Queen Esther by John Irving Analysis – A Disappointing Follow-up to His Earlier Masterpiece

If a few authors enjoy an peak period, where they hit the heights consistently, then U.S. author John Irving’s extended through a sequence of four fat, gratifying novels, from his 1978 breakthrough His Garp Novel to 1989’s Owen Meany. Those were rich, witty, compassionate works, linking figures he calls “outsiders” to cultural themes from feminism to abortion.

After Owen Meany, it’s been waning results, save in word count. His most recent novel, 2022’s The Last Chairlift, was 900 pages of topics Irving had examined more effectively in prior works (inability to speak, restricted growth, transgenderism), with a lengthy script in the heart to fill it out – as if filler were necessary.

Therefore we come to a latest Irving with caution but still a faint flame of optimism, which shines hotter when we discover that Queen Esther – a only 432 pages – “revisits the universe of The Cider House Rules”. That mid-eighties novel is among Irving’s top-tier books, located primarily in an institution in Maine's St Cloud’s, managed by Dr Wilbur Larch and his assistant Homer.

Queen Esther is a disappointment from a novelist who in the past gave such delight

In His Cider House Novel, Irving wrote about abortion and acceptance with colour, humor and an comprehensive understanding. And it was a significant novel because it left behind the topics that were becoming annoying tics in his works: wrestling, ursine creatures, Austrian capital, the oldest profession.

The novel starts in the fictional village of Penacook, New Hampshire in the early 20th century, where Mr. and Mrs. Winslow welcome teenage foundling Esther from the orphanage. We are a few years ahead of the events of Cider House, yet Wilbur Larch remains familiar: even then using anesthetic, beloved by his nurses, opening every talk with “At St Cloud's...” But his presence in Queen Esther is restricted to these early parts.

The family fret about bringing up Esther correctly: she’s of Jewish faith, and “how might they help a young Jewish girl find herself?” To answer that, we flash forward to Esther’s adulthood in the twenties era. She will be a member of the Jewish emigration to Palestine, where she will enter the Haganah, the pro-Zionist armed organisation whose “mission was to safeguard Jewish towns from hostile actions” and which would eventually establish the basis of the Israeli Defense Forces.

These are huge themes to tackle, but having presented them, Irving backs away. Because if it’s regrettable that Queen Esther is not actually about St Cloud's and Wilbur Larch, it’s still more disappointing that it’s also not focused on the titular figure. For causes that must involve narrative construction, Esther turns into a surrogate mother for a different of the couple's children, and bears to a male child, James, in the early forties – and the bulk of this book is his narrative.

And at this point is where Irving’s preoccupations reappear loudly, both regular and specific. Jimmy relocates to – of course – Vienna; there’s discussion of dodging the draft notice through self-mutilation (A Prayer for Owen Meany); a canine with a significant title (Hard Rain, remember the earlier dog from The Hotel New Hampshire); as well as wrestling, sex workers, writers and genitalia (Irving’s recurring).

He is a more mundane character than Esther hinted to be, and the minor figures, such as young people Claude and Jolanda, and Jimmy’s teacher the tutor, are one-dimensional also. There are a few amusing episodes – Jimmy his first sexual experience; a fight where a handful of ruffians get beaten with a walking aid and a tire pump – but they’re brief.

Irving has not ever been a nuanced author, but that is is not the difficulty. He has consistently reiterated his ideas, foreshadowed plot developments and allowed them to gather in the audience's mind before bringing them to fruition in lengthy, surprising, amusing moments. For case, in Irving’s works, physical elements tend to go missing: remember the oral part in Garp, the finger in Owen Meany. Those absences reverberate through the narrative. In the book, a central person is deprived of an upper extremity – but we just learn thirty pages the end.

Esther comes back late in the novel, but only with a final impression of wrapping things up. We never do find out the entire story of her time in the Middle East. The book is a disappointment from a novelist who in the past gave such pleasure. That’s the bad news. The upside is that His Classic Novel – I reread it alongside this novel – still holds up beautifully, after forty years. So choose that in its place: it’s double the length as the new novel, but a dozen times as enjoyable.