelations towards the book's end. All Irving's major characters, however, make mistakes and sometimes serious errors of judgement, but it is this human condition that Irving seems to very strongly empathise with. 'Big hearted' is a phrase I've seen used to describe this novel and I think it fits.

Amongst other factors present in both novels are New England, prostitutes (though in Garp one particular prostitute is central, not so The Cider House Rules), infidelity, absent parents, and he manages to get the briefest wrestle into The Cider House Rules. I suppose critics may say that by this multiple use of the same themes Irving risks repetitiveness, but I wouldn't like to comment on that until I've read more.

So, my second Irving and the second I've hugely enjoyed. I'm in admiration of his ability to evince great regard for so many characters, both minor and major, in novels of such breadth and scope.

and a half.

I have A Prayer For Owen Meany untouched on my bookcase and I'll be sure to get round to it...at some point.

[waalkwriter]

The Hotel New Hampshire. The only Irving I read, but I read and reread it quite often.

[reiserin]

Indeed, John Irving is one of my favorite American writers. I really enjoy this novel, as well as his most recent one: Until I Find You. I'm amazed with his depth and variety.

[Colette Jones]

Originally Posted by chrisphillips

I have A Prayer For Owen Meany untouched on my bookcase and I'll be sure to get round to it...at some point.

You are in for a treat.

I have long been an Irving fan but I just could not get into his latest Last Night in Twisted River. I abandoned it at page 122. I didn't care for the way the story was building, and I was getting very annoyed at all the words in italics. It made me wonder whether this is something he's always done and I hadn't noticed. Sure enough, a quick glance at A Prayer for Owen Meany shows it is riddled with italicized words. I have long praised this book as my favourite ever... I wonder if it really is though! Do I dare read it again after 20 years?

[Sif]

Originally Posted by Colette Jones

Sure enough, a quick glance at A Prayer for Owen Meany shows it is riddled with italicized words. I have long praised this book as my favourite ever... I wonder if it really is though! Do I dare read it again after 20 years?

It's scary going back to a book you've long held as a favorite. I read this when I was quite young...I mean compared to now...when I was in my early 20's and my tastes have changed a lot since then. I considered it one of the greatest novels ever written at that point but then again, I also loved Anne Rice at the time. I have to say when I reread it a year ago or so, I still enjoyed it, I was still moved by it but I no longer hold it as one of the greatest books ever, just very good.

John Irving is someone I have a kind of love/hate relationship with. I enjoy his early novels, Hotel New Hampshire, World According To Garp, of course Owen Meany and The Cider House Rules but his recent stuff just leaves me cold. I've always loved his ability to make the perverse acceptable and lovable but it seems like he's being being perverse and twisted just to be perverse and twisted, like he's trying to create stranger and weirder characters and situations to top what he's already done, it seems so forced to me now. I haven't read his latest book yet, I will but I was disappointed by Until I Find You so I'm putting it off.

[anchomal]

Actually, my own feelings on John Irving are almost identical. I remember loving A Prayer for Owen Meaney when it first came out, and it is a book I have read more than once. I had read other Irving books before, and enjoyed them, but this was the one that turned me into a fan. It is still the one book that I would recommend to anyone who hasn't read this writer yet, and in fact I gave a copy to a friend just this past Christmas.
But it must be fifteen years at least since I last read the book, and to be honest I'm kind of nervous about doing picking it up again. I've read the books he has published since and none of them have hit me the way Owen Meaney did. That's not to say that they don't have merit, because they do, but I think he hit his stride in that run of four books, Garp, Hotel New Hampshire, Cider House Rules and Owen Meaney, and that was a benchmark that proved very difficult to top. This happens sometimes. Anne Tyler, also a fine writer, enjoyed a run of four or five great novels back in the '80s, probably some of the best writing that was coming out of America.
With Owen Meaney there was a kind of magic happening, at least for me. What stops me from rereading it now is a fear that the magic might have had more to do with who and where I was at that time of my life than with the book itself. In my memory, it was a warm and wonderful novel, one of my favourites. Maybe that's a nice way for it to stay.