Irving's Queen Esther Analysis – An Underwhelming Sequel to The Cider House Rules

If a few novelists have an peak period, in which they hit the heights time after time, then U.S. writer John Irving’s lasted through a sequence of four long, rewarding books, from his 1978 hit Garp to the 1989 release His Owen Meany Book. Those were rich, funny, compassionate books, linking characters he calls “outliers” to cultural themes from women's rights to reproductive rights.

Since His Owen Meany Novel, it’s been waning returns, except in size. His most recent book, the 2022 release The Last Chairlift, was nine hundred pages in length of themes Irving had delved into more skillfully in prior books (inability to speak, short stature, trans issues), with a lengthy screenplay in the center to pad it out – as if extra material were required.

Thus we come to a new Irving with reservation but still a faint flame of hope, which burns hotter when we learn that His Queen Esther Novel – a only four hundred thirty-two pages long – “returns to the universe of The Cider House Rules”. That mid-eighties work is among Irving’s finest books, located primarily in an orphanage in Maine's St Cloud’s, run by Dr Wilbur Larch and his assistant Homer Wells.

Queen Esther is a failure from a writer who once gave such joy

In The Cider House Rules, Irving explored pregnancy termination and identity with vibrancy, wit and an all-encompassing compassion. And it was a major novel because it moved past the subjects that were turning into repetitive habits in his novels: wrestling, wild bears, Vienna, the oldest profession.

The novel begins in the fictional community of New Hampshire's Penacook in the early 20th century, where Thomas and Constance Winslow welcome teenage foundling the title character from the orphanage. We are a few generations ahead of the action of His Earlier Novel, yet Wilbur Larch remains identifiable: even then using the drug, adored by his caregivers, opening every talk with “At St Cloud's...” But his presence in this novel is confined to these opening scenes.

The family worry about parenting Esther well: she’s Jewish, and “how could they help a young Jewish girl understand her place?” To answer that, we move forward to Esther’s later life in the twenties era. She will be a member of the Jewish exodus to the region, where she will enter the Haganah, the Jewish nationalist militant organisation whose “goal was to protect Jewish settlements from hostile actions” and which would subsequently establish the core of the Israeli Defense Forces.

Such are massive themes to take on, but having introduced them, Irving backs away. Because if it’s disappointing that the novel is not actually about St Cloud's and Dr Larch, it’s all the more disheartening that it’s additionally not really concerning the titular figure. For reasons that must involve narrative construction, Esther turns into a substitute parent for a different of the family's children, and delivers to a baby boy, James, in the early forties – and the bulk of this novel is Jimmy’s narrative.

And at this point is where Irving’s obsessions return strongly, both regular and particular. Jimmy relocates to – of course – the city; there’s discussion of evading the military conscription through self-mutilation (Owen Meany); a canine with a symbolic name (the dog's name, meet the earlier dog from His Hotel Novel); as well as wrestling, prostitutes, novelists and genitalia (Irving’s throughout).

Jimmy is a duller figure than the female lead hinted to be, and the supporting characters, such as students the pair, and Jimmy’s instructor Eissler, are flat also. There are some nice episodes – Jimmy deflowering; a brawl where a handful of thugs get battered with a support and a bicycle pump – but they’re here and gone.

Irving has not once been a nuanced novelist, but that is is not the problem. He has always restated his points, telegraphed plot developments and enabled them to gather in the viewer's mind before taking them to resolution in long, surprising, funny sequences. For example, in Irving’s novels, body parts tend to be lost: think of the speech organ in Garp, the digit in Owen Meany. Those absences echo through the narrative. In this novel, a key character is deprived of an upper extremity – but we just find out thirty pages later the finish.

She reappears late in the story, but only with a eleventh-hour impression of ending the story. We never do find out the full story of her time in Palestine and Israel. The book is a letdown from a author who previously gave such delight. That’s the bad news. The positive note is that The Cider House Rules – revisiting it alongside this novel – still holds up excellently, 40 years on. So read the earlier work in its place: it’s double the length as Queen Esther, but 12 times as enjoyable.