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A review by iymain
A Widow for One Year by John Irving
3.0
Well... I wasn't blown away.
This book moseys and meanders. It took a long time for Irving to settle in on a main character, and by the time he did, I was whip-lashed since I'd been holding out for more info about a completely different one.
That being said, perhaps the unpredictability and wandering nature of the narrative is supposed to say something about the same qualities in real life. If so, it was pretty effective. We focus in on Ruth Cole, but only after getting an close up look at her parents' relationship to each other and to their deceased sons. Of course, these (hi)stories would have a great influence on the person Ruth would become, and perhaps upon a second reading I'd appreciate them more.
The erotic nature of the book was kinda...nyeh. In a post "Shades of Grey" world, I think this book scarcely rates. That being said, some of the language was a bit--ah--surprising.
Irving seems to have a great affinity for his male characters (Ted, Eddie, the Dutch policeman, Ruth's first husband). They may be irritating. They may even be immortal, selfish and cruel, but they are always kind of funny. Amusing. Friendly in a way.
Women, on the other hand, don't fare as well (Marion, Ruth, Hannah, every Cougar Eddie interacts with, and Ted's paramours, for that matter). They're cold, angry, hurt, wounded... They go through life with a chip on their shoulders that keeps them from connecting with others. I think the ultimate distancing factor, though, is that they lack the slapstick humor of the male characters. (Is this one of those "women can't be funny" biases?)
The parent/child dynamic is a hot mess in this book, and I suppose that's true for a lot of readers' lives as well. Still, it was pretty depressing. I think we are supposed to believe that the next generation will do better as Ruth dotes on her son, Graham, but it just didn't seem as believable as the neurotic fears, flaring anger and bitter resentment that Ruth has toward her own parents for the majority of the book.
I think the strongest section of the book was the part in which Ruth goes to Holland. It was odd, there's no doubt about it, but vivid and powerful. It also reveals a lot more about Ruth than most other parts of the novel do. Of course, it sometimes reads almost like an autobiography as we get Ruth's sense of what it is to be an author. This is the closest JI gets to understanding his character, and it's more like he's just writing about himself--perhaps in drag.
Still, the novel conveys a powerful message about how lives are intertwined and nested in surprising ways. The relationships that do serendipitously form can be powerfully supportive and meaningful, far more so than just the biological relations we are born with. Irving's romantic couples, whether married (Ruth with husband 1 and 2), friends (Ruth and Eddie and Hannah) or unrequited (for a while, anyway: Marion/Eddie) offer a safe harbor in a violent, punishing world.
A friend of mine asked if I would recommend this book... I dunno. Certainly if it's the only thing I had on hand I would, but there are a lot of better novels out there, and John Irving has written several of them. This just isn't his best.
This book moseys and meanders. It took a long time for Irving to settle in on a main character, and by the time he did, I was whip-lashed since I'd been holding out for more info about a completely different one.
That being said, perhaps the unpredictability and wandering nature of the narrative is supposed to say something about the same qualities in real life. If so, it was pretty effective. We focus in on Ruth Cole, but only after getting an close up look at her parents' relationship to each other and to their deceased sons. Of course, these (hi)stories would have a great influence on the person Ruth would become, and perhaps upon a second reading I'd appreciate them more.
The erotic nature of the book was kinda...nyeh. In a post "Shades of Grey" world, I think this book scarcely rates. That being said, some of the language was a bit--ah--surprising.
Irving seems to have a great affinity for his male characters (Ted, Eddie, the Dutch policeman, Ruth's first husband). They may be irritating. They may even be immortal, selfish and cruel, but they are always kind of funny. Amusing. Friendly in a way.
Women, on the other hand, don't fare as well (Marion, Ruth, Hannah, every Cougar Eddie interacts with, and Ted's paramours, for that matter). They're cold, angry, hurt, wounded... They go through life with a chip on their shoulders that keeps them from connecting with others. I think the ultimate distancing factor, though, is that they lack the slapstick humor of the male characters. (Is this one of those "women can't be funny" biases?)
The parent/child dynamic is a hot mess in this book, and I suppose that's true for a lot of readers' lives as well. Still, it was pretty depressing. I think we are supposed to believe that the next generation will do better as Ruth dotes on her son, Graham, but it just didn't seem as believable as the neurotic fears, flaring anger and bitter resentment that Ruth has toward her own parents for the majority of the book.
I think the strongest section of the book was the part in which Ruth goes to Holland. It was odd, there's no doubt about it, but vivid and powerful. It also reveals a lot more about Ruth than most other parts of the novel do. Of course, it sometimes reads almost like an autobiography as we get Ruth's sense of what it is to be an author. This is the closest JI gets to understanding his character, and it's more like he's just writing about himself--perhaps in drag.
Still, the novel conveys a powerful message about how lives are intertwined and nested in surprising ways. The relationships that do serendipitously form can be powerfully supportive and meaningful, far more so than just the biological relations we are born with. Irving's romantic couples, whether married (Ruth with husband 1 and 2), friends (Ruth and Eddie and Hannah) or unrequited (for a while, anyway: Marion/Eddie) offer a safe harbor in a violent, punishing world.
A friend of mine asked if I would recommend this book... I dunno. Certainly if it's the only thing I had on hand I would, but there are a lot of better novels out there, and John Irving has written several of them. This just isn't his best.