John Irving's Queen Esther Analysis – A Letdown Companion to His Classic Work

If a few authors have an imperial phase, during which they hit the summit repeatedly, then U.S. novelist John Irving’s lasted through a sequence of several fat, rewarding novels, from his 1978 breakthrough Garp to the 1989 release His Owen Meany Book. Those were generous, funny, big-hearted books, tying protagonists he describes as “outliers” to social issues from women's rights to reproductive rights.

After Owen Meany, it’s been declining outcomes, except in word count. His previous work, the 2022 release The Chairlift Book, was 900 pages long of subjects Irving had delved into more skillfully in earlier novels (selective mutism, dwarfism, gender identity), with a lengthy film script in the center to fill it out – as if padding were necessary.

So we look at a new Irving with reservation but still a tiny flame of hope, which glows stronger when we learn that Queen Esther – a just 432 pages in length – “returns to the world of His Cider House Rules”. That 1985 novel is part of Irving’s finest works, taking place mostly in an institution in Maine's St Cloud’s, managed by Dr Wilbur Larch and his protege Homer Wells.

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

In Cider House, Irving explored pregnancy termination and identity with colour, comedy and an comprehensive empathy. And it was a important work because it left behind the subjects that were becoming repetitive habits in his works: grappling, bears, the city of Vienna, the oldest profession.

Queen Esther starts in the made-up town of Penacook, New Hampshire in the beginning of the 1900s, where Thomas and Constance Winslow adopt teenage ward the protagonist from the orphanage. We are a a number of decades prior to the action of His Earlier Novel, yet the doctor stays identifiable: still dependent on the drug, beloved by his caregivers, beginning every speech with “At St Cloud's...” But his role in the book is limited to these early parts.

The family fret about parenting Esther properly: she’s Jewish, and “in what way could they help a teenage Jewish female discover her identity?” To address that, we move forward to Esther’s grown-up years in the 1920s. She will be part of the Jewish emigration to the region, where she will become part of Haganah, the pro-Zionist paramilitary organisation whose “goal was to protect Jewish towns from opposition” and which would subsequently become the foundation of the IDF.

Such are huge themes to tackle, but having introduced them, Irving dodges out. Because if it’s regrettable that this book is not really about St Cloud’s and the doctor, it’s all the more disheartening that it’s additionally not focused on Esther. For causes that must involve story mechanics, Esther ends up as a gestational carrier for a different of the Winslows’ daughters, and delivers to a son, Jimmy, in 1941 – and the lion's share of this novel is Jimmy’s tale.

And now is where Irving’s obsessions reappear loudly, both common and distinct. Jimmy relocates to – where else? – Vienna; there’s discussion of dodging the draft notice through self-harm (A Prayer for Owen Meany); a dog with a meaningful name (the animal, recall the earlier dog from His Hotel Novel); as well as wrestling, prostitutes, writers and genitalia (Irving’s recurring).

He is a less interesting character than the heroine suggested to be, and the secondary figures, such as pupils the pair, and Jimmy’s teacher the tutor, are one-dimensional too. There are several nice scenes – Jimmy losing his virginity; a fight where a handful of thugs get beaten 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 issue. He has always restated his ideas, telegraphed narrative turns and let them to build up in the audience's mind before bringing them to completion in lengthy, shocking, entertaining scenes. For case, in Irving’s novels, anatomical features tend to disappear: recall the oral part in Garp, the hand part in Owen Meany. Those missing pieces resonate through the narrative. In the book, a major character loses an arm – but we just learn thirty pages before the end.

Esther reappears late in the story, but only with a final feeling of concluding. We not once discover the full narrative of her experiences in the region. Queen Esther is a letdown from a novelist who previously gave such delight. That’s the negative aspect. The upside is that The Cider House Rules – revisiting it in parallel to this novel – yet holds up beautifully, four decades later. So choose that as an alternative: it’s twice as long as this book, but a dozen times as enjoyable.