John Irving's Queen Esther Review – A Letdown Follow-up to His Earlier Masterpiece

If a few novelists experience an imperial phase, in which they hit the heights repeatedly, then U.S. novelist John Irving’s ran through a series of four fat, gratifying books, from his 1978 success His Garp Novel to the 1989 release His Owen Meany Book. These were expansive, humorous, compassionate works, connecting protagonists he describes as “outliers” to social issues from gender equality to reproductive rights.

Since A Prayer for Owen Meany, it’s been declining outcomes, except in size. His previous novel, 2022’s His Last Chairlift Novel, was nine hundred pages of themes Irving had examined more effectively in previous books (inability to speak, dwarfism, trans issues), with a 200-page screenplay in the center to fill it out – as if padding were needed.

So we approach a latest Irving with reservation but still a faint spark of optimism, which burns hotter when we learn that Queen Esther – a mere 432 pages long – “revisits the world of His Cider House Rules”. That mid-eighties book is among Irving’s top-tier novels, set largely in an institution in Maine's St Cloud’s, run by Dr Wilbur Larch and his protege Wells.

This novel is a letdown from a writer who in the past gave such delight

In The Cider House Rules, Irving discussed termination and acceptance with richness, wit and an comprehensive compassion. And it was a major work because it abandoned the themes that were becoming tiresome habits in his works: the sport of wrestling, bears, Vienna, prostitution.

This book begins in the fictional community of Penacook, New Hampshire in the early 20th century, where the Winslow couple adopt teenage foundling the title character from the orphanage. We are a few generations before the storyline of Cider House, yet Dr Larch remains recognisable: still using ether, beloved by his caregivers, opening every address with “At St Cloud's...” But his role in the book is restricted to these early parts.

The couple worry about bringing up Esther correctly: she’s Jewish, and “how might they help a teenage Jewish girl find herself?” To address that, we move forward to Esther’s grown-up years in the Roaring Twenties. She will be a member of the Jewish migration to Palestine, where she will enter the paramilitary group, the pro-Zionist militant group whose “goal was to safeguard Jewish settlements from Arab attacks” and which would subsequently form the basis of the Israeli Defense Forces.

These are huge subjects to take on, but having brought in them, Irving avoids them. Because if it’s regrettable that the novel is not really about St Cloud's and Dr Larch, it’s still more disheartening that it’s likewise not focused on the main character. For reasons that must involve narrative construction, Esther turns into a gestational carrier for a different of the family's daughters, and delivers to a son, Jimmy, in 1941 – and the majority of this novel is the boy's tale.

And now is where Irving’s fixations come roaring back, both regular and distinct. Jimmy goes to – naturally – Vienna; there’s talk of evading the military conscription through self-mutilation (Owen Meany); a dog with a symbolic designation (Hard Rain, recall the earlier dog from Hotel New Hampshire); as well as grappling, sex workers, authors and penises (Irving’s passim).

Jimmy is a more mundane character than the female lead hinted to be, and the minor figures, such as young people the pair, and Jimmy’s instructor Eissler, are underdeveloped too. There are a few enjoyable episodes – Jimmy losing his virginity; a confrontation where a couple of ruffians get assaulted with a walking aid and a air pump – but they’re short-lived.

Irving has not ever been a subtle author, but that is not the issue. He has always reiterated his ideas, foreshadowed narrative turns and enabled them to gather in the reader’s thoughts before taking them to resolution in extended, jarring, amusing moments. For case, in Irving’s books, physical elements tend to be lost: remember the oral part in The Garp Novel, the hand part in Owen Meany. Those losses echo through the story. In the book, a central figure suffers the loss of an arm – but we only find out 30 pages later the conclusion.

Esther returns toward the end in the novel, but only with a final feeling of concluding. We do not discover the full narrative of her time in the Middle East. This novel is a failure from a author who in the past gave such delight. That’s the negative aspect. The good news is that His Classic Novel – I reread it in parallel to this book – even now holds up beautifully, 40 years on. So pick up it instead: it’s double the length as the new novel, but far as enjoyable.