🔗 Share this article

If certain authors experience an imperial era, in which they reach the heights repeatedly, then U.S. novelist John Irving’s ran through a sequence of four long, gratifying works, from his late-seventies breakthrough His Garp Novel to the 1989 release A Prayer for Owen Meany. Such were generous, funny, warm novels, tying protagonists he describes as “outliers” to societal topics from gender equality to abortion.

Since Owen Meany, it’s been declining outcomes, aside from in word count. His previous book, the 2022 release The Last Chairlift, was 900 pages in length of themes Irving had delved into more skillfully in earlier books (selective mutism, dwarfism, trans issues), with a 200-page film script in the middle to pad it out – as if padding were needed.

Thus we come to a latest Irving with care but still a faint flame of optimism, which shines stronger when we discover that Queen Esther – a mere four hundred thirty-two pages – “returns to the setting of The Cider House Rules”. That 1985 novel is among Irving’s finest novels, set largely in an institution in the town of St Cloud’s, managed by Dr Larch and his apprentice Homer.

This novel is a disappointment from a novelist who previously gave such joy

In Cider House, Irving wrote about pregnancy termination and acceptance with richness, comedy and an all-encompassing empathy. And it was a significant work because it abandoned the themes that were evolving into tiresome habits in his novels: grappling, wild bears, Vienna, the oldest profession.

Queen Esther starts in the made-up village of New Hampshire's Penacook in the twentieth century's dawn, where Mr. and Mrs. Winslow adopt young orphan the protagonist from St Cloud's home. We are a few years ahead of the action of The Cider House Rules, yet Wilbur Larch is still recognisable: already dependent on anesthetic, beloved by his nurses, beginning every speech with “Here in St Cloud’s …” But his appearance in the book is limited to these initial scenes.

The couple are concerned about parenting Esther well: she’s Jewish, and “how could they help a young Jewish girl find herself?” To tackle that, we move forward to Esther’s later life in the Roaring Twenties. She will be part of the Jewish migration to Palestine, where she will become part of Haganah, the pro-Zionist militant force whose “goal was to defend Jewish settlements from opposition” and which would subsequently form the foundation of the Israel's military.

Those are enormous topics to address, but having brought in them, Irving dodges out. Because if it’s regrettable that Queen Esther is hardly about the orphanage and Wilbur Larch, it’s all the more upsetting that it’s likewise not focused on the titular figure. For causes that must involve plot engineering, Esther turns into a gestational carrier for a different of the family's offspring, and bears to a son, Jimmy, in World War II era – and the majority of this novel is the boy's narrative.

And now is where Irving’s preoccupations reappear loudly, both regular and specific. Jimmy goes to – of course – the Austrian capital; there’s discussion of evading the draft notice through self-mutilation (His Earlier Book); a pet with a meaningful title (the dog's name, recall Sorrow from Hotel New Hampshire); as well as wrestling, sex workers, writers and genitalia (Irving’s recurring).

The character is a less interesting character than Esther suggested to be, and the minor figures, such as students the pair, and Jimmy’s teacher the tutor, are underdeveloped as well. There are a few amusing episodes – Jimmy his first sexual experience; a fight where a handful of bullies get battered with a support and a air pump – but they’re brief.

Irving has not once been a nuanced writer, but that is not the issue. He has consistently repeated his points, telegraphed plot developments and enabled them to accumulate in the viewer's thoughts before taking them to fruition in long, surprising, entertaining scenes. For example, in Irving’s works, physical elements tend to be lost: recall the oral part in The Garp Novel, the digit in Owen Meany. Those losses echo through the story. In the book, a central character loses an upper extremity – but we only learn thirty pages the finish.

She comes back late in the novel, but just with a final sense of concluding. We do not discover the full story of her time in Palestine and Israel. The book is a disappointment from a writer who once gave such delight. That’s the downside. The positive note is that The Cider House Rules – upon rereading in parallel to this work – even now stands up beautifully, 40 years on. So choose the earlier work instead: it’s much longer as Queen Esther, but far as enjoyable.