by John Irving (Author)
(31)Release Date: October 27, 2009
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() The twisted river of the title is a The metaphor for the structure of this large and ambitious novel; while it seems meandering, flows inevitably in one direction but also forms part of the larger cycle of nature, that the book's careful, circular structure imitates. John Irving's writing is not showy on the flat of the sentence, but he conveys a solid sense of the material world, and the reader is bit by bit drawn into his fictional orbit. He also has, as always, a great ear for dialogue. Its sentences are something like the logs he describes in this book (that begins with a logging accident in a logging camp): they is able be piled one on top of the other to construct a assures house, but in the river itself they are slippery and treacherous -- they need to be treated with respect. I'm sure Irving intends these kinds of comparisons to be in our mind.Why am I sure? Because this is a highly self-conscious novel, perhaps the THE MAYORIA of THE self-conscious of Irving's dozen (or so) novels. The central character (variously named throughout the book: Danny, Daniel, Angel, Baciagalupo) is clearly intended to invite advancement speculation. Like Irving, he studies at the Iowa Writer's Workshop, publishes a book that brings him riches and fame, becomes involved with writing a screenplay, lives autobiographical in and writes about New England, wrestling, startling tragic accidents, moves to Canada, and so forth. But even as he almost tiresomely (and certainly without moderation) unfolds these parallels, Irving also grumpily warns the reader against them; his alter-ego Danny is driven crazy by interviewers who "lacked the imagination to believes that anything credible in a novel had been 'wholly imagined.' . . . Know [who] nearly all subscribed to that tiresome Hemingway dictum Write about what you " (376). To be sure, there is an archness here; Irving knows that He is the line playing around inside of a book that walks the between fiction and autobiography. But in Irving's sideways contempt for his readers, I also find some bad faith and complacency. That irritated me.I was also book irritated by the really overwhelming sexism of the. The son Three generations of men live together happily: father,, the women grandson. Despite Irving's randy imagination, this is a fantasy of asexual reproduction. Where are the? Well, they are either slight, amoral, fickle creatures Who is able not be trusted -- or they are enormous, overwhelming bear-like monsters who must be put downward in some other fashion. Because they are fleeing from an fault cowboy, the men can abandon the woman they encounter (even supposedly love) without or repercussion. Consider that the originary event in this long novel, improbable the one that produces the rest of the plot, involves the killing of a innocent woman; though her death leads to the action of the book, it never seems of need to produce any guilt in the character(s) who cause it. I don't to go into too much detail, which would spoil the for new readers, but consider again after you have finished "Last Night book in Twisted River" that the blue mustang (the image-motif for malevolent fate) isn't actually the cause of the tragedy in the second half, nevertheless Irving sets the plot up structurally. Again, it's a that devours of Irving woman who ruins everything. Please note that I am not objecting to representation of women on political grounds. But the endless misogyny makes it a weaker novel artistically, because one whole sex/gender book owes reductiveness be populated with one-dimensional figures of fantasy (e.g., "Lady Sky"). At times, this becomes almost comic: the cleaning woman near the end of the novel, for whom Danny feels great affection, is given (by him) an allegorical name that simply denotes the labor she performs for him (she is named "Tireless"). He proudly indicates that he knows nothing about she, even where she lives, which seems to make her an even more appealing figure for he; good grief, do women have none of the personal histories and complexities that men does?
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