Queen Esther by John Irving Evaluation – An Underwhelming Follow-up to His Earlier Masterpiece

If certain writers experience an golden period, during which they achieve the summit repeatedly, then American writer John Irving’s extended through a sequence of four substantial, gratifying works, from his 1978 hit His Garp Novel to the 1989 release Owen Meany. Those were generous, witty, compassionate works, linking figures he refers to as “outliers” to social issues from women's rights to abortion.

Following Owen Meany, it’s been diminishing results, except in page length. His last novel, 2022’s The Chairlift Book, was 900 pages of subjects Irving had examined more skillfully in previous novels (mutism, restricted growth, transgenderism), with a 200-page script in the middle to pad it out – as if padding were required.

So we come to a latest Irving with reservation but still a tiny spark of optimism, which glows hotter when we find out that Queen Esther – a only four hundred thirty-two pages long – “returns to the world of The Cider House Novel”. That mid-eighties work is among Irving’s top-tier books, located largely in an institution in St Cloud’s, Maine, run by Dr Larch and his assistant Homer.

This novel is a letdown from a novelist who once gave such delight

In Cider House, Irving wrote about pregnancy termination and belonging with colour, wit and an all-encompassing compassion. And it was a major book because it moved past the topics that were turning into repetitive habits in his novels: grappling, wild bears, Vienna, the oldest profession.

This book opens in the fictional village of New Hampshire's Penacook in the beginning of the 1900s, where Mr. and Mrs. Winslow take in 14-year-old orphan Esther from St Cloud's home. We are a several years ahead of the action of Cider House, yet the doctor remains familiar: already using the drug, beloved by his staff, starting every address with “At St Cloud's...” But his appearance in Queen Esther is limited to these opening sections.

The Winslows are concerned about raising Esther correctly: she’s of Jewish faith, and “how might they help a teenage Jewish girl discover her identity?” To tackle that, we jump ahead to Esther’s grown-up years in the twenties era. She will be involved of the Jewish exodus to Palestine, where she will join Haganah, the pro-Zionist militant group whose “goal was to protect Jewish towns from Arab attacks” and which would eventually become the basis of the Israeli Defense Forces.

These are huge themes to address, but having brought in them, Irving dodges out. Because if it’s regrettable that Queen Esther is not really about St Cloud's and Dr Larch, it’s even more upsetting that it’s also not really concerning the main character. For motivations that must connect to plot engineering, Esther becomes a gestational carrier for another of the family's offspring, and bears to a baby boy, James, in World War II era – and the lion's share of this book is Jimmy’s tale.

And now is where Irving’s preoccupations come roaring back, both typical and distinct. Jimmy relocates to – where else? – the city; there’s discussion of dodging the draft notice through self-mutilation (His Earlier Book); a canine with a significant designation (Hard Rain, remember the canine from The Hotel New Hampshire); as well as the sport, streetwalkers, writers and penises (Irving’s throughout).

He is a duller persona than the female lead suggested to be, and the minor figures, such as pupils Claude and Jolanda, and Jimmy’s tutor Annelies Eissler, are underdeveloped also. There are some nice set pieces – Jimmy losing his virginity; a fight where a handful of ruffians get battered with a crutch and a bicycle pump – but they’re short-lived.

Irving has not once been a subtle novelist, but that is isn't the difficulty. He has consistently repeated his arguments, telegraphed story twists and enabled them to gather in the viewer's imagination before taking them to resolution in lengthy, surprising, entertaining moments. For case, in Irving’s works, body parts tend to be lost: think of the oral part in Garp, the digit in Owen Meany. Those absences echo through the plot. In this novel, a major person loses an arm – but we merely find out 30 pages before the end.

Esther reappears late in the novel, but merely with a final impression of wrapping things up. We not once learn the entire account of her experiences in the Middle East. The book is a failure from a novelist who once gave such joy. That’s the downside. The positive note is that His Classic Novel – I reread it alongside this work – yet stands up beautifully, after forty years. So read it as an alternative: it’s twice as long as the new novel, but 12 times as enjoyable.