Are lives predestined or do people have the choice to determine their futures? Are we bound to follow in the steps of one or both of our parents and have neither the powers nor abilities to change or even influence the ultimate outcome? What our early beliefs are tainted with deceit? Will this have an influence on our eventual futures? These and other questions are asked, explored and sometimes even answered or was Jack the lover his father supposedly was or was it a question of androgyny that couldn’t have been altered? A mother’s deceit inflicts devastating wounds…… perception and perspective is everything.I The North Sea When Alice, Jack’s mother, took him on a winter tour of the Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands in search of his run-away father, I was intrigued. The small world of the tattooist is exposed and revealed in a way I never expected. As the book continues, Jack matures. This is only natural but the life he is exposed to and the influences that shape Jack the man can only be deemed unique. On a side note, the topographical and social descriptions of the countries along the eastern coast of the North Sea are almost spot on.II The Sea of GirlsAt first glance one would think Jack lucky to gain admittance to the highly regarded girl’s school of St. Hilda. From a female perspective what safer environment could Alice desire for Jack? From a male perception going to a girls school would be akin to dying and going to heaven. The lack of male peer contact and interaction play a major role in his social development. Alice could have obviated any problems by enrolling Jack in a normal school. I find myself in complete empathy with Jack and have compassion for his struggle toward maturity. III LuckyAfter completing the fourth grade, Jack had to say goodbye to St. Hilda and was shipped off to Redding, a private all boys middle school in Maine. He takes up wrestling for the purposes of self defense. High school at Exeter Academy broadens his scholastic and social worlds and keeps him far from his mother and home. Upon graduation he attends the University of New Hampshire and struggles through relationships, classes and summer stock. He took the advice of Horace Greeley and went west to the Mecca of film, Hollywood (the fact that Emma, his lifelong sister/lover/confident was there played no small role). IV Sleeping in the NeedlesJack loses his life pillar, reacquaints himself with his youth and spreads his literary wings to soar into his future. Facts, as well as views and perceptions of his youth are shattered, leaving him with an empty slate and an empty void. He was at a complete loss of what to write or how to fill the void that was once his life. His only recourse is to start again; at the beginning. V The GarciaSuccess has a price and your life as a child influences your life as an adult. Jack is a Hollywood success but emotionally he is a wreck waiting to happen. Dr. Garcia, a Hollywood psychiatrist used to treating the stars of the silver screen, is Jacks one lifeline and only hope of escaping the dark abyss that threatens him and his sanity. John Irving includes many famous film stars to his cast of characters and found myself wondering how they experienced their new roles. When you finally reach the last chapter and you think back to the opening chapters, it feels like years have passed (instead of 11/2 weeks) because so much information has been passed from page to brain. In the end I felt for Jack, I felt for Alice and for Emma, Leslie, Heather and John. In other words I felt for all those characters lost in life and maimed by deceit.Until I Find You is one of the most enigmatic novels I have ever read. It is also the most sexually dominated, literary non-sexual tale I ever seen in print. It is an equivocal work on a number of planes. This massive book of over a thousand pages seems to be either a complete hit or miss with reviewers. You either love or hate it. I must admit that I had doubts when I started but soon I was caught up in Jack Burns’ world. After looking at the many reviews of Until I Find you, I think it is like Joseph Heller’s Catch 22 and the readers either love or hate it. It has a plethora of emotion, action and love; the life of a man haunted by his past and unsure of his future. On the cover of this book is written, “Wonderfully sustained and very funny voice… with vivid, eccentric, memorable characters… in the manner of Dickens” I think if Dickens would read Until I Find You, he would be turning summersaults in his grave. This statement doesn’t in any way mean or even suggests that I don’t like the books characters, they are full, warm and very memorable. Nevertheless John Irving’s characters are as far apart from those of Charles Dickens as can be imaginable. There doesn’t seem to be much of a middle-ground with this story. I generally keep reviews short and to a minimum of words and thoughts but with Until I Find You I feel that an (almost) thousand word review is appropriate for a thousand page-plus novel.
Chronotope is one of the words coined by language philosophers and philologists to denote a spatial and temporal unity and their co-dependence in the novel. This is a way a literary continuum of a certain novel is defined and categorized. John Irving is one of the names in the world literature whose novels share not only identical chronotopes (the turn of the century and Maine/New Hampshire/ Canada), but his characters are trapped in the well of the same plots and issues: the search of the lost fathers, who are always nearby watching their off-springs, the elusiveness of the motherly figure, the attractiveness of senior women, the sexuality (and quite often the sexual abuse)and gender questions, religious hypocrisy, true spirituality, epiphany, and, last but not least, writing and creativity. Despite the deceitful routine and the repetitiveness of Irving's novels, he is one of the most powerful voices in modern American literature. I have a feeling that he is aware of the same world his novels take place in, but he uses this singularly Irving universe as his insignia. And in the course of time it has become the symbol of quality literary fiction. The books itself is quite lengthy - I was listening to the CD version, and I am not sure I would have stayed committed so much to this book if I had been reading it as a paperback (869 pages might be a little bit more than you bargain for). The novel has a mirror-like structure. The journey (both physical and emotional) is taken twice by the main character, Jack Burns. The first journey is the journey of falsehood, pretense, egotism, and deceit, which has been ingeniously constructed by his mother. The second journey is the journey of truth, musical beauty, sacrifice for the sake of art, and forgiveness. For the protagonist it is also the journey of self-discovery with some very interesting sexual innuendos. As I have mentioned earlier, sexuality and sexual identity have always been the landmarks of John Irving. As usual, John Irving stretches the truth as much as he can, but he also adds some 'spice' of literature (Hardy, Tolstoy, Bronte, Mishima to mention just a few) to balance and add the verisimilitude and plausibility to his novel. This literary move per se helps us reminisce if you are familiar with those literary powerhouses or it might motivate some of his readers to discover the new and forgotten pleasures of classical literature. This novel has also been helpful in understanding why John Irving is often called the modern Dickens - he uses the same devices and the similar settings, explores the same issues and topics, stretches the reality in every novel I have read, and introduces weird, bright and memorable characters. Now it is time to stop and ask yourself how many novels by Dickens you have read. It sounds familiar, doesn't it?I have read several novels by Irving (he is a prolific writer, not pulp-fiction prolific, but he does write quickly, effectively, and recognizably), and every book has been a beautiful and rewarding reading experience, and I am looking forward to re-entering the unique and bizarre world according to Garp ... oops Irving:-)
What do You think about Until I Find You (2006)?
I have read 10 of John Irving's books: his first 9, and this one. Clearly, he does something that I keep going back for. Maybe it's no coincidence that I also read all of Dickens' novels in chronological order, back in my twenties. The two are very different -- Dickens is much funnier, for instance -- but they have much in common. It doesn't surprise me to read others' mention of the links between them: Of the scope, the sheer heft factor of their books, many complain. I like it. It's hard not to like a character, Jack Burns for one, when, after 800 pages, you feel you've known him his whole life. I think incomplete knowledge and hasty summation of others is at the root of human conflict. I am a sucker for writers who are both essentially compassionate and unequivocally outraged by human cruelty, especially if they don't just wring their hands, but leap from their armchairs, sprint after the offenders, smash out their tail-lights and put them on notice, a la T.S. Garp. Irving also is a tonic to me because I feel understood when an author writes frankly about sexuality. I don't have to share a character's particular predilections to enjoy the reading, and I feel respected when things aren't whitewashed 'for my protection.' I concur that cruel sex isn't immoral because of the sex, but because of the cruelty. I believe that *any* morality that's used for superiority, used to judge or condemn others, is really just tarted-up cruelty. For these reasons, Irving is right up my street.Both Irving and Dickens zero in on the invisible-because-conventionally-unregarded strings that most of us are still dancing at the ends of, with the other ends tethered to our childhoods. Most of us throw our hands up about our pasts, stamp 'history' on the whole bundle, and close the door upon it. If we're like sailing ships, our history is the wind, beyond our control, still pushing at us; it takes skill and tenacity to steer the present, consciously, against this wind, and most of us don't have the grit for it. Both Irving and Dickens have troubled to regard childhood, to steep themselves in it, and their writing about childhood rings with this truth as a result: childhood is magical, yes, but more Pan's-Labyrinth-magical than Pinocchio-Blue-Fairy magical; it's magical because ordinary human actions can be transformed, distorted, elevated to myth, when perceived by a child. A single instance of loss, of gratitude, of injustice, all parts of the passing parade of human experience as understood by adults, can become -- or as mysteriously not become -- lifelong, permanent, and defining for a child. As a former child, present parent, and future feature of my childrens' memories, it helps me to remember this, and reading these authors gets me there.As for 'Until I Find You,' in particular? Well, it's not Irving's tightest work, and Irving's tightest work is none too tight. I have to conclude that he's serving a purpose other than spare, lean writing. It has a different effect on the reader than saying, "So Jack and his mom went to a succession of major Scandinavian cities, met assorted tattooers, and stayed in various hotels," to have to go through the somewhat circular experience, the full theme-and-variations, with Jack. It pays off when he has to refactor his memories, because we have them too, and they were so many pages ago that they feel like *our* childhood memories. In many respects, reading the book is more like living life than like experiencing a finely-crafted, precision-engineered storytelling. Mrs. McQuat almost gets to serve as a needed counter-weight, but dies too early; Claudia's daughter comes and goes with Jack seeming to sleepwalk through both the experience and the ramifications; the bat exhibit and The Wurtz; I could make a long list of the dangling threads that just keep dangling. Irving has no regard whatever for Chekhov's gun (look up 'Chekhov's gun' in Wikipedia), and I guess I don't either.
—Nathan
I usually love John Irving, "The World According to Garp" and "A Prayer for Owen Meany" are two of my favorite books ever, and I usually like whatever else he writes. I found this book to be kind of a meandering dud peppered with the some of the least titillating sex scenes ever put to paper. There are some bright spots (though I forget them now, the book is freakin' long), but mainly the whole thing is basically a chronicle of Irving's love affair with his own penis. Sex has always been a major part of Irving's works, but in this one, it lacks emotional depth or feeling and gives the reader the impression that Irving is having his protagonist (actor Jack Burns) act out his various fantasies (from sleeping with a dish washer to bedding a fifteen year old).
—Alison
Ok. I'm not really sure how I feel about this book. I like John Irving's writing style. I think it is just that the characters were a bit quirky. It was kind of annoying how the mother kept secrets from her son, and he had to go to such lengths to find out the truth. In the end, all seemed to turn out well for Jack. He found his father and discovered that his dad had seen him throughout his life, even if he had no direct contact with him for all those years. It was just sad that Jack spent most of his life not even knowing much about his dad because his mom kept him away.
—Carol
