Review: The Cider House Rules

The Cider House Rules by John Irving
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Thirty years ago, when I was first becoming aware of the world of contemporary literature, John Irving was a name to reckon with. He seemed a kind of caboose to the John Updike/Philip Roth generation, and he had the further advantage of a noted lightness to his work. What’s more, he projected an appealing masculinity, reminding people he’d been a serious wrestler (I was an unserious, or at least unsuccessful one) and standing as someone who was shaping literature we should all be reading.

I pushed myself to read A Prayer for Owen Meany when it came out, and, while I remember admiring the prose and much of the structure, I was ultimately annoyed by its contrived quality. If little Owen could see the future in which he killed our protagonist’s mother, then why the hell couldn’t he alter it? It would have meant forgoing one swing of a baseball bat. To the extent I felt I was permitted, I decided I didn’t like it all that much.

I may have read The World According to Garp – I certainly watched the movie – but that was the effective end of my Irving expedition until now. I found an audio version of this on sale and figured it was time for another look. What was it, I wondered, that made Irving such a success back then?

The basic answer, I think, is that this guy really can write characters and stories. There’s something idyllic in the Maine setting of this, and there’s something appealing in the multi-generational span of the novel. We get a glimpse of Wilbur Larch that takes us back to the late 19th century, and then we follow Homer Wells to the start of a career that will take him – in his older age beyond the end of the novel – into just about the present tense.

There’s clearly something at stake in all this, too. It’s a century of men wrestling with the challenge of ensuring that women have access to safe abortions, but it isn’t a narrow claim of such right. We get to see various characters reflecting on the morality of the process, and we see some of the ethical challenges they experience. (It’s worth noting, of course, that these are mostly men who have to decide such questions. Most of the women are either in need of rescue or lovingly supporting these men.)

And, as well, this is a compelling love story. The triangle among Homer, Candy and Wally is memorable and emotional, and I enjoyed reading it. I even forgave it, at least some, for a contrivance that reminded me of Owen Meaney when, at the end, Dr. Larch proves to have anticipated his own betrayal and prepared a decade-plus scheme to allow Homer to move into his place. For the same effort, it seems, he could just as easily have extricated himself.

On the whole then, this reminded me of Dickens. It’s a coming-of-age novel, and it’s one that aspires to call our attention to some systemic injustice.

There’s still a lot to admire and enjoy in the way Irving takes us from a pastoral past into something that looks like our own yesterday, but as a bottom line I’m not sure it’s aged all that well. As I think about Irving’s reputation, I find myself comparing him to another neo-Dickensian – to Donna Tartt whose The Goldfinch struck me as a fabulous and memorable book, one without the clear shortcomings of this one. Speaking today, I’m convinced Tartt is clearly a better writer than Irving, and I intend that as a compliment in both directions. If I’m able still to be reading contemporary literature with care and comprehension thirty years from now, I wonder if things will look different in the face of new writers further pushing the boundaries of what we Americans read.


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