I finally figured out what bothers me about John Green, and all it took was several years and In One Person by John Irving.
Starting a book review by mentioning the dislike of another, entirely different, author may seem strange, but I think it’s fitting for a book like In One Person. The first few chapters of the book seemed disjointed and confused. The narrator, Billy, was talking about his childhood, his adulthood, and the times in between. He spoke of relationships with men and women and people in between. I couldn’t follow the flow of the story. I was totally and utterly confused. Later, I realized that was the point. I was confused like Billy once was. As the novel progressed, Billy was more direct, easier to understand and more confident. The books seemed less simpering and apologetic.
I chose this book for two reasons. First, for all the books we’ve read in multiple genres and formats, we hadn’t yet read a book that discussed, as its main focus, the LGBTQ community. That seemed like an obvious hole and a missed opportunity to explore topics or situations with which some of us may be unfamiliar.
The second reason I chose In One Person is because John Irving is a difficult author to love, though I do. His writing, I’ve found, is hit and miss. Sometimes he’s brilliant, and sometimes he’s dull. I slogged through Until I Find You and came close to hating The Fourth Hand. (Irving came close to betraying me with that book. I didn’t read his next release.)
I know exactly where I was when I read my first Irving novel. I was on my way home from Lake Tahoe and the book was A Widow for One Year. It was 1998. I read that book from cover to cover. I couldn’t put it down. I loved it. I got that rush you get when you read a book that inspires you. It’s not the same feeling you get when you read something really entertaining. Those books, too, you can’t put down. An inspiring book is more about reading someone you could never measure up to, but you wouldn’t miss it for the world. There are passages from that book I can still recite.
��there is no nakedness that compares to being naked in front of someone for the first time.�
�It was a sound like someone trying not to make a sound.�
�Of course, if I write a first-person novel about a woman writer, I am inviting every book reviewer to apply the autobiographical label — to conclude that I am writing about myself. But one must never not write a certain kind of novel out of fear of what the reaction to it will be.�
That last one I don’t actually remember, but if you’ve read John Irving, it’s says as much about John Irving as anything could.
I read every other John Irving book I could find when I got home. Like most of the world, my favorite was A Prayer for Owen Meany. That book. I’m still searching for a book I love as much.
�I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice. Not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother’s death, but because he is the reason I believe in God. I am a Christian because of Owen Meany.�
�Your memory is a monster; you forget�it doesn’t. It simply files things away. It keeps things for you, or hides things from you�and summons them to your recall with will of its own. You think you have a memory; but it has you!�
�I want to go on being a student,” I told him. “I want to be a teacher. I’m just a reader,” I said.
“DON’T SOUND SO ASHAMED,” he said. “READING IS A GIFT.”
“I learned it from you,” I told him.
“IT DOESN’T MATTER WHERE YOU LEARNED IT- IT’S A GIFT. IF YOU CARE ABOUT SOMETHING, YOU HAVE TO PROTECT IT. IF YOU’RE LUCKY ENOUGH TO FIND A WAY OF LIFE YOU LOVE, YOU HAVE TO FIND THE COURAGE TO LIVE IT.�
My favorite lines from In One Person:
�people can�t, unhappily, invent their mooring posts, their lovers and their friends, anymore than they can invent their parents.�
“Tom Atkins would be a safer choice for you than Kacques Kittredge, William” Miss Frost said. I knew this was true, too, though I didn’t find Atkins attractive–except in the way that someone who adores you can become a little attractive to you, over time. (But that almost never works out, does it?)”
�Self-hatred is worse than loneliness.�
�It happens to many teenagers-that moment when you feel full of resentment or distrust for those adults you once loved unquestioningly.�
Like every John Irving book ever published, there are recurrent themes and narrative situations/locations. Irving often injects himself in his narratives, which often span decades. For example, there is almost always a main character who is a writer. The setting at some point will involve a New England all-boys preparatory school. Someone, at some point, is a “sexual outsider.” A parent, usually a father, is absent. Someone dies. There is wrestling. My God, there is always wrestling.
Which brings me back to John Green. Like John Irving, Green repeats his themes and characters. There is always one or more characters with an odd habit or hobby. In Looking for Alaska, Miles memorizes the last words of famous people. Colin Singleton will only date girls named Katherine (with a K) in An Abundance of Katherines. And of course, in The Fault in Our Stars, Augustus Waters doesn’t smoke the cigarettes he holds between his lips. �It’s a metaphor, see: You put the killing thing right between your teeth, but you don’t give it the power to do its killing.�
Oh, Lord. That brings me to what truly bothers me about John Green. I have never, ever, heard teens act as clever or communicate as well as the ones in John Green books. The dialog is so pithy, so perfect, so very much unlike almost all teenagers the world over.
�Oh, I wouldn’t mind, Hazel Grace. It would be a privilege to have my heart broken by you.�
…
�I’m in love with you,” he said quietly.
“Augustus,” I said.
“I am,” he said. He was staring at me, and I could see the corners of his eyes crinkling. “I’m in love with you, and I’m not in the business of denying myself the simple pleasure of saying true things. I’m in love with you, and I know that love is just a shout into the void, and that oblivion is inevitable, and that we’re all doomed and that there will come a day when all our labor has been returned to dust, and I know the sun will swallow the only earth we’ll ever have, and I am in love with you.�
…
�My thoughts are stars I cannot fathom into constellations.�
…
�As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.�
John Green is saccharine. Maybe the problem is with me. I’m don’t like cloying speeches or overly romantic gestures, nor am I swayed by pretty words or boys who don’t smoke metaphorical cigarettes. (Yes, I know his audience is far younger than I am, but even at that age I didn’t like perfectly clever.)
John Irving is many things (overly masculine, predictable, sporadic, and arguably repetitive), but he is not sweet. Edmund White’s book endorsement sums it up well. “From the beginning of his career, Irving has always cherished our peculiarities–in a fierce, not a saccharine way.”
In One Person was fierce. At times I didn’t like it, at times I was uncomfortable, and many, many times I was sad. I can’t go into it because I don’t want to reveal spoilers, but the last third of the book had me as close to tears as I ever get. That’s what I like about Irving books. Like them or not, they pull emotion out of me.
�We read to know we’re not alone.�
? William Nicholson, Shadowlands
This is my first introduction to reading Irving. Now, I’m curious to read the few you highlighted as favorites – maybe I’ll like them better?
I didn’t hate In One Person. I didn’t like it either.
The narrator’s voice annoyed me more often than not, but the story that Billy was telling was compelling. I loved that he was telling stories that were just as uncomfortable as they were sad. My heart ached for Miss Frost and rejoiced at her courage at the same time. And Poor Tom! Oh, poor poor Tom. Oh, and Grandpa Harry – how he found a way to live the way he was comfortable; by pretending – and yet not pretending. I think I loved that the best.
So I can definitely attest that I grew attached to his characters, but Billy’s narration just grated on my ever last nerve. I rolled my eyes and huffed and sighed just as often as I laughed and chewed my lip and scowled.
Definitely not my favorite John Irving novel. Not the worst, but not the best. That’s how it is with him. He repeats and repeats. Sometimes it’s great, sometimes it isn’t.
But oh, Tom Atkins! Poor Tom is right! He broke my heart a million times and so did Kittredge. I’m not sure we were supposed to like him, but I did from the beginning. It was a little obvious what he was/would be, but I still liked his story. I didn’t like how, like Shakespeare, his story concluded off stage, but when Irving used that quote, I knew it would happen somewhere to someone.
Ha! Oh, Kittredge! Yes, his fate was pretty obvious.
However, I told Sweetie at some point that I was shocked at how long it took me to figure out the deal with Miss Frost. It wasn’t until Billy mentioned her husky laugh – or something to that effect – that I finally had the light bulb go on. Suddenly all of the comments by Grandma & Aunt made more sense!
And did you notice how a librarian helped Billy find himself? That’s a helluva a reference request. ;)
HA!
What Shaina said. From the “I didn’t hate In One Person and I didn’t like it either” on. Early on the repetition got to me. As in, ‘okay! okay! I get it already! Billy has crushes on the “wrong” people.’ I didn’t find the back and forth confusing and Irving writes so beautifully that when I account (and leave out) all the repetition, I was able to keep reading. There were some areas where I swear that I thought I’d put my bookmark back in the wrong place, but no.. I was where I was supposed to be.
I did figure out Miss Frost from almost the introduction of the character and I wasn’t surprised about Kittredge, either. I didn’t get as attached to any of these characters as I’d hoped to.
I really wanted to like this far more than I did. Loved the idea of the narrator being from the LGBTQ community, but I don’t think Irving’s book lived up to it’s promise. I did have a hard time believing that many people in a small town, all connected to Billy in some way, were LGBT.. REALLY? hmmm.. I think it was overdone.
Irving does get points for trying this out though.
That’s what I thought was confusing! Billy would be talking about something he already described and then he would say, “But I already mentioned that, as you know.” Yeah, dude. I KNOW. So quit making me have to pay attention to every last preposition.
I wanted so badly to love this book. SO BADLY. The Fourth Hand…gah. To read that shortly after Until I Find You, whereby the end I was like John, please get over your daddy issues, just deflated me. This is the first book of his I read since THE FOURTH HAND DEBACLE, and when I saw it addressed the LGBTQ community I was so excited. But, alas, I only liked it. 3 stars on GR, and that’s because Irving is such an incredible writer. Even with all the problems the book had, I still can’t say I hated it. His writing, biased that I am, makes me look past a lot.
As for the plethora of LGBTQ people in First Sister or Favorite River or whatever that place was called, I saw it as more repetition of Irving’s favorite “sexual suspect” theme. I’m thinking going to an all-boys school was, like, the most homo-erotic experience of his life. Dude can not stop talking about the boys in all-boys schools. Or the wrestling. He wrestled until he was 34 and then coached until he was in his late 40s. I mean, honestly. O_o
I was surprised to hear this book won awards. If it did, it has to be because of the infrequently addressed subject matter by a well respected author. Surely there are better books on the subject with a less annoying narrator.
You know what, typing out this comment helped me figure out what I didn’t like about Billy. He complains that being bisexual means that he doesn’t fit in anywhere, and that no one trusts him. Looking at his romantic relationships, who the hell can trust him?! I’m not sure it has anything to do with his bisexuality. The dude’s a player! He’s in and out relationships quickly, says he absolutely never wants to get married, has an extraordinarily intimate relationship with his best friend at the expense of romantic partners, and pines for Miss Frost and Kittredge for 60 years. If the guy was waving any more red flags, he could single-handedly land all the planes at Laguardia.
Last comment! On a personal note, I didn’t like the interviews John Irving gave when this book came out. I read most of them this week and one particular soundbite bugged me.
When I was a boy, I was confusingly attracted to just about everyone: in lieu of having much in the way of actual sex (this was the �50s), I imagined having sex all the time — with a disturbing variety of people. I was attracted to my friends� mothers, to girls my own age, and — at the all-boys� school, where I was on the wrestling team — to certain older boys among my teammates. Easily two-thirds of my sexual fantasies frightened me; the fear (as you wrote, that I would �never, never be like other people�) was constant. My first girlfriend was so afraid of getting pregnant that she permitted only anal intercourse. I liked it, thus adding to my terror that I must be gay!
It turned out that I liked girls, but the memory of my attractions to the �wrong� people never left me. The impulse to bisexuality was very strong; my earliest sexual experiences — more important, my earliest sexual imaginings — taught me that sexual desire is mutable. In fact, in my case — at a most formative age — sexual mutability was the norm.
Emphasis in the original.
There’s just something about the way he goes on and on about “thinking” he might be bisexual and all his “imaginings” and then states “it turns out I like girls.” It’s almost like he wants to be oh-so supportive but then wants to make sure everyone knows he’s irreparably heterosexual.
Sigh. I could go on and on. These posts are SO hard to write. I can’t really write about all the plot points without revealing spoilers, so I ended up flooding my own comment section with additional posts!
I really didn’t care about Billy. That was one character (the MAIN character at that!) who I never got attached to. You reminded me with your comment just now about the bisexuality *problem*. The complaining that being bisexual means that he doesn�t fit in anywhere – when really it’s his own doing. Other things bugged me too though: The insistence that we know exactly what words he can and cannot pronounce. The repetitive storytelling. Just so much about the guy bugged me.
HA! AGREED about John Irving and his hang up with wrestling and all-boys schools. (can he write a book that doesn’t feature those??) Also agreed about Billy. It wasn’t that he was bisexual that he was irritating it was that he really didn’t treat friends or lovers that well. Definitely seemed like a ‘player’ (and I just don’t have that much patience for those!)
the words? again with the so many people connected to Billy that had some sort of speech issue.. IRRITATING.
I haven’t read John Irving and now I’m really interested in reserving something from my library. So thank you!
I don’t really enjoy John Green because the genre just doesn’t speak to me anymore. But I don’t mind his writing. It reminds me a little of Gilmore Girls; excessively verbose with far too formal ramblings. That’s sort of what I grew up with, how my friends were. So it doesn’t bother me at all. Besides, if it isn’t the way most teens relate, perhaps it would be something to aspire to?
You probably already know this, but “A Sound Like Someone Trying Not to Make A Sound” is a creepy-ish children’s picture book, based on Irving’s quote.
And my 12 year old would be quite crushed on your opinion of Greene (she quotes the Augustus cigarette line frequently, I think she finds it the coolest “rebel” idea she’s discoverd so far in her 12 years). But, she is 12. And we’re not! ;)
It’s been a long time since I read this book, but I love John Irving’s books so much. Even the silly ones. Until I Find You was probably what broke down my final internal reserve against tattoos. Cider House Rules was such an amazing revelation. Just love him.
Sorry, this doesn’t really feel like a value-added comment, but I’m gonna submit any way. Happy Friday!