For some reason Irving's trademark humour and whimsy just didn't land for me in this rambling overlong story. The plot is almost impenetrable, he doesn't seem to have any real feeling for India or any of his characters, and his treatment of trans, gay and other minority characters feels cynical and exploitative. I might be done with Irving for a good long while.

Not his best

Caught in between two cultures? Yes, I know something about that. And I loved being taken to India. I read it during my first trip to India in 2000. I felt caught into one of those "life mirroring art mirroring life" moments. Two thumbs up.

Ack, ok, maybe it's me.
I love Irving, but I haven't read any of his stuff in 20 years. I thought it would be a good time to pick one up, since I enjoy his books sharp characterization and gripping story lines. Perhaps that would break me out of my recent rut? No such luck. This book is a lumbering, ponderous mess. I was 100 pages into it and I still didn't know what it was about, and I got the sense Irving didn't either. The main character is an Indian-born, Toronto-based doctor, who also ghostwrites Bollywood movies. There's a murder at his country club, which sort of kicks off the plot, but Irving seems slightly less interested in it than I was. Otherwise, we get a lot of repetitive chapters about dwarfs and transsexuals. The only times the book captured my attention was when Irving focused on the two American characters - here his writing gained the strength and sharpness I remembered. Perhaps he was intimidated by writing for Indian characters (in his introduction, he states he doesn't know anything about India and did no research, which I guess was honest enough). What a disappointment.

633 pages, and I never grew tired of it. Well, the last chapter before the epilogue began the process of tying up loose ends, and there were a lot to tie up, so one could see that a long ending was under way. Irving was quite thorough about it, and actually I appreciate that. Irving's theme is that of a man who never quite feels at home. Dr. Daruwalla was born to a privileged family in India; he maintains a medical practice there for several months of the year, but his residence is now Toronto, and he doesn't fully identify with either culture. The story takes place almost completely in India, and is a complex one, involving circus dwarves, a Bombay cinema star, an American missionary, prostitutes, transvestites of various kinds, hippies, social club members, and of course, because of a disturbing series of murders, a police detective and his unlikely wife. Some of the crucial characters are just being introduced shortly before page 200. How can you get tired of that?

Sirkuksen poika oli Vesimiehen jälkeen pitkästyttävin John Irvingin kirja ikinä.

Kaoottinen kuin Intia, jossa melkein kaikki tapahtuu. Ei hurmaavalla tavalla vaan sekopäisesti.

On taas värikästä sakkia. Ikääntyvä tohtori ja parikymmentä muuta hahmoa, monikulttuurista ja -arvoista, sukupuoli-identiteettejä ja -tauteja, sirkusta, vammaisuutta, rikoksia, kääpiötä. Irvingille vähemmän ei todellakaan ole enemmän.

Tähdistä toisen annan Irvingin humanismille. En kirjalle.

Had to read this book for a class, turned out to be one of my all-time favorites. If you like to read books set elsewhere (India, in this case) then read this book.

Irving's waste of paper, but had potential. Story had eccentrics, but could not empathize with characters. Egregious for an Irving novel.

Een zoon van het circus

John Irving

In een klepper van 745 pagina’s opent John Irving hier een circustent die gevuld is met personages van diverse pluimage. Er is dokter Farrokh Darouwalla, een negenenvijftigjarige orthopeed en scenarist met schrijversambitie in zijn vrije tijd. Geboren in Bombay is hij medicijnen gaan studeren in Wenen om met zijn Oostenrijkse vrouw Julia uiteindelijk in Toronto als Canadees staatsburger terecht te komen.

Maar India blijft trekken en regelmatig gaat hij voor een aantal maanden terug naar India om er te werken in een ziekenhuis voor gehandicapte kinderen. Wanneer in de gerenommeerde Duckworth Club het lijk van één van de clubleden wordt gevonden blijkt dat er een link is met de twee moorden waarbij Darouwalla twintig jaar eerder als arts werd opgeroepen.

Zijn interesse in alles wat met het circus te maken heeft doorkruist dit verhaal dat een explosie is van dwergen, wilde dieren, getalenteerde weeskinderen, uit elkaar gehaalde tweelingen, dronken regisseurs, hoerige actrices, nooit verwijfde transgenders, kleurrijke taxichauffeurs, nachtclubeigenaars, Jezuïeten, de katholieke kerk, prostituees en bedelaars.

De manier waarop Irving zijn boeken opbouwt werkt de spanning in de hand. Ook in dit boek begint hij met de slotscène en werkt daar dan naar toe. Dezelfde manier van werken gebruikt hij bij alle tussenverhalen. De lezer krijgt een blik in de toekomst wat maakt dat de nieuwsgierigheid het wint en men blijft doorlezen.

Er is een hoeveelheid aan verschillende verhaallijnen. Zo is er Vinod, een dwerg die in Farrokh ’s leven komt wanneer die start met zijn ‘dwergenbloedproject’. Er is het verhaal van John D., de acteur die de beroemde Inspecteur Dhar speelt maar ook een soort aangenomen zoon van Darouwalla is. Er is de échte inspecteur Patel die de moorden onderzoekt en met zijn vrouw Nancy zijn eigen geschiedenis heeft.

Dit boek is zoveel meer als een zoektocht naar een sadistische seriemoordenaar. Farrokh Darouwalla gaat vooral op zoek naar waar hij thuishoort. Integratie is onmogelijk stelt hij, in Bombay is hij geen Indiër, in Toronto wordt hij vaak met achterdocht behandeld als een vreemdeling. Diezelfde zoektocht stelt zich ook in zijn religie.

Het gevaar van vuistdikke romans is natuurlijk dat er af en toe een soort verveling kan optreden maar daar maakt de auteur snel komaf mee door een nieuwe vooruitblik te gunnen en met de uitgebreide epiloog in deze roman sluit Irving het gordijn van deze onderhoudende circusvoorstelling.

I love John Irving with an unbridled and, to be fair, probably pretty biased passion. I really haven't met an Irving book I didn't like. Despite the chaos, despite the coincidence, despite the crazy, I'm always irrevocably hooked from start to finish. A Son of the Circus was no exception.

A Son of the Circus is about Dr. Farrokh Daruwalla, and his practice as an orthopedist, and his quasi-adopted son John, and his career as a screenwriter, and his unlikely connection to an idealistic but clueless missionary. Did I mention there were dwarves and child prostitutes and twins-separated-at-birth, too? This novel was spastic and all over the place and I loved every second of it. I have no idea how Irving manages to juggle so many plot lines and characters and voices and points of view, but he does it. He does it with style and voice and with flair and I loved every second of it.

The ending dragged a little bit, sure, and some of the characters were more dynamic than others, but still. Sometimes I need a little crazy in my literary life and A Son of the Circus did not disappoint. And I loved every second of it.

By far and away, my least favorite book by the author. I found it very discombobulated and at times difficult to read. It seemed to me that the book would have been better reconfigured as 6 or 7 short stories. As it was I found it more work than anything short of a book on calculus should ever be.

Do you remember David Letterman’s recurring bit, “Is This Anything?” The velvet stage curtain would rise to reveal a totally random performance - e.g., a person in a pig costume playing drums while simultaneously balancing spinning plates on his snout? Letterman and Paul Schaffer would momentarily assess the scene and determine whether the surprise spectacle was something —even if they couldn’t quite say what that something was — or nothing at all. I was continuously reminded of that sketch as I read this book.

The curtain rises and before the reader is a literary stage of oddities — India, a drug smuggling dildo, eunuchs, a murdering transgender woman, a reformed American hippie, a Jesuit zealot, a rabid chimp, a child prostitute, a second-rate circus, a doctor for crippled children whose true passion is studying circus dwarfs and covertly writing blockbuster inspector-themed movies starring his adopted younger brother who is actually the biological son of American movie types and an identical twin secretly separated at birth. You’d be forgiven for asking the age old question, “Wtf?”

Ah, wtf indeed. This book is bizarre, even by John Irving standards. But after 633 pages, I am concluding that this novel is . . . something. It’s still John Irving, with his hallmark clever writing (example below) and healthy dose of whimsy. Definitely not my favorite from one of my favorite authors, but I suppose something is better than nothing. 2.5 stars

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“She had the plump, youthful figure of a high-school voluptuary, but she wore a dark skirt that hugged her hips too tightly and was the wrong length for her. Miss Tanuja was short and the dress chopped her legs off at midcalf, which gave Dr. Daruwalla the impression that her thick ankles were wrists and her fat little feet were hands. Her blouse had a reflecting luminosity of a blue-green nature, as if flecked with algae dredged from a pond; and although the woman’s most pleasing quality was an overall curvaceousness, she’d chosen a bra that served her badly. From what little Dr. Daruwalla knew of bras, he judged it to be the old-fashioned pointy type—one of those rigidly constructed halters more suitable for protecting women from fencing injuries than for enhancing their natural shapeliness. And between Miss Tanuja’s outrageously uplifted and pointed breasts, there hung a crucifix, as if the Christ on Miss Tanuja’s cross—in addition to his other agonies—were expected to endure the misery of bouncing on the teacher’s ample but spear-headed bosoms.“