John Irving

A Son of the Circus

Nick Gracilla

New Years resolution: no need to finish a book that’s not great. Many hundreds of pages into this unpleasant, bizarre book and I just don’t want to learn more about scars, emasculation, castration, prostitution, injury, infection, broken bones, deformity, murder by axes or golf clubs. Enough. 

Not recommended.

Cams Campbell

I'm reviewing the audio book, read by David Colacci and available on Audible. 

It took me a while to get into this book. In fact, I got about a quarter of the way through and then stopped for a few months, although this was more to do with the fact that I was listening on my Shuffle in the swimming pool and then stopped swimming while I healed from surgery. I had to go back to the beginning again...

I loved the plot of this book. Although it was slow to start, it was definitely worth persevering. It was rather different to the other John Irving books I've read. The reader of the audio book brought this to life really, really well. It was especially notable when Dr Daruwhalla was getting exasperated and angry!

The characters in the book are as lifelike as in any novel of Irving's, or indeed anyone else's. Mr Setna (I don't know the spellings, since it was an audiobook, so please forgive me that!) the steward at the Duckworth Club was superb. And how about Patel, the police commissioner!

I particularly enjoyed following Martin Mills and his change from blind faith to doubt. Both he and John D are 39 in the story, which just happens to be the same age as I am, so it was interesting to hear about how Martin was still finding himself. Me too! 

The only thing I find annoying about Irving's writing style, and it's evident in all his novels, is his overuse of beginning a sentence with the word 'that'. 

'That his something or other was big or small was evidence of his whatever...'. That kind of thing. I just find it overused and ultimately annoying as a result. But that aside, I loved this book!

A Son of the Circus

Reviews