John Irving is one of my favorite authors. I’ve read all of his novels, some of them two or three times, something I almost never do. My favorite is probably The Cider House Rules, though I also quite like The World According to Garp, Widow for A Year and A Prayer for Owen Meany. He is able to create a world inhabited by quirky, and sometimes unbelievable characters that he somehow breathes life into. His novels are humorous and tragic, life affirming and emotionally draining. He writes about subjects that other authors don’t even begin to examine – rape, incest, sexual abuse, and abortion among others, presenting them as slices of life instead of deviations from the norm.
Until I find You has all the elements of other Irving novels, dysfunctional sexual relationships, fatherless children, prostitutes, and a slew of eccentric characters, but unfortunately, he just doesn’t succeed in making any of it seem plausible, nor entertaining. In some ways, it seems he tacks things into the book just to add a bit of a shock factor. It’s an incredibly long (820 pages) and cumbersome bore. I don’t mind a long book. In fact I prefer long rambling sagas that can keep me involved for days or weeks at a time, but in this case, I was wishing it were about ½ the size.
At the center of the book is a pen*s, an appendage that is neither extraordinary (in fact, it’s on the “smallish side”), nor particularly interesting (it doesn’t have much of an opinion on anything). You’d think that a book featuring a pen*s as its protagonist might be very sensual. And while there is plenty of sex, there is very little passion. The only sexual (and loving?) relationship in the book concerns two lesbian women and is characterized by infidelity, and is a result of turning away from men as opposed to turning towards a lover. Attached to the pen*s is Jack Burns, an actor with nary an ounce of humanity. Unlike other of Irving’s characters, even the more unlovable ones, I was unable to connect with Burns in any manner. He is a man without a soul, it being stolen from him in his childhood. The novel is about Burns’ search for his father, but ultimately it is a search for himself, or perhaps his pen*s.
Until I find You is written in three parts. The first part is a remembered i.e. fictional account of the pen*s and it’s mother searching for the father around the North Sea of Europe. The father, William, is a ‘collector’ of tattoos – a person who covers his entire body in tats (in this case, music), a playboy and a famous organist (a variation on the pen*s theme). He acquires a new tattoo in every city and leaves another broken heart (or two). His mother is a tattoo artist, apparently wronged by William. A long segment of the book is spent in the brothels of Amsterdam (one of Irving’s favorite locales) where the pen*s is babysat by various prostitutes.
In part two of the book, the pen*s is located in an almost all-girls school in Toronto where it attracts a disproportionate amount of attention from women, young and old. It undergoes playful teasing, sexual abuse and plenty of holding positions. It is here, as well, where the book becomes not only far-fetched, but completely unhinged. But, it is also in this section where the only sympathetic character is introduced, Emma, an older girl with a mustache who befriends the Pen*s. Thru a series of events, the Pen*s eventually lands in Hollywood.
The third portion concludes Jack's search for ‘truth’, thru a reenactment of the initial trip, re-introduced characters and psychoanalysis.
It’s not that the entire book is terrible. Once again, Irving introduces some very memorable characters and there are parts of the story that I enjoyed. Particularly enjoyable is Oscar night and the sequences with Claudia. But, overall, I found it pretty tedious and totally implausible. With better editing, I think it might have been an interesting read, but at 820 pages, it’s far too ponderous.
If you are already an Irving fan, go back and read A Prayer for Owen Meany or The Cider House Rules again. If you have never read any Irving, I wouldn’t recommend starting with this one.
