Avenue of Mysteries by John Irving

[lunabee34]

So, we had a colleague over for dinner in December and spent a wonderful evening talking about favorite books and favorite authors. Jon's favorite author is John Irving; I read The World According to Garp about 15 years ago and remember enjoying it (although I don't think I'd be able to read it now because of child death as a prominent plot point) but remember little else about the book or Irving's writing style.

We don't normally exchange Christmas gifts with Jon, but he surprised me with Irving's latest book, and now that I have read it, I have to come up with good things to say about it as the gift was very thoughtful and kind.

So, the good stuff first.

The book is called Avenue of Mysteries because it deals with the capital M Mysteries of the Catholic Church, but also because it is in some sense a mystery story. The past is interwoven deftly with the present in such a way that clues about how the protagonist's life is shaped gradually come together, and figuring out what happened to Juan Diego when he was a kid and what's happening to him now at the end of his life is really interesting.

Irving is good at characterization. Lupe, Juan Diego's sister, is fascinating, as are any number of the characters in the book.

Juan Diego's adopted parents die of AIDS in the early nineties, and reading about how much he loved them and how he was never ashamed or embarrassed by their unorthodox relationship is incredibly moving. In fact, Juan Diego explicitly states that one of the reasons he never pursues a romantic relationship with anyone is that he can't imagine loving anyone as much as his parents loved each other.

However, I feel as if this is a book that only a white guy of a certain age could love (which will not feature in my discussion of this book with Jon as he is indeed a white guy of a certain age).



Lots and lots and lots of unnecessary sex with women much younger than Juan Diego (two women, in fact; a mother and daughter who I am pretty sure are supposed to be avatars of the Virgin Mary and the Virgin of Guadalupe). Lots and lots of thinking about sex and phallic imagery. I was infinitely more interested in the story of Juan Diego's childhood, so the constant cutting back to the present where he debates whether to take Viagra or skip his beta blockers and has moderately embarrassing (to me!) sex with goddess/deities was Not the Thing for Me.

I also was confused about a plot point. One of Juan Diego's adopted parents is Flor, a prostitute. Flor is always referred to with feminine pronouns, Flor identifies as a woman, and Flor takes female hormones (and there's a really poignant section where she has to stop taking them because they interfere with her AIDS treatment and Juan Diego shaves her beard every day for her; I totally am tearing up right now just thinking about it). Yet Irving consistently calls Flor a transvestite. I fully admit my ignorance, but wouldn't that make Flor transgender? I always thought transvestites are men who identify as men but enjoy wearing women's clothes. Maybe Irving was trying to use the language that would have been in place in Juan Diego's childhood, but then I think he would have been sure to use 21st century terms in the present day narrative to contrast the terms. IDK

So, not my favorite, but I did cry a couple three times, so that's a point in Irving's favor.

Comments

[kore]

....wow, that sounds better than a lot of Irving's recent books (he wrote one recently about crossdressing that sounded cringeworthy). He's like Updike and Cheever and other Johns of that era for me: great stylist, great at characterization etc., but a lot of the time the writer's assumed POV makes me feel really uncomfortable. Just all the assumptions and default views, if that makes sense.

[cathexys]

ROTFL. I love the Johns collection. I'd throw in Barth there as well (though we need a Donald and a Philip and a Thomas maybe as well??? :)

I totally agree. It's not that the white straight dudeness even bothers me as much as it bores me in a way that even the great prose can't overcome.

Lunabee, I think you may be able to focus on the positive with him? Because it sounds like there's a lot of great stuff. As for the trans issues--I don't think everyone's as on the ball on the language issue, though you'd expect even with all his dudeness Juan would have grocked the fact that his mom was transgendered (or would probably have been better termed pre-op transsexual even back then?). But then as you say, early 90s were still the stone ages in trans theory!

[Btw, my favorite during my 80s Irving phase was always Hotel New Hampshire--though I my retroactively imbue much of the book with my fascination with both baby!Lowe and baby!Foster, equally hot and even hotter together in their incestuousness in the film :)] <- Also, as I was looking it up to make sure I remembered the right film, I had forgotten that Natassja Kinski was in there...

[kore]

All-Johns No Janes Allowed? Heh.

Oh, HNH is great, yeah. I actually liked Garp a lot when I was younger, altho I wouldn't call it my favourite book, and what I really liked were Jenny and Roberta and Ellen, Garp really not so much, and the Pension Grillparzer story was great. And then it went into Grand Guignol (sp) territory with the car accident AND everything after it, and was much less interesting. I think I saw the movie first, and John Lithgow and Robin Williams and Glenn Close were all great. But that book was ABSOLUTELY unavoidable in the eighties, I remember a supermarket paperback display (remember supermarket MMMPB displays?) which had a rainbow of that book, same font with different cover colours.

But that book is so weird. One of the first positive portrayals of a transsexual in AmLit ever! .....and the radical feminists in it are all nuts. And the rape survivor who 'inspires' them rejects them utterly. NICE ONE, IRVING.

[lunabee34]

I *thought* Robin Williams was in that. I remember really liking the movie when I saw it in the early 2000s. I could never watch it again at this point, though.

[lunabee34]

There is good stuff; I will be able to have a positive convo with Jon about it. :)

I remember also liking the Garp film; pretty sure Robin Williams was in it; pretty sure it would slay me to watch again.

[lunabee34]

And thanks for speaking to my question. I thought I had understood the terms correctly.

[lunabee34]

Yes, yes! That's exactly it.

I liked the protagonist as a kid, but not so much his older self.

[zulu]

I really liked several of his--A Son of the Circus, A Prayer for Owen Meany, and The Cider House Rules. All were excellent, but all in the same way. A displaced middle-aged man reflects on his youth and the more magical things that happened then that he can't recreate. He doesn't fit in, he misses someone or something (that he may never have had to begin with), and he is artfully lonely in a way that can't be fixed even though he has people who love and support him. They're great books and I reread them; they can even, at times, be laugh-out-loud funny. But I don't feel the need to read any more.

[kore]

I didn't like Rules, but I read Owen Meany when it came out and actually like it a lot -- I thought it was almost Dickensian (Dickens is Irving's favourite writer and it feels like he strains after those effects a lot of the time).

[lunabee34]

I should read that one; I hear good things about it.

[lunabee34]

Oh my, you have successfully identified the major themes of this book (except that the protagonist has passed from middle age into senior citizen territory).

Josh's sister went through a phase where she read all of Irving's published stuff, and Prayer for Owen Meany was her favorite.

[zulu]

*nods* Owen Meany's probably my favourite. It has a mystery of sorts in it, and it's just structured beautifully; all the clues come together at the end, the past and present timelines converge, and the emotional punch is great. Peak Irving, I feel.

[lunabee34]

Well, off to the library then. :)

[likeadeuce]

I ended up enjoying this book a lot even though I saw all the problems with it...it made me want to read more Irving who I've never tried before....I bought Owen Meant off Amazon already.

[lunabee34]

I've heard multiple recs of Owen Meany. I think I should read it too; Josh's sister really likes it.

[spikedluv]

It sounds like there's a lot of positive for you to concentrate on when you speak to Jon about it, but NGL, I'd pay good money to have you mention (not even in a negative way, just as a passing comment) that you noticed the sexual imagery and thought it was interesting. I want his reaction, please. *veg*

[lunabee34]

Ha ha. I should do that. I'll definitely report back.

[sallymn]

Sounds interesting but... not my style, I have to say.

[lunabee34]

Yeah. It wasn't really mine either. I think I'm going to read Prayer for Owen Meany. Everybody seems to cite that one as their fave/the best.