John Irving's Queen Esther Analysis – A Disappointing Companion to His Classic Work

If certain novelists have an imperial era, where they achieve the pinnacle repeatedly, then American writer John Irving’s ran through a series of four substantial, satisfying works, from his late-seventies success His Garp Novel to the 1989 release His Owen Meany Book. These were expansive, humorous, compassionate books, linking figures he describes as “misfits” to social issues from feminism to abortion.

Following A Prayer for Owen Meany, it’s been waning results, aside from in page length. His last novel, the 2022 release His Last Chairlift Novel, was 900 pages long of subjects Irving had delved into more effectively in earlier books (mutism, dwarfism, transgenderism), with a two-hundred-page film script in the middle to extend it – as if padding were necessary.

Thus we look at a recent Irving with care but still a small glimmer of hope, which glows hotter when we find out that Queen Esther – a just four hundred thirty-two pages long – “revisits the world of The Cider House Rules”. That 1985 book is part of Irving’s very best novels, set primarily in an institution in the town of St Cloud’s, managed by Dr Wilbur Larch and his apprentice Wells.

Queen Esther is a letdown from a writer who once gave such pleasure

In His Cider House Novel, Irving explored abortion and identity with richness, wit and an total compassion. And it was a significant novel because it left behind the subjects that were evolving into tiresome habits in his books: grappling, bears, Vienna, prostitution.

This book begins in the made-up town of New Hampshire's Penacook in the early 20th century, where Thomas and Constance Winslow take in teenage foundling Esther from St Cloud’s. We are a several decades ahead of the action of His Earlier Novel, yet the doctor stays familiar: already using ether, beloved by his caregivers, beginning every address with “In this place...” But his appearance in this novel is limited to these early parts.

The Winslows fret about parenting Esther properly: she’s Jewish, and “in what way could they help a adolescent girl of Jewish descent find herself?” To address that, we jump ahead to Esther’s grown-up years in the 1920s. She will be involved of the Jewish migration to Palestine, where she will become part of the Haganah, the Zionist armed organisation whose “goal was to defend Jewish communities from Arab attacks” and which would later form the basis of the Israel's military.

Such are huge subjects to tackle, but having introduced them, Irving avoids them. Because if it’s regrettable that this book is not really about St Cloud’s and the doctor, it’s even more disheartening that it’s likewise not about the main character. For reasons that must involve plot engineering, Esther turns into a substitute parent for another of the family's offspring, and delivers to a male child, Jimmy, in the early forties – and the majority of this book is Jimmy’s story.

And here is where Irving’s obsessions come roaring back, both typical and particular. Jimmy goes to – where else? – the city; there’s discussion of dodging the draft notice through self-mutilation (His Earlier Book); a dog with a meaningful designation (Hard Rain, remember the canine from His Hotel Novel); as well as wrestling, streetwalkers, novelists and penises (Irving’s recurring).

The character is a duller persona than the female lead hinted to be, and the minor figures, such as young people Claude and Jolanda, and Jimmy’s tutor the tutor, are one-dimensional too. There are a few enjoyable episodes – Jimmy deflowering; a brawl where a couple of thugs get beaten with a crutch and a tire pump – but they’re here and gone.

Irving has never been a nuanced writer, but that is is not the problem. He has repeatedly repeated his points, foreshadowed plot developments and let them to build up in the reader’s thoughts before taking them to completion in extended, shocking, amusing scenes. For case, in Irving’s novels, anatomical features tend to be lost: recall the oral part in Garp, the digit in Owen Meany. Those missing pieces echo through the story. In this novel, a key character loses an upper extremity – but we merely discover thirty pages the finish.

She reappears in the final part in the story, but merely with a last-minute impression of concluding. We not once discover the entire account of her experiences in Palestine and Israel. Queen Esther is a letdown from a novelist who in the past gave such delight. That’s the bad news. The good news is that The Cider House Rules – revisiting it in parallel to this book – still remains beautifully, after forty years. So read that instead: it’s twice as long as this book, but a dozen times as enjoyable.