The Last
Chairlift, Knopf Canada, Available from Chapters/Indigo here.
I
don’t often write book reviews,
and I don’t often rant. But My Last Chairlift sits on my
shelf mocking me right next to books I respect and love. This 889-page tome occupies
even more space than my musty Oxford Dictionary, depriving other books of a
spot they’ve actually earned.
The problem
is, I can’t let The Last Chairlift go just yet. My resentment simmers.
And with this review I hope to release myself from its smug grip.
Does it
seem sacrilegious to find fault with John Irving? It does a bit to me. For many
years I have loved his humour, the depth of his stories, the surprises! When I
learned there was finally a new book being released, bright eyed and bushy
tailed I clapped my bunny hands (Paws? Feet?) in delight and ordered it, full
price. I was expecting a novel I would enjoy.
Expectations
can lead us down the dark path of disappointment.
I loved A
Prayer for Owen Meany. It gripped me right from the beginning with Owen
Meany shouting away in his bizarre loud
voice, and then the suspense of the foul ball that we eventually learn kills
the narrator’s mother.
In A
Prayer for Owen Meany the story is engaging. The characters are winning and
believable.
Owen
himself is tiny but a dynamic presence in the book. He is preoccupied with his
own death and is a ghostly spectre himself.
“He was the
colour of a gravestone; light was both absorbed and reflected by his skin, as
with a pearl, so that he appeared translucent at times.” (P. 14)
John adores
his beautiful mother, (as does Owen). He treasures his time with her and sets
her up with the man (College teacher) who will become his stepfather, also very
small.
After his mother’s
death John is raised by his grandmother and stepfather. John bears no ill will
and the two remain close friends. At Owen’s insistence they fanatically
practice a jumping maneuver that will later take on crucial significance.
Religion
and politics occupy a large part of this novel. I found the railings about the
Vietnam war tiresome (and I admit I skipped pages of the political ranting).
But here Irving successfully ties it together.
I liked A Prayer for Owen Meany, though the plot is disjointed, jumping around between present and past, I could follow it. Even when characters are beyond odd, I was able to like them and go with the flow.
Wait you
say. This is supposed to be a review of The Last Chairlift.
Expectations:
Having read
A Prayer for Owen Meany, I was expecting another intriguing funny story,
a big present … perhaps like a large Lego kit that I’d assemble piece by piece
with delight. Something new, original. A great story where I could follow a
plot and like the characters.
When I
started into The Last Chairlift I found myself in familiar territory.
Too familiar.
The Last
Chairlift is
also narrated by a young boy who doesn’t know who his father is. Guess what? He
also lives in New Hampshire in a rambling house on Front Street (same street
even).
His mother
is alive but is so absent with the world of skiing that Adam grows up with
older people: his grandmother, increasingly demented grandfather, cousins,
aunts and uncles. His mother falls for a college English teacher, another very
small person with big influence. Size is important throughout.
Adam’s
mother says, “No man can be small enough for me, Eliot – or so I thought before
I met you.”
Irving
brings a variety of themes but so obliquely I need my literary shovel to help
dig through a muddy ground of metaphor, irony, paradox and obfuscation. We have
reminders of Harold Pinter, whose plays are peppered with characters who cannot
communicate, who ignore what others say or completely misunderstand what is
very clear to the audience.
Characters
in The Last Chairlift misunderstand each other, and some can’t talk at
all. Grandfather cannot speak but just sits there in his diapers. I get this –
he’s old and demented. But Em, a young character, does not speak even though
she is physically capable. She mimes.
Honestly,
enough strange characters had preceded Em that I didn’t attempt to understand why
she doesn’t speak or why her “friend” Nora misinterprets the miming. But does
Em represent a group of people? Or us as individuals? Is this all a comment on
lack of communication in our society?
Sex. I’m
not sure where to begin. It’s like going to lunch at the Mandarin Restaurant
for the huge buffet when really all you wanted was a ham sandwich.
"There's
more than one way to love people," Adam is told by Molly, his mother’s
lover. No kidding. Irving includes a plethora.
The
marriage of Little Ray and Elliot turns out to be a cover for both. They are
friends, they do love each other, but not as man and wife. Little Ray is lesbian,
Elliot eventually transitions and becomes “she.”
John Irving
Gay,
lesbian, bi, transgender, feminist – they’re all here. He’s checking boxes.
Adam is the lone straight guy. Always the odd one.
It’s just
too many. I want to identify with a character, to feel sympathy, to have a
chance to like them. The character I like most is Eliot the stepfather, but I
never get to feel for him. The point of view is steadfastly the narrator’s.
Eliot is too far away.
War: Too
much. I skipped lots of pages.
Screenplays.
Why? Irving also writes screenplays and decides to give us over 200 pages of
screenplay in this book. He sets up the first one relating the events at the
hotel Jerome in Aspen, where Little Ray had spent most of her life skiing.
Adam, the narrator, says he sees it as a movie. What follows is a one hundred
pages of screenplay. I tried but gave up.
After some
pages of prose, I was faced with another screenplay – 114 pages this time.
Again, I tried. It seemed I was jumping into the head of the writer rather than
into the characters. Maybe someday I’ll go back and try again.
Similarity
to Irving’s life: John Irving's mother, Frances Winslow, was not married at the
time of his conception. Irving never met his biological father.
In an
interview Irving said, “You’ve gotta make people think they’re having a good
time until they aren’t.”
Well, my
good time lasted for the first 147 pages. Act One, Irving calls it. The book is
887 pages long. I thought I was having a good time for 16% of it.
Besides
being far too long, the book is overly repetitious, muddied up with too many
characters. And too many bizarre characters. The plot is disjointed and boringly
similar to previous books. (Irving does say it’s autobiographical, but still…).
I wonder
how far this book would have gone, had not John Irving been the author. So much
goes with the name.
Expectations:
Years ago, a short Buddhist nun, Venerable Man Yee, dressed in her brownish
robes, little black hat protecting her shaved head from the cold of winter,
said to me (when I was being grumpy about someone), “Sheila, have no
expectations. You will have a happier life.”
I’m working
on it.
But I don’t
think my expectations of John Irving were overly optimistic. I see now that the
book is overwhelmingly autobiographical. And not just an exploration of his
life, but an attempt to sort it out. Good luck to him. He needn’t have shared
it with the suffering public, though. And now, having had my say, I can let it go.
The Last
Chairlift is My Last John Irving. Would you like
to have my copy?
***
Sheila Eastman is a musician living in
Mississauga. She plays and teaches piano and performs in local concert bands in
the percussion section – hitting things. Her writing reflects detailed
observations of human behavior and her bizarre sense of humour.
She is a past winner in the Mississauga Library
writing contest, poetry division, and was runner up in the Alice Munro short
story contest.
Publications include obscure articles on medieval
music, an equally obscure monograph on a Canadian composer and totally relevant
and exciting articles on wildflowers. Because of her
short attention span she writes mainly short stories.
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