🔗 Share this article

If some writers enjoy an golden phase, in which they reach the pinnacle time after time, then U.S. novelist John Irving’s ran through a sequence of several long, gratifying books, from his 1978 success Garp to the 1989 release His Owen Meany Book. These were expansive, humorous, warm books, connecting characters he refers to as “outsiders” to social issues from feminism to reproductive rights.

Following A Prayer for Owen Meany, it’s been waning results, aside from in word count. His previous work, the 2022 release The Chairlift Book, was 900 pages in length of topics Irving had delved into more skillfully in previous novels (inability to speak, restricted growth, trans issues), with a lengthy film script in the middle to extend it – as if padding were required.

So we come to a new Irving with care but still a faint flame of hope, which shines brighter when we find out that His Queen Esther Novel – a only four hundred thirty-two pages – “goes back to the world of The Cider House Novel”. That mid-eighties work is among Irving’s top-tier novels, set mostly in an institution in the town of St Cloud’s, operated by Wilbur Larch and his apprentice Homer Wells.

Queen Esther is a failure from a author who once gave such pleasure

In His Cider House Novel, Irving discussed termination and acceptance with vibrancy, wit and an comprehensive compassion. And it was a significant work because it left behind the subjects that were evolving into repetitive patterns in his books: wrestling, wild bears, the city of Vienna, prostitution.

Queen Esther opens in the made-up village of Penacook, New Hampshire in the twentieth century's dawn, where Mr. and Mrs. Winslow take in 14-year-old ward the protagonist from the orphanage. We are a a number of years prior to the events of His Earlier Novel, yet the doctor remains recognisable: even then using the drug, respected by his nurses, opening every talk with “Here in St Cloud’s …” But his presence in this novel is restricted to these opening scenes.

The couple are concerned about parenting Esther correctly: she’s of Jewish faith, and “in what way could they help a adolescent girl of Jewish descent find herself?” To tackle that, we move forward to Esther’s later life in the twenties era. She will be part of the Jewish exodus to the region, where she will enter Haganah, the pro-Zionist militant organisation whose “mission was to defend Jewish communities from hostile actions” and which would later form the core of the IDF.

These are massive subjects to tackle, but having brought in them, Irving backs away. Because if it’s disappointing that Queen Esther is not actually about the orphanage and Wilbur Larch, it’s still more disappointing that it’s likewise not about Esther. For causes that must connect to plot engineering, Esther turns into a gestational carrier for one more of the Winslows’ children, and delivers to a son, James, in World War II era – and the majority of this story is Jimmy’s narrative.

And here is where Irving’s preoccupations come roaring back, both typical and specific. Jimmy goes to – naturally – Vienna; there’s talk of evading the military conscription through self-harm (Owen Meany); a canine with a meaningful title (Hard Rain, recall the canine from The Hotel New Hampshire); as well as grappling, streetwalkers, writers and genitalia (Irving’s throughout).

He is a more mundane character than the heroine hinted to be, and the supporting players, such as students the two students, and Jimmy’s tutor Eissler, are flat too. There are a few amusing set pieces – Jimmy deflowering; a confrontation where a couple of ruffians get beaten with a crutch and a tire pump – but they’re short-lived.

Irving has never been a nuanced author, but that is isn't the difficulty. He has consistently repeated his arguments, telegraphed plot developments and enabled them to gather in the audience's thoughts before taking them to resolution in lengthy, surprising, amusing scenes. For instance, in Irving’s works, body parts tend to be lost: think of the speech organ in Garp, the digit in Owen Meany. Those missing pieces resonate through the story. In Queen Esther, a key figure loses an limb – but we only find out 30 pages before the conclusion.

The protagonist comes back in the final part in the story, but merely with a final sense of ending the story. We not once discover the complete narrative of her time in the Middle East. Queen Esther is a failure from a author who in the past gave such joy. That’s the bad news. The upside is that The Cider House Rules – upon rereading alongside this work – even now remains wonderfully, four decades later. So read it instead: it’s double the length as Queen Esther, but far as great.