Reviews

The Last Chairlift by John Irving

ginsetten's review against another edition

emotional inspiring mysterious reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

ktpie85's review against another edition

2.0

This book was painfully long.

jderv's review against another edition

5.0

Irving's latest and announced last long novel is truly epic in scope, characters, social commentary all while focusing on a somewhat familiar story of a man searching for his origin while balancing a complicated family and social life. The familiar themes that appear in other Irving works; wrestling, ghosts, tragedy, sexual/gender identity and associated politics all appear in the The Last Chairlift. However he manages to bring a fresh approach and perspective in the plot progression. Without giving too much away, the main character is a screenwriter/novelists as an adult and thus large portions of the book are told in screenplay format (like reading a script). At first I thought this might be disruptive to the flow of the book but Irving very cleverly weaves these scripts into the actual plot and I found it actually quite easy to read and understand as well as easy to return to the more "normal" pages of the book. If you're a fan of John Irving's earlier works in particular The World According to Garp and Cider House Rules, I believe you'll like The Last Chairlift as there are similarities but told in a fresh and unique manner. Finally I can't recall ever having a lot of laugh out loud moments in reading Irving's other books but I did The Last Chairlift to have more than a few very funny moments. It is a great last work for Irving and I highly recommend this for both fans and newcomers to his work.

dietsmarrissjohnson's review against another edition

emotional funny reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

ssnider002's review against another edition

slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

2.0

I wanted to DNF but was determined to listen to the whole book. It could have been many hours shorter without the unnecessary details. 

thelaurenpug's review against another edition

challenging emotional funny reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

I love John Irving's work, and have read 5 (now 6) of his novels. So, I was obviously so sad but excited to see his "last long novel" on shelves at my local bookstore back in spring 2023. I'd been meaning and meaning to read it, until I finally got it from the Ann Arbor library at the beginning of my sophomore year. And I just started chugging through it, squinting in the pages under the pulsing sun of late summer when I was quarantined with covid; sipping a hot ginger lemon drink and eating a cranberry orange muffin at Zingerman's Next Door Cafe; propped up against my pillows and under a pile of blankets as I remain entranced by the Aspen screenplay. Almost 900 pages and 5 months later, I'm deeply in love with this story, the author, and the characters. Of course, almost all of Irving's usual themes are present, including mother-son relationships, wrestling, unconventional families, multidimensional and beautiful transgender characters, a male author coming of age, the complications of marriage and parenthood, and lesbian romance. There's also political commentary that develops chillingly over the course of the story, all the way the Vietnam war, to Reagan's failure in the face of the AIDS epidemic, to foreshadowing of Trump being a poor "plague president." As a young person, I feel like I've gained a lot of understanding of what it was like to be a Democrat throughout the latter half of the 1900s and into the early 2000s. I love these whacky characters, and feel so protective of them in the face of the bigotry they faced, both now and then. There's also a lot of questionable sexual relationships - did I mention that yet in my summary of John Irving themes? I feel like the inclusion of screenplays was a really interesting way to experience some of the most outrageous and consequential scenes, and the inclusion of ghosts was both entertaining and symbolic for the story as a whole. I guess that ghosts aren't really a new idea to Irving, either - his characters, like the humans they are, always seem to be haunted by something. Even so, the scariest part is when the things you take for granted vanish. As Adam says to conclude the novel, "I try not to think about the vanishing."

sunnmuun's review against another edition

slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

Not on par with other John Irving books. It was a chore to finish.

cynthia2's review against another edition

3.0

This is an expansive novel in scope and history. The history of the LGBTQ movement as seen from the books' characters lends a new perspective. At 900 pages long, you become close to the vividly described characters, which have the quirkiness Irving's known for. You feel as if you know them and become attached. I'm missing them already! I live in Colorado, and I'll be going to see Aspen again in a whole new light with extra layers of meaning.

mawalker1962's review against another edition

3.0

This book was a slog. I’ve read most of John Irving’s work since I discovered Garp in college, and I’ve loved most of them. The characters were interesting enough to keep me reading but it WAS A SLOG. I know. I said that already. I know to expect a lot of the same themes and techniques in an Irving novel: a main character who is a writer, an obsession with (often bizarre) sex, sexual politics, various levels of gender ambiguity or fluidity, wrestling, single moms to sons with whom they had excessive attachments, the use of novels or screenplays within the novel, and did I mention wrestling. All that was here. What wasn’t here was a good editor. The book had a thin plot, and even the interesting characters couldn’t save it from dragging and dragging. I can really recommend it.

zwyrdish's review against another edition

4.0

I've been reading Irving's books for so much of my life that he feels like an old friend. While I never come away feeling my world has been torn asunder and I need to carefully piece it back together in a different way with a new perspective or new information, as I do with some writers, his books equally never disappoint. Irving weaves such a comforting sense of ordinariness into his tales of quite extraordinary people that it raises everyone around them up to a higher level, somehow. These people possess the strength to remain uniquely themselves throughout their lives despite the tremendous pressure society puts on them (puts on us all) to mold ourselves into something more predictable, more acceptable, more mundane.
My only nit-pick of this particular novel is that I felt it could have been shorter. Certain scenes or themes were replayed so many times I began to wonder if I had listened to that part already, or put a disc in a second time by accident. A small complaint of an otherwise lovely piece of writing that was well worth the time.