Queen Esther by John Irving Analysis – A Letdown Follow-up to The Cider House Rules

If some authors enjoy an imperial phase, during which they achieve the pinnacle time after time, then American novelist John Irving’s extended through a sequence of four substantial, rewarding novels, from his 1978 success His Garp Novel to 1989’s A Prayer for Owen Meany. Those were generous, funny, compassionate books, connecting protagonists he calls “misfits” to societal topics from feminism to abortion.

Since His Owen Meany Novel, it’s been declining results, aside from in size. His last work, the 2022 release The Chairlift Book, was nine hundred pages long of themes Irving had explored more skillfully in earlier novels (inability to speak, short stature, transgenderism), with a two-hundred-page screenplay in the heart to fill it out – as if extra material were needed.

So we come to a latest Irving with reservation but still a faint glimmer of expectation, which glows brighter when we find out that Queen Esther – a only 432 pages – “returns to the setting of The Cider House Rules”. That 1985 book is part of Irving’s finest works, set largely in an orphanage in the town of St Cloud’s, run by Dr Wilbur Larch and his apprentice Homer.

The book is a letdown from a author who in the past gave such joy

In His Cider House Novel, Irving discussed termination and acceptance with richness, comedy and an all-encompassing compassion. And it was a significant book because it abandoned the themes that were becoming repetitive patterns in his novels: grappling, wild bears, the city of Vienna, sex work.

This book begins in the fictional community of New Hampshire's Penacook in the early 20th century, where Thomas and Constance Winslow welcome young ward the title character from St Cloud's home. We are a few decades ahead of the events of His Earlier Novel, yet the doctor stays familiar: already dependent on anesthetic, beloved by his caregivers, beginning every address with “At St Cloud's...” But his role in the book is limited to these early sections.

The Winslows fret about parenting Esther correctly: she’s Jewish, and “how could they help a young Jewish girl find herself?” To tackle that, we jump ahead to Esther’s grown-up years in the twenties era. She will be a member of the Jewish migration to the region, where she will become part of the Haganah, the pro-Zionist armed group whose “mission was to protect Jewish towns from Arab attacks” and which would later form the core of the Israeli Defense Forces.

Those are huge themes to take on, but having introduced them, Irving dodges out. Because if it’s frustrating that this book is not actually about the orphanage and the doctor, it’s all the more disheartening that it’s additionally not focused on the main character. For reasons that must connect to narrative construction, Esther becomes a surrogate mother for another of the Winslows’ children, and bears to a baby boy, Jimmy, in World War II era – and the majority of this story is his narrative.

And here is where Irving’s obsessions come roaring back, both common and distinct. Jimmy moves to – naturally – Vienna; there’s mention of avoiding the Vietnam draft through self-harm (A Prayer for Owen Meany); a pet with a significant name (the dog's name, remember the earlier dog from The Hotel New Hampshire); as well as the sport, prostitutes, novelists and penises (Irving’s passim).

Jimmy is a more mundane figure than Esther promised to be, and the minor figures, such as pupils the pair, and Jimmy’s tutor the tutor, are underdeveloped too. There are a few amusing set pieces – Jimmy deflowering; a fight where a couple of bullies get beaten with a support and a air pump – but they’re short-lived.

Irving has not ever been a subtle novelist, but that is isn't the problem. He has always repeated his arguments, telegraphed plot developments and allowed them to gather in the audience's mind before leading them to resolution in long, jarring, funny moments. For example, in Irving’s novels, physical elements tend to go missing: recall the speech organ in Garp, the hand part in Owen Meany. Those missing pieces reverberate through the plot. In the book, a major person loses an limb – but we just discover thirty pages later the conclusion.

Esther reappears toward the end in the story, but merely with a eleventh-hour feeling of concluding. We never do find out the complete story of her life in the Middle East. The book is a failure from a author who in the past gave such joy. That’s the negative aspect. The positive note is that Cider House – I reread it in parallel to this book – still holds up wonderfully, after forty years. So read the earlier work as an alternative: it’s much longer as the new novel, but a dozen times as good.