3.5/5

I think I might need a Cider House project - a reread of the book and a rewatch of the movie (with this book by my side).

John Irving is one of my favorite novelists, but I haven't read much of his nonfiction. He might not HAVE much available nonfiction, but I always enjoy his forewords and afterwords to his novels. I like novelists with introspection.

I had passed this slim book by more than once, and even now I don't know why. My journey with John Irving began with The Cider House Rules. The film was coming out in fewer than two weeks, and my friend Tracey and I challenged each other to finish the book before we went out to see it. I had never read a book like Cider House Rules (likely because I'd never read any Dickens), but I immediately fell for the author's way with words, his dialogue, his semicomic situations. I plowed through Cider House ... and then was hugely underwhelmed by the movie.

I was mad about every change, especially the wholesale elimination of Melony (a hugely important character) from the whole thing. I didn't think Michael Caine deserved the award for Best Supporting Actor (I was holding out for Haley Joel Osment in Sixth Sense, Michael Clarke Duncan in The Green Mile, or Tom Cruise in Magnolia). Now, looking back, I may have unfairly maligned the film. Reading My Movie Business, that seems all but assured.

I loved hearing the behind-the-scenes stuff about movies based on Irving's books, even the stuff that kind of makes him seem like a jerk (one insight: Rob Lowe was a hot teen actor; Jodie Foster was not). My biggest wish is that the book didn't end with the wrapping of the film. I wanted to see how Irving reacted to the popularity of it, winning an Oscar, etc. etc. You always try to rate art on what's there rather than what isn't, but this seems like a missed opportunity. (Caveat: there is some fictionalized discussion of this in Until I Find You, but it's not the same).

All in all, I liked this book a lot, and it's always good to "discover" a work by a writer you love that you haven't yet dug into. Which reminds me, I've never read Setting Free the Bears. Time to jump in to that pre-Garp world!

Inside look at Irving's world in the making of Cider House and Garp

I thought this "memoir" might help me to get back into John Irving`s writing, as I haven´t been enjoying his novels lately. Unfortunately, if anything, it steered me farther away. I did however like learning about the movie business and the surprisingly complicated process of turning a book into a movie, but the text is just really dry. I couldn´t help being bored even though this is quite a short book. My Movie Business didn´t even make me want to watch the movies it discusses so unless you´re a dedicated John Irving fan and adore the movie adaptations of his novels, I can´t really recommend this.

Repetitive, dull and self-aggrandizing. Can't believe this is the same JI who wrote Garp, Owen Meany etc. I learned nothing about movies, nothing about JI and nothing about the process of adapting novels to the screen. One of the laziest books I've read in a long time. At least it's short.

i would marry john irving too, if i could.

This book was enjoyably short, a kind of read in one sitting book. It was not all that interesting, it basically reinforced the fact that John Irving doesn't believe in being edited and that there was a lot of strife and many, many years put into the making of The Cider House Rules the movie. Not a bad book though, I think I am going to have to go watch the movie now.

I won t say much more than that i enjoyed reading this book, because it explores the joys, and sometimes also the frustrations of a renowned author getting his favorite books brought to the big screen. It also goes into the relationship this author had with his family and, especially, his famous doctor grandfather. It is very flattering for any author to have even one book made into a movie, but three or four of his were, and he seems to have gotten alot of enjoyment and a genuine satisfaction out of every aspect of each film making project. He even enjoyed the three times that there was an attempt to make The Cider House Rules into a releasable movie that failed. There is some discussion of the way Hollywood has of leaving out, in the name of scoring more profits at the box office, some of the most essential elements of the story line thought to be too vulgar or little understood. I would really encourage others to read this somewhat unpopular book, though, as it is rare that a man of letters will devote an entire book to just to all that went into adapting his books to the silver screen.

I love John Irving's books - he's one of my top 5 authors - and I was hoping this was going to include some background on Garp, my favorite of his works, both the book and the movie, but 90% of the book focuses on The Cider House Rules, a book I read when it first came out and a movie I've never seen, tho I would still like to. Sort of. Cider House Rules was, for me, one of those books that sticks with you so much, you never need to reread it, or see it on the screen, because it was so vivid and intense and detailed you didn't need a movie. And it sounds like the movie was drastically different, due to the condensing of a huge book into 120 minutes. Remember, a page of dialogue generally equals a minute of screen time, so a 560 page book cut down to even 130 pages is a huge loss of storyline. And Irving does explain the how and why. it took him 18 years to manage to get the movie to screen.

This book was okay, but really, it's a book about the difficulties of turning a novel into a movie. It was nice, but nothing special, nothing I'd hoped. It was nice information to know - what a killer cast Cider House Rules had! - but I'm not into writing screenplays, so the book had little to offer me outside of a nice little aside. Thankfully, it's short and reads very fast.

It's not a bad book - not at all - if that's your thing. Sadly, it's not mine, and I found it rather blah because of that. C'est la vie.

This is a very short memoir/long essay of sorts about Irving turning his novel “The Cider House Rules” into a screenplay. I have not read the book or seen the film, but after reading this, there are enough spoilers and details to extinguish most of the mystery within both. The author also gives us some insights into many of his previous experiences in trying to adapt some of his other novels onto the silver screen, with some predictably mixed, though entertaining results.

There is some interesting historical background information in here, particularly in relation to abortion and medicine within the US. But this is also, in part a pro-life essay/novel/film and Irving himself says, “Politically speaking, if I were to make a list of people who should see ‘The Cider House Rules’, two groups would go to the top of the list: politicians who call themselves pro-life (meaning anti-abortion) and twelve year old girls.”

He recalls one story when he was doing a book signing and a pro-life woman cut in line to tell him, “We just want people to be responsible for their children.” as she patted his hand. He patted her hand in return and quoted from his own book, “If you expect people to be responsible for their children, you have to give them the right to choose whether or not to have children.”

With this basically being a promotion for the film, we get plenty of script excerpts and even small passages from the original novel. There are also many run of the mill images and stills from the movie, including three of the author himself, who plays the role of ‘the disapproving stationmaster’.

This is sprinkled with some colourful detail about his rather snobbish sounding, yet highly talented grandfather, who was a doctor and Harvard graduate whose stories informed many aspects of the novel in question. There are some interesting insights into Irving's writing process but owing to the nature of the subject it can get a little tedious and self-indulgent. And yet this does possess a quirky, understated appeal. Some of Irving’s various digressions can often give it the feel of sitting down with an old timer by an open fire, recounting really interesting old war stories, which really come to life nicely.

I don’t believe this is one of Irving’s best outings. Ostensibly, it is mostly about bringing three of his novels to the big screen: The Cider House Rules, The World According to Garp, and The Hotel New Hampshire. A Son of the Circus gets some attention, but then it ultimately is not made into a film. For almost 170 pages (along with a large number of photographs), he tells the reader about the experience of writing the screenplay for The Cider House Rules, getting his son cast for a minor role, and tells about his relationships with four different directors, right up to the end, when the cast wraps the film about an hour from Irving’s home in Maine.

Having read six of his novels and his book of essays, I believe Irving usually swarms the page with important detail: sensory detail, historical detail, emotional detail, whatever is required to bring alive the scene or the chapter. However, here he seems to shorthand a lot of that information. Anecdotes that could be opened up are not. Arguments with others on the set could be brought alive; mostly they are not. He is privileged to be on the set of a major motion picture (Miramax) with access to everyone from the best boy to the seamstress to someone in charge of mess. And yet he doesn’t seem to want to share the finer details of that experience with the reader. If he had, the book could easily have been 250 pages or more. Disappointing.

Sólo para los muy fanáticos de John Irving que hayan visto la película "Las normas de la casa de la sidra" muy recientemente y hayan leído su novela.