Too sinister to be comic

Press, 7 August 1982, Page 16

Too sinister to be comic

The Hotel New Hampshire. By John Irving. Cape, 1981. 401 pp. $17.95. (Reviewed by Mhairi Erber)

John Irving tells a good story, creates some interesting characters and situations, and puts everything together in a workmanlike way. “The Hotel New Hampshire" is a family saga, heavily laced with Freudian symbolism. It is often, as the blurb says, “hilarious and consuming,” though the humour is at times black and the consumption not terminal. The family is that of Win Berry whose story is told with a wealth of complicated and bizarre detail by his son, John. The narrative incorporates a bear called State-of-Maine and later Earl, a dog called Sorrow and a girl. Suzy, who masquerades as a bear. The tale rattles along at a great pace for more than half of its 400 pages. There may not be any depth of characterisation, but there is no dearth of characters, the most engaging of whom is lowa Bob, Win's father. Nor is the symbolism as oppressive as it later becomes. With the exception of Franny's (John’s sister's) rape one can ignore the book’s more serious intents in the enjoyment of the predicaments into which Win Berry leads his family. However, their migration to Vienna brings a change in pace and tone, due (I suspect) less to

the change in the family's circumstances, than it is to John Irving being on less familiar territory. The book becomes more laboured and artificial and a good deal, less riveting. There are still absurd and bizarre situations and characters, but they become too sinister to be comic. The twin themes of sex and violence come together in the second Hotel New Hampshire in Vienna. One floor of the hotel is occupied by prostitutes; another by radicals who plan to blow up the Opera House. Although there is a good deal of emphasis on John and Franny’s incestuous feelings and their working out, the book is really about humankind's aggressive, selfdestructive, tendencies. In the first half of the .book the characters are acted upon. They are on the receiving end of misfortunes great and small, and are . powerless to resist. In the second part of the book they, eventually, take control of ; the situation. It is an interesting idea . which, perhaps, needed longer to mature. • Clearly, John Irving aimed to write a i really serious novel, something which ■ worked at a philosophical level, and even ) though this aspect of “The Hotel New - Hampshire" is somewhat unsatisfactory, it ; is to his credit that he has aimed forsomething better, even if he has not - achieved it. ",