A Son of the Circus   by John Irving.

Sept. 2007     Birthday gift from Andrea, my roommate.

I was excited when I got this book, (as a gift,) because I respect and enjoy the author, and thought it was something of his which was new to me. It was only once I'd started reading it that I realized I had read this book before; in 2000, in Toronto. I borrowed it from the lady I was renting my room from. Back then I had no idea who John Irving was though.

From that first reading I remember being intrigued by the sex scenes in this book. They were the most explicit I'd ever read, and they are... put down in an honest and direct manner. Without elaboration or the attempt to excite the reader, it was as if it was the talk of two old Geishas, who have lived through everything, are familiar with all sexual practices, and are only so descriptive because they want to get the details of the story right. For the twenty year old innocent virgin that I was, this was... eye opening stuff. I liked the book, and thought it was a good read... and some of the images stayed with me... for the seven years before I was to read the book again. (Besides the sex scenes, there was also the detective looking for the smuggled money, the murderer's method of getting to his victims, searching for a genetic marker, and the Elephant Boy with his sky walk.)

It's a fairly long book, weighing in at 830 pages. There's a certain amount of digression into the histories of minor characters, events and places, but they are kept short enough that they don't drag down the plot. Having finished the book a couple days ago the characters are still vivid in my mind; They all seemed so close and real to me. Even Nancy... seemed believable. This is strange, because I can't understand her. She seems to long for her "home", but can't imagine ever returning. She seems full of life, and to have the strongest will, yet languishes and wallows in inactivity. I can't understand her, but instead of thinking "the author has contradicted himself here," I feel that I have missed something and failed to understand.

In the last eight years I somehow forgot about the Twin, and now I find him one of the brightest and most peculiar characters in the book. How could I have forgotten this religious fanatic, his horrible past, (although I DID remember some of his earlier story,) and the way his past turned into motivations for his life? It's a mystery to me.

From the "Author's Note" at the beginning of the book I thought this would be about "being a stranger in your own land, as well as everywhere else in the world." This can't be called the theme of the book though. Although it's brought up a couple times every hundred pages it only effects a few of the thoughts of our protagonist. The rest of his thoughts, and all of his actions are completely unchanged by his feelings of being an outsider. What would I call the theme of this book then? Let me think...

It's a delving into what India meant to our central characters, the relating of sordid stories, and then the... RESOLUTION, of the stories, the characters, and the character's half defined relations to India. If that's the theme, then what do I call the other things? Content? He has something to say about disease and about poverty, about a racial divide and about prejudice. We are given descriptions of two (or does Vera make three?) sexual predators. (And of course our protagonist's problem of everywhere feeling out of place.)

But still... of the four books of Irving's I've read, I think I like the other three better: The Cider House Rules being my favourite (at least tonight,) then Setting Free the Bears -because it's so much fun to read, and then The World according to Garp. I don't want to give the impression of disliking A Son of the Circus though; it's still better than a lot of other books out there in the world.