Queen Esther by John Irving Analysis – A Letdown Sequel to His Earlier Masterpiece

If some authors have an peak phase, during which they achieve the heights time after time, then U.S. writer John Irving’s lasted through a run of several substantial, gratifying books, from his late-seventies hit The World According to Garp to 1989’s A Prayer for Owen Meany. Those were expansive, humorous, warm novels, connecting figures he calls “outsiders” to societal topics from gender equality to reproductive rights.

After Owen Meany, it’s been declining results, except in size. His most recent work, the 2022 release The Last Chairlift, was 900 pages of themes Irving had examined better in earlier books (inability to speak, short stature, trans issues), with a two-hundred-page film script in the center to fill it out – as if extra material were necessary.

Therefore we look at a recent Irving with reservation but still a tiny flame of expectation, which shines brighter when we discover that Queen Esther – a just four hundred thirty-two pages long – “returns to the universe of His Cider House Rules”. That mid-eighties novel is among Irving’s finest works, set largely in an institution in the town of St Cloud’s, managed by Dr Wilbur Larch and his assistant Wells.

The book is a letdown from a novelist who in the past gave such joy

In Cider House, Irving wrote about termination and identity with vibrancy, comedy and an total compassion. And it was a significant book because it moved past the themes that were evolving into tiresome tics in his books: grappling, bears, Austrian capital, sex work.

Queen Esther starts in the fictional town of New Hampshire's Penacook in the twentieth century's dawn, where Thomas and Constance Winslow adopt young ward the protagonist from St Cloud's home. We are a few years before the action of The Cider House Rules, yet Dr Larch remains identifiable: even then using ether, respected by his staff, starting every speech with “At St Cloud's...” But his appearance in the book is confined to these initial sections.

The Winslows are concerned about parenting Esther correctly: she’s from a Jewish background, and “how could they help a teenage girl of Jewish descent discover her identity?” To address that, we move forward to Esther’s later life in the Roaring Twenties. She will be a member of the Jewish migration to the area, where she will enter the Haganah, the Jewish nationalist militant force whose “purpose was to safeguard Jewish communities from Arab attacks” and which would later establish the foundation of the Israel's military.

Such are huge themes to address, but having introduced them, Irving dodges out. Because if it’s regrettable that the novel is not actually about St Cloud’s and Dr Larch, it’s all the more disappointing that it’s additionally not about the titular figure. For motivations that must involve story mechanics, Esther turns into a gestational carrier for another of the family's offspring, and gives birth to a son, James, in the early forties – and the majority of this book is his narrative.

And here is where Irving’s fixations reappear loudly, both typical and specific. Jimmy relocates to – where else? – Vienna; there’s discussion of evading the military conscription through bodily injury (His Earlier Book); a pet with a meaningful title (Hard Rain, remember the earlier dog from The Hotel New Hampshire); as well as wrestling, sex workers, novelists and penises (Irving’s recurring).

The character is a duller persona than Esther hinted to be, and the minor players, such as young people the two students, and Jimmy’s tutor Annelies Eissler, are flat too. There are some nice scenes – Jimmy deflowering; a brawl where a few bullies get assaulted with a support and a tire pump – but they’re short-lived.

Irving has never been a delicate novelist, but that is is not the difficulty. He has always restated his ideas, telegraphed plot developments and let them to build up in the audience's imagination before leading them to resolution in extended, surprising, entertaining scenes. For case, in Irving’s books, body parts tend to disappear: remember the speech organ in The Garp Novel, the hand part in His Owen Book. Those absences reverberate through the narrative. In this novel, a major person suffers the loss of an limb – but we only find out thirty pages the finish.

She reappears late in the novel, but merely with a last-minute impression of ending the story. We not once discover the complete narrative of her life in the Middle East. The book is a disappointment from a novelist who in the past gave such delight. That’s the bad news. The upside is that His Classic Novel – revisiting it alongside this work – even now stands up wonderfully, four decades later. So pick up the earlier work instead: it’s double the length as Queen Esther, but 12 times as great.