Demob Happy

Two star hotel

4/10

This is the first John Irving novel I have read and will most probably be the last. I am completely bewildered by the reviews on this site - are we reading the same book? As you may have gathered, it is a portrait of an eccentric family growing up in a hotel - first in New Hampshire, then in Vienna. There is a massive cast of peripheral characters revolving around five child protagonists (Franny, Frank, Egg, Lilly and the narrator) and their parents.

Maybe Irving spreads himself to thin with this large cast of players as all of them - without exception - are merely two-dimensional cut-outs. Of the children: Franny is a bit sassy, Frank is gay and a bit weird, Egg is hard of hearing and says ‘What’ all the time, Lilly is tiny and the narrator lifts weights. Of the parents: the Dad is a dreamer and says ‘Jesus God’ alot, the mother completely obsolete in the narrative, an entirely characterless figure who is unceremoniously killed off with Egg in a plane crash half way through the book (the subqequent ‘grief’ of which is entirely underwealming and only lazily sketched out by the author).

There is little greater depth to these characters than that I have outlined above. All these character traits are presented to us early on and are merely repeated to us as evidence of individual personality throughout the book. Each trait is used as an identifier for a cast of characters who are wholly unconvincing and essentially speak with the same, authorial voice. The dialogue is repetitive and contrived, a repetition of these ‘quirks’ punctuated by some self-conscious swearing. The emotional world of the characters is sparse at best: there are two emotional reactions throughout the book, with characters either ’shuddering’ or ’shivering’ at a thought or comment.

Neither the ‘characters’ or the scenarios are nearly as clever or eccentric as the author wants us to believe, and there are frequent returns to early motifs (’State O’ Main’ the bear, ‘Sorrow’ the dog) that are tiresome and desperately unfunny. The narrative often tends towards to surreal but most of what happens is too strange to be considered drama but not strange enough to constitute the post-modern novel. There are several slapstick deaths that are neither sad nor funny (i’m not sure which they are meant to be) and are more Fawlty Towers than Hotel New Hampshire. There is so much interesting that could be written about life in hotel that the author fails to evoke. If you want a compelling portrait of the disfunctional modern American family read Jonathan Franzen’s ‘The Corrections’ instead.