There’s plenty of discussion in the novel about how hostile either sex can be to bisexuals. He enjoys women, and his best friend, Elaine, is his sometime sexual partner. Yet he also realizes that the shock to our self-knowledge, or our lack of it, remains the same either way.īilly’s lumberyard grandpa has been a female impersonator all his life, and although he isn’t interested in becoming a woman, or in sleeping with men who have become women, his straightforward acceptance of who he is gives Billy courage through his own sexual crises and adventures.īilly is bisexual. He understands that we don’t always act on or act out our desires. There is no doubt that Irving thinks this is a good thing. Desire is defiant our desires square off against our assumptions, our morality, our conscience and our notion of who we are. Perhaps - but reading Irving, it seems to me that what he is saying about desire outside of the missionary position (a psychic attitude, not a physical preference) is never an apology, nor an explanation.ĭesire is democratic we fall for the wrong people, across age, class, color, gender. You could say that our sexual longings are compensatory, and that desire for what is forbidden or taboo is part of the long detective hunt for what we have lost and can never find.
If it wasn't for his reading I wouldn't have finished the book.Desire and its unsettlements of the soul are as central to John Irving’s work as lost fathers. His pace, inflections and voices always work. What does John Benjamin Hickey bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book? He should stop trying to be controversial and just tell us a story. What could John Irving have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you? "Last Night in Snowy River" was a little better than "Until I find you", but this last offering is probably the last I'll read. Somewhere between then and now he seems to have lost that magical edge.
Irving's earlier books drew one into a surreal reality that was simultaneously wickedly funny and disquietingly wise - Garp, Cider House Rules, Hotel New Hampshire come to mind, and Owen Meany, and Son of the Circus. Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?
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