Call number
FIC IRV
Collection
Genres
Publication
Random House (2005), 848 pages
Description
The story of the actor Jack Burns. His mother, Alice, is a Toronto tattoo artist. When Jack is four, he travels with Alice to several North Sea ports; they are trying to find Jack's missing father, William, a church organist who is addicted to being tattooed. But Alice is a mystery, and William can't be found. Even Jack's memories are subject to doubt. Jack Burns goes to schools in Canada and New England, but what shapes him are his relationships with older women. John Irving renders Jack's life as an actor in Hollywood with the same richness of detail and range of emotions he uses to describe the tattoo parlors in those North Sea ports and the reverberating music Jack heard as a child in European churches.
Subjects
Media reviews
One of the problems with this novel is that Mr. Irving never finds a persuasive voice for narrating these events. The repeated acts of sexual abuse committed upon the prepubescent Jack play neither as awful, realistic acts of abuse nor as metaphorical, Grand Guignol encounters. As a result, the
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whole book is suffused with a smarmy but cartoonish aura: the reader is unable to sympathize with Jack as a poor abused child or to regard his experiences as some sort of farcical parable about the wicked ways of the world. Show Less
User reviews
LibraryThing member jdsbooks
Forget what you’ve heard about John Irving – the man is popular, yes, but he is not really a popular novelist. He is instead a popular biographer of fictional people, and if you read three or four of his better literary efforts this is very apparent; the strength of his work comes not from the
Irving himself must have forgotten he wasn’t a popular novelist for a while. There really is no other explanation for his last book, The Fourth Hand, which is, with barely a handful of compelling characters squeezed into its 316 pages, both literally and figuratively thin, at least by its author’s usual lofty standards. The Fourth Hand is far from a terrible book, but it isn’t the sort of 500 or 600 page Irving story whose fullness you can crawl down inside, spread yourself out and live within for a good long time – not the way you can with, say, The World According to Garp, A Prayer for Owen Meany or A Widow For One Year.
Thankfully Irving has abandoned the faster pace of The Fourth Hand and returned to the longer, fuller structure of which he is a master, and the result is the bulkiest of all his novels to date – essentially the biography of fictional Hollywood actor Jack Burns’ life without a father, Until I Find You covers nearly four decades of Burns’ personal history, makes use of more than a half-dozen countries as settings, and tips the scales at more than 800 pages.
At least one thing is certain: You won’t be able to pan this novel for being too thin.
Whether you’ll pan it for other deficiencies, however, will likely depend on your patience for the increasingly repetitive themes and crutch details of the Irving canon. Wrestling, the early development of the careers of writers, missing fathers, dysfunctional relationships and life at elite boarding schools – read the list of ingredients, and you’d swear this was the exact recipe Irving used to cook up his masterpiece, Garp. And you’d be right. But to his credit, in Until I Find You Irving does stir things around a bit, adding a dash of something new here and there as needed, so that, finally, the story is not – as some will no doubt suggest – the work of an author who after 11 books can do nothing more than repeat himself.
The narrative joins Burns at the age of four. His mother, Alice, a professional tattooist, has dragged him to Europe to track down his ink-addicted, organ-playing runaway father, William Burns, an alleged womanizer whose lifelong goal is to play all of the most famous organs in the world while simultaneously covering every inch of his body in ink.
Like the best biographers, Irving’s sense of setting is impeccable, and his take on the colorful history and inhabitants – primarily prostitutes, tattooists and tattoo addicts – of the underground ink culture prove it. But he doesn’t linger overlong in the overseas settings. The pursuit of William from country to country, organ to organ, tattooist to tattooist, quickly becomes more than Alice can sustain, and she returns with her son to Canada, where the boy is allowed to attend an all-girls private grade school and hone his acting skills – both on the stage, and in his daily life.
From the moment he begins school, Jack’s life takes shape around a series of strange relationships with women, most of them older and in some way emotionally challenged. He’s molested by high school girls, their mothers, his maid, a teacher, and later, by complete strangers. Although these women are generally in a position of power over him, Burns convinces himself the encounters are all his fault; he believes he takes after his father, the womanizer, and that he’s simply fulfilling his destiny.
This, it turns out, might not be the case. While Burns continues to harbor genetic guilt throughout his life, there’s a surprising twist that forces the famous actor, known for his penchant for playing transvestite roles and for the Academy Award he won for best adapted screenplay, to revisit his past and rethink everything he – and we – have believed about his life.
Until I Find You is a compelling illustration of the power of suggestion and false memory, a big, sometimes slow-moving, but always interesting book with a satisfying payoff. It’s both a mystery and a history. And it’s properly perverse and warped so as to appeal to Irving fanatics (check out the odd thing women do for Burns inside dark movie theaters – and here’s a hint: it probably isn’t at all what you expect).
It’s also 100 or so pages too long. But set aside a couple of weeks to tackle its length, to live within its pages, to watch its characters and their odd struggles to understand and love one another, and you’ll recall why, regardless of how you might strain to describe it, John Irving’s work is so undeniably popular, and more importatantly, so very, very good.
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popular novelist’s knack for finding one central dramatic occurrence around which to build a story, but a biographer’s bent for showing how every occurrence – the ones that ought to be interesting, the ones that ought to induce yawns, and best of all, the ones that ought to be kept private – is a part of the single seamless drama of a life. Irving himself must have forgotten he wasn’t a popular novelist for a while. There really is no other explanation for his last book, The Fourth Hand, which is, with barely a handful of compelling characters squeezed into its 316 pages, both literally and figuratively thin, at least by its author’s usual lofty standards. The Fourth Hand is far from a terrible book, but it isn’t the sort of 500 or 600 page Irving story whose fullness you can crawl down inside, spread yourself out and live within for a good long time – not the way you can with, say, The World According to Garp, A Prayer for Owen Meany or A Widow For One Year.
Thankfully Irving has abandoned the faster pace of The Fourth Hand and returned to the longer, fuller structure of which he is a master, and the result is the bulkiest of all his novels to date – essentially the biography of fictional Hollywood actor Jack Burns’ life without a father, Until I Find You covers nearly four decades of Burns’ personal history, makes use of more than a half-dozen countries as settings, and tips the scales at more than 800 pages.
At least one thing is certain: You won’t be able to pan this novel for being too thin.
Whether you’ll pan it for other deficiencies, however, will likely depend on your patience for the increasingly repetitive themes and crutch details of the Irving canon. Wrestling, the early development of the careers of writers, missing fathers, dysfunctional relationships and life at elite boarding schools – read the list of ingredients, and you’d swear this was the exact recipe Irving used to cook up his masterpiece, Garp. And you’d be right. But to his credit, in Until I Find You Irving does stir things around a bit, adding a dash of something new here and there as needed, so that, finally, the story is not – as some will no doubt suggest – the work of an author who after 11 books can do nothing more than repeat himself.
The narrative joins Burns at the age of four. His mother, Alice, a professional tattooist, has dragged him to Europe to track down his ink-addicted, organ-playing runaway father, William Burns, an alleged womanizer whose lifelong goal is to play all of the most famous organs in the world while simultaneously covering every inch of his body in ink.
Like the best biographers, Irving’s sense of setting is impeccable, and his take on the colorful history and inhabitants – primarily prostitutes, tattooists and tattoo addicts – of the underground ink culture prove it. But he doesn’t linger overlong in the overseas settings. The pursuit of William from country to country, organ to organ, tattooist to tattooist, quickly becomes more than Alice can sustain, and she returns with her son to Canada, where the boy is allowed to attend an all-girls private grade school and hone his acting skills – both on the stage, and in his daily life.
From the moment he begins school, Jack’s life takes shape around a series of strange relationships with women, most of them older and in some way emotionally challenged. He’s molested by high school girls, their mothers, his maid, a teacher, and later, by complete strangers. Although these women are generally in a position of power over him, Burns convinces himself the encounters are all his fault; he believes he takes after his father, the womanizer, and that he’s simply fulfilling his destiny.
This, it turns out, might not be the case. While Burns continues to harbor genetic guilt throughout his life, there’s a surprising twist that forces the famous actor, known for his penchant for playing transvestite roles and for the Academy Award he won for best adapted screenplay, to revisit his past and rethink everything he – and we – have believed about his life.
Until I Find You is a compelling illustration of the power of suggestion and false memory, a big, sometimes slow-moving, but always interesting book with a satisfying payoff. It’s both a mystery and a history. And it’s properly perverse and warped so as to appeal to Irving fanatics (check out the odd thing women do for Burns inside dark movie theaters – and here’s a hint: it probably isn’t at all what you expect).
It’s also 100 or so pages too long. But set aside a couple of weeks to tackle its length, to live within its pages, to watch its characters and their odd struggles to understand and love one another, and you’ll recall why, regardless of how you might strain to describe it, John Irving’s work is so undeniably popular, and more importatantly, so very, very good.
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LibraryThing member verenka
This is not a review but a rant. Still, there might be spoilers
I loved the first part, the quirky eccentric idea of a single mom tattoo artist and her young son traveling through Europe looking for the boy's father. Interesting characters, interspersed with background stories and a couple of hints
The second part, however, is only concerned with one thing: sex. now I'm no prude and I don't mind reading about budding sexuality or sexual relations. But please, an eight year old? and later an eleven year old? What bothers me more than the child molestation is the fact that it's presented as something that scared the boy, and something he was uncomfortable with, but in the end he missed her a little.
On top of that the relationship of Alice and Mrs Oustler is presented as the result of the two women having had to many bad experiences with men. After her divorce Leslie turns into a man-hater, and that's why she is now lesbian. Alice still has affairs with young men. Right, exactly, women who hate men become lesbian and then sustain a 10 year+ relationship with their girlfriends. If their bad experience isn't quite bad enough to turn them into man haters, they can't be really gay, so they have affairs with young men.
These two examples sound like Irving has become an old-fashioned, sexist bigot. The kind of person who believes men turn women into lesbians (i.e. women can be turned back, if they just meet the right kind?) and that you can't really violate a young boy, because they want it anyway.
I might be overreacting, interpreting too much or maybe this all will lead somewhere meaningful. But right now, it just annoys me.
I don't actually regret finishing Until I Find You, but I do think it could have been a lot shorter. I didn't think it needed 200 pages after Jack comes back from Europe just to make a point of his state of mind. Besides, I hated the second part and have come to the conclusion that John Irving has turned into a distgusting dirty old man.
I loved the first part, the quirky eccentric idea of a single mom tattoo artist and her young son traveling through Europe looking for the boy's father. Interesting characters, interspersed with background stories and a couple of hints
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of what is about to come.The second part, however, is only concerned with one thing: sex. now I'm no prude and I don't mind reading about budding sexuality or sexual relations. But please, an eight year old? and later an eleven year old? What bothers me more than the child molestation is the fact that it's presented as something that scared the boy, and something he was uncomfortable with, but in the end he missed her a little.
On top of that the relationship of Alice and Mrs Oustler is presented as the result of the two women having had to many bad experiences with men. After her divorce Leslie turns into a man-hater, and that's why she is now lesbian. Alice still has affairs with young men. Right, exactly, women who hate men become lesbian and then sustain a 10 year+ relationship with their girlfriends. If their bad experience isn't quite bad enough to turn them into man haters, they can't be really gay, so they have affairs with young men.
These two examples sound like Irving has become an old-fashioned, sexist bigot. The kind of person who believes men turn women into lesbians (i.e. women can be turned back, if they just meet the right kind?) and that you can't really violate a young boy, because they want it anyway.
I might be overreacting, interpreting too much or maybe this all will lead somewhere meaningful. But right now, it just annoys me.
I don't actually regret finishing Until I Find You, but I do think it could have been a lot shorter. I didn't think it needed 200 pages after Jack comes back from Europe just to make a point of his state of mind. Besides, I hated the second part and have come to the conclusion that John Irving has turned into a distgusting dirty old man.
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LibraryThing member writestuff
I am a huge John Irving fan (my favorite is Hotel New Hampshire), so I am used to his quirky characters and meandering plot lines which run in all directions, but finally return to the point of the story. This being said, I found Irving's latest novel to be a bit long-winded (at 820 pages it is
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*not* a light read!). Every character is flawed, sometimes almost unbelievably so...and yet, at the end, there is redemption for the main character, Jack Burns. I would recommend this book only to die-hard Irving fans who will be patient enough to wade through this chunky novel. Think Garp times 10! Show Less
LibraryThing member fizzy_fizz1
A long long book. I had the feeling that alot of this could be left out and still make a good story. Loved the trips around Europe but the bits inbetween.... not really sure about
LibraryThing member LadyN
Until I Find You is the fourth Irving novel I've read, but not my favourite.
Jack Burns is a movie star retracing the steps of his childhood to discover that what we remember is not necessarily what happened. Constanly ill at ease with the absense of his father, this dominates his life and governs
What I have previously admired about John Irvings writing is the detailed insight he gives the reader into his charcters and their histories. In this novel however, one really has to do that twice - learning as Jack does the two different versions of his past, the remembered and the actual.
Until I Find You brings up several themes that Irving broaches in his other novels - sexual awakenings, fascination with older women, a young boy discovering through unconventional means about the (usually adult) world around him. I don't feel that it was done as well in this novel as it was in the others I've read. At times there was just too much sexual reference, and while much of it was crucial to Jack's later development, I'm not sure it was all absolutely necessary or believable.
The closing chapters are very moving, and I'm glad I stuck with it to the end. I can imagine many readers may not have done. At times I got a little bored, but was left satisfied at the conclusion, in much the same way that Jack Burns may be.
Plenty to get stuck in to.
Jack Burns is a movie star retracing the steps of his childhood to discover that what we remember is not necessarily what happened. Constanly ill at ease with the absense of his father, this dominates his life and governs
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many of his choices and decisions.What I have previously admired about John Irvings writing is the detailed insight he gives the reader into his charcters and their histories. In this novel however, one really has to do that twice - learning as Jack does the two different versions of his past, the remembered and the actual.
Until I Find You brings up several themes that Irving broaches in his other novels - sexual awakenings, fascination with older women, a young boy discovering through unconventional means about the (usually adult) world around him. I don't feel that it was done as well in this novel as it was in the others I've read. At times there was just too much sexual reference, and while much of it was crucial to Jack's later development, I'm not sure it was all absolutely necessary or believable.
The closing chapters are very moving, and I'm glad I stuck with it to the end. I can imagine many readers may not have done. At times I got a little bored, but was left satisfied at the conclusion, in much the same way that Jack Burns may be.
Plenty to get stuck in to.
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LibraryThing member pontusfreyhult
Standard John Irving fare; sex, school wrestling, some Wiennamania (although less than usual), a couple of unexpected deaths. As usual, the characters become persons (although it did take four or five hundred pages).
Although not as good as A prayer for Owen Meany or Garp, John Irving fans will
Although not as good as A prayer for Owen Meany or Garp, John Irving fans will
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probably enjoy this. But considering that it's rather lengthy and the story isn't that great, it doesn't make for a very good introduction to the authorship. Show Less
LibraryThing member AnnieHidalgo
I am only 200 pages in, so this will probably not be final review but I have to interrupt my reading to say - yuck! blech! ulgh! Ok. I think I'm done. So, the point is, I usually love John Irving. A Prayer for Owen Meany is one of my favorite books. The Cider House Rules was awesome. The World
But this! So far there really haven't been any parts of this book that have not grossed me out, shocked, appalled, and disgusted me. And I think I'm really a very tolerant person. I'm a consenting adult. I've read my share of, well, just about everyone. But I'm thinking here specifically of Stephen King, Anne Rice, VC Andrews, Graham Masterton...this is just as bad as any of those at their most seamy. I'd like to know if the plot will eventually have a point beyond bad sexual experiences for people of all ages, but I don't really have much hope that it will.
And yet, I love John Irving. So I will give him the benefit of the doubt. And keep reading. But be forewarned. If you cannot take 200 pages of sexual angst - maybe you ought to read A Prayer for Owen Meany. It really is great.
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According to Garp is undeniably somewhat, um, unconventional, but it hangs together beautifully. It all works, and wouldn't have been the same any other way. But this! So far there really haven't been any parts of this book that have not grossed me out, shocked, appalled, and disgusted me. And I think I'm really a very tolerant person. I'm a consenting adult. I've read my share of, well, just about everyone. But I'm thinking here specifically of Stephen King, Anne Rice, VC Andrews, Graham Masterton...this is just as bad as any of those at their most seamy. I'd like to know if the plot will eventually have a point beyond bad sexual experiences for people of all ages, but I don't really have much hope that it will.
And yet, I love John Irving. So I will give him the benefit of the doubt. And keep reading. But be forewarned. If you cannot take 200 pages of sexual angst - maybe you ought to read A Prayer for Owen Meany. It really is great.
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LibraryThing member KinnicChick
When I look at other reviews for this book I realize that, as with all authors, you either love their work or you don't. In the case with Until I Find You, Irving fans either appreciate the fact that he spent 800+ pages telling the life of Jack Burns or they felt he was being long-winded and
And when I got to the end of the book and the story had been turned around during the final section so that there were things we had learned about characters that were completely different than what we were led to believe? Those 800+ pages were totally worth it.
The child neglect and abuse were painful. There was a lot of unfair treatment to characters that was painful. But without feeling manipulated like a puppet on a string as I did when I read some of the formulaic crap writing of certain unnamed authors that I refuse to read any more (no matter how often friends or family try to force their books upon me!), I felt deeply the deaths of certain characters and the final pages, too. In the end, I will miss Jack Burns.
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extremely repetitive and needed a really good editor. My opinion? After reading only one other book from Mr. Irving, (The Water Method Man) I cannot really do any comparisons as to his style in this versus that. But as I read through the book, I did find it somewhat repetitive in places. But for me? I didn't find that a big problem here.And when I got to the end of the book and the story had been turned around during the final section so that there were things we had learned about characters that were completely different than what we were led to believe? Those 800+ pages were totally worth it.
The child neglect and abuse were painful. There was a lot of unfair treatment to characters that was painful. But without feeling manipulated like a puppet on a string as I did when I read some of the formulaic crap writing of certain unnamed authors that I refuse to read any more (no matter how often friends or family try to force their books upon me!), I felt deeply the deaths of certain characters and the final pages, too. In the end, I will miss Jack Burns.
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LibraryThing member operdoc
Irving seemed to be sliding into mediocrity until this novel. The early thrill of "Garp" and "Cider House Rules" was gone. He's returned to form here, by not repeating his formula. He gives a definite twist and turn to the path one is going down as one reads this. The usual humor and quirkiness
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combined with some newfound wisdom. Show Less
LibraryThing member Cecilturtle
How can one condense a tightly packed 800 pages in a paragraph? Plow on, reader, plow on! After dealing with Jack's bizarre and disconforting sexual childhood and then his similary described sexual adulthood, I came to terms with his more balanced adventures (around part III). I was almost
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interested and excited about the novel (after casting it aside 3 times) when Jack decided to persue a psychoanalysis which utimately ends in an unbelievable (this is Irving after all) and farcical reunion. Too bad. I usually enjoy Irving, but there are too many episodes that drag on and my favorite characters get killed off. Show Less
LibraryThing member cajunbear
This is Irving's most autobiographical book. It is very moving. He travels with his mother who is a tatoo artist away from/towards his father whom he doesn't know... It is excellant.
LibraryThing member ashergabbay
Whenever I get a chance to spend time wandering around a bookstore with no particular book in mind (sadly not too often), I always check if one of my favourite writers has published a new book. One of these writers is John Irving. For many years now, Irving has been near the top of my favourites
Alas, it was not to be. I have had disappointments from recent Irving books, but Until was probably the greatest letdown. I learnt a lot about tattoos but despite the familiar Irving prose this book somehow seemed too long and repetitive. And the ending was hugely disappointing.
The book tells the story of Jack Burns, "actor before he was an actor", son to Alice, a tattoo artist, and to William, an organ player. William falls out of love with Alice shortly after meeting her, but she is pregnant with child and does not agree to let William go without a fight. When Jack is four he tours Europe with Alice, moving from city to city, from church organ to church organ, in the hope of tracking William down and confronting him with his "abandoned responsibilities". In the first third of the book (total: >800 pages!) Jack recounts this odyssey through Europe, reconstructing it from the memory of 4-year-old.
After the failed hunt for William, Alice and Jack go back to Toronto and Jack is enrolled in an all-girls school, St. Hilda's, where boys are admitted until grade four. It is there that he discovers his affinity for "older women" and where he meets Emma Oastler, who becomes his mentor and life-time friend. From St. Hilda's Jack goes to a boarding school in New England, this time an all-boys school. Eventually, Jack moves to Los Angeles and becomes a famous actor, winning an Oscar for a screenplay adapted from one of Emma's books after her death. In the last third of the book, and after his mother dies, Jack discovers the truth about his parents and he embarks on a second odyssey to Europe, this time seeing the stories his mother told him in a totally different light.
As usual, Irving's characters are described in detail and become memorable personae: Jack's third-grade teacher, Catherine "The Wurtz", who ends up as his companion to the Oscars; Michelle Maher, one of Jack's many girlfriends, but the one he never forgets; numerous tattoo artists, all Alice's friends, who helped her and Jack during their voyage in Europe lending them a place to "sleep in the needles"; and many more. Irving's characters become very vivid in the reader's mind, and because of the length of his novels some of them become almost friends. I remember the feeling I had when I finished reading The Cider House Rules during my military duty: I felt very sad to have to "say goodbye" to some of the characters after weeks of companionship.
Some of Irving's regular and recurring themes are also present in Until: New England, boarding schools, wrestling and coaching, intra-family intimate ties, single motherhood, marital infedilities, etc. Curiously missing, though, are the bears... Irving's use of repeated phrases that become the leitmotif of the book are also present in Until, except that this time I found them to be somewhat too repetitive (how many times can one read about Jack's fondness for his penis being held by an older woman?).
As much as it pains me to write this, it seems that Irving is past his prime. He made his fame with A World According to Garp (personally not one of my favourites and a terrible movie adaptation) and then solidified his literary prominence through bestsellers such as The Cider House Rules, A Son of the Circus and The Fourth Hand. But it is his earlier novels - for example The Hotel New Hampshire or A Prayer for Owen Meany - that are truly his best. If you are new to Irving, Until I Find You is definitely not the book you should read first.
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list, with A Prayer for Owen Meany probably being one of the best, if not the best, novel I have ever read. It was therefore with great expectations that I took his latest book - Until I Find You - with me on my latest trip to Japan, looking forward to long hours of reading pleasure on the flights.Alas, it was not to be. I have had disappointments from recent Irving books, but Until was probably the greatest letdown. I learnt a lot about tattoos but despite the familiar Irving prose this book somehow seemed too long and repetitive. And the ending was hugely disappointing.
The book tells the story of Jack Burns, "actor before he was an actor", son to Alice, a tattoo artist, and to William, an organ player. William falls out of love with Alice shortly after meeting her, but she is pregnant with child and does not agree to let William go without a fight. When Jack is four he tours Europe with Alice, moving from city to city, from church organ to church organ, in the hope of tracking William down and confronting him with his "abandoned responsibilities". In the first third of the book (total: >800 pages!) Jack recounts this odyssey through Europe, reconstructing it from the memory of 4-year-old.
After the failed hunt for William, Alice and Jack go back to Toronto and Jack is enrolled in an all-girls school, St. Hilda's, where boys are admitted until grade four. It is there that he discovers his affinity for "older women" and where he meets Emma Oastler, who becomes his mentor and life-time friend. From St. Hilda's Jack goes to a boarding school in New England, this time an all-boys school. Eventually, Jack moves to Los Angeles and becomes a famous actor, winning an Oscar for a screenplay adapted from one of Emma's books after her death. In the last third of the book, and after his mother dies, Jack discovers the truth about his parents and he embarks on a second odyssey to Europe, this time seeing the stories his mother told him in a totally different light.
As usual, Irving's characters are described in detail and become memorable personae: Jack's third-grade teacher, Catherine "The Wurtz", who ends up as his companion to the Oscars; Michelle Maher, one of Jack's many girlfriends, but the one he never forgets; numerous tattoo artists, all Alice's friends, who helped her and Jack during their voyage in Europe lending them a place to "sleep in the needles"; and many more. Irving's characters become very vivid in the reader's mind, and because of the length of his novels some of them become almost friends. I remember the feeling I had when I finished reading The Cider House Rules during my military duty: I felt very sad to have to "say goodbye" to some of the characters after weeks of companionship.
Some of Irving's regular and recurring themes are also present in Until: New England, boarding schools, wrestling and coaching, intra-family intimate ties, single motherhood, marital infedilities, etc. Curiously missing, though, are the bears... Irving's use of repeated phrases that become the leitmotif of the book are also present in Until, except that this time I found them to be somewhat too repetitive (how many times can one read about Jack's fondness for his penis being held by an older woman?).
As much as it pains me to write this, it seems that Irving is past his prime. He made his fame with A World According to Garp (personally not one of my favourites and a terrible movie adaptation) and then solidified his literary prominence through bestsellers such as The Cider House Rules, A Son of the Circus and The Fourth Hand. But it is his earlier novels - for example The Hotel New Hampshire or A Prayer for Owen Meany - that are truly his best. If you are new to Irving, Until I Find You is definitely not the book you should read first.
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LibraryThing member louise_rice
I'm glad Bookclub made me read a John Irving title - it's one of those books I sometimes wanted to give up on but am glad I didn't, although very few of his characters appealed to me. His central characters, Jack Burns and his mother, are both selfish and self-centred, although Jack redeems himself
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with his father in the end. Won't rush to read more John Irving though, especially not if this is his 'magnum opus' as blurb suggests (I had heard of The World According to Garp but never read it). Show Less
LibraryThing member mnlohman
John Irving is one of my all time favorite authors. A Prayer for Owen Meany, Ciderhouse Rules, and A Widow for One Year are three of my favorite books. I found this one by accident in the discount section of Barnes and Noble, confounded that I had not heard of it (or forgot ten that I had) . I must
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say the opening struck me as a little strange; I decided to give it my 50 page trial. It didn't help that the thing was over 800 pages! Why doesn't anyone edit anything anymore?By the time I got to page 50 I decided to read just one chapter a night . That way I could be reading something else as well, because it didn't really merit my full attention. It seemed like one of the typical sex-obsessed characters saga, but I couldn't stop reading it. it took awhile, but I finally got wrapped up in the world of tatoos, child neglect and abuse, and really weird relationships that John Irving so seems to enjoy portraying. I'm still not sure what I feel about it overall. I think it was a cathartic undertaking for the author, and a little too neatly wrapped up at the end. If he had just met his sister and father as a child we could have had a 200 page novel instead. Not his best, but genius must be hard to maintain at such a pace. Show Less
LibraryThing member geertwissink
Until I Find You describes the growing up of Jack Burns. Like any Irving, the book is filled with people who are searching for their true identities and to come in peace with their past. Thorough research in the world of tattoos is highly readable. The story is placed in Amsterdam for some
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episodes, very recognizable (when you live there like me). The first part of the book is captivating, but near the end I had difficulties in reading on. The end is predictable but makes the circle round in a nice way. Show Less
LibraryThing member possumbaby
A major work. Emma is one of the most memorable literary characters of all time.
LibraryThing member WittyreaderLI
Whew! I just finished this monster of a novel (over 800 pages). It only took me about 2 and a half weeks (which is long for me). I can't say I LOVED it. But I did stick with it. This book is a very strange one with very unlikable characters. There is a ton of sexual abuse (of a kid!) and characters
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who are multi-faceted. This is my second John Irving novel. I don't know if I could ever re-read this again, but ultimately, I am glad that I finished this book. Show Less
LibraryThing member janey47
This book is utterly awful.
1. Irving writes like he's paid by the word. I don't need MORE words, I need BETTER words. Doesn't this man have an editor?
2. Irving uses real places (restaurants, hotels, streets, cities) in order to set moods that a better writer could and would do with descriptors.
3. Irving tries really fuckin hard to enter into a subculture he doesn't understand but he hasn't done sufficient research on any of it. "Eyelid" piercing? come on. People do it, sure. But they do it about as often as they get their clit pierced. What he means is "eyeBROW" piercing. (and women should not get their clits pierced. Clitoral hood, yes. Triangle piercing, yes. Clit, no. We need our clits.) And his charming and eccentric tattoo artist subculture does not ring true. Doesn't this man have an editor?
4. And while we're on the subject, how can you write an 800 page novel that includes as a major plot point a tattoo incorporating women's genitalia and yet call it "vagina"? This man needs an editor. That's not the only place he says "Vagina" when he means "vulva," but it's the most prominent. Imagine what went through my head when the protagonist is said to have seen two vaginas in one day. I of course pictured him carrying a speculum in one hand and a flashlight in the other. No one who considers themselves literate should make this mistake and certainly not someone who writes for a living. Doesn't this man have an editor?
5. And while there is, as always, a ton of sex in the novel, Irving, as usual, manages to make it the LEAST erotic sex I think I have ever read. Worse than Kinsey.
The only reason I read the book was because it was offered to me by a woman who had read a book on my recommendation, so I felt like I owed her, you know?
I should have been warned, because she's a serious Irving fan and even she said that it falls off after the first 400 pages or so. I read the first half of the book and wondered how the hell writing this bad could FALL OFF? I quit at 700 pages.
I am also kind of disgusted at Irving (1) for having the woman with whom the protagonist is most closely emotionally bound suffer from vaginismus (I just think this and other women-related issues in the book reek of misogyny) and then having the gall (2) to dedicate the book to his infant or toddler son. That's sick.
1. Irving writes like he's paid by the word. I don't need MORE words, I need BETTER words. Doesn't this man have an editor?
2. Irving uses real places (restaurants, hotels, streets, cities) in order to set moods that a better writer could and would do with descriptors.
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Doesn't this man have an editor?3. Irving tries really fuckin hard to enter into a subculture he doesn't understand but he hasn't done sufficient research on any of it. "Eyelid" piercing? come on. People do it, sure. But they do it about as often as they get their clit pierced. What he means is "eyeBROW" piercing. (and women should not get their clits pierced. Clitoral hood, yes. Triangle piercing, yes. Clit, no. We need our clits.) And his charming and eccentric tattoo artist subculture does not ring true. Doesn't this man have an editor?
4. And while we're on the subject, how can you write an 800 page novel that includes as a major plot point a tattoo incorporating women's genitalia and yet call it "vagina"? This man needs an editor. That's not the only place he says "Vagina" when he means "vulva," but it's the most prominent. Imagine what went through my head when the protagonist is said to have seen two vaginas in one day. I of course pictured him carrying a speculum in one hand and a flashlight in the other. No one who considers themselves literate should make this mistake and certainly not someone who writes for a living. Doesn't this man have an editor?
5. And while there is, as always, a ton of sex in the novel, Irving, as usual, manages to make it the LEAST erotic sex I think I have ever read. Worse than Kinsey.
The only reason I read the book was because it was offered to me by a woman who had read a book on my recommendation, so I felt like I owed her, you know?
I should have been warned, because she's a serious Irving fan and even she said that it falls off after the first 400 pages or so. I read the first half of the book and wondered how the hell writing this bad could FALL OFF? I quit at 700 pages.
I am also kind of disgusted at Irving (1) for having the woman with whom the protagonist is most closely emotionally bound suffer from vaginismus (I just think this and other women-related issues in the book reek of misogyny) and then having the gall (2) to dedicate the book to his infant or toddler son. That's sick.
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LibraryThing member rcooper3589
i feel the only way to read a john irving book is in paperback, so i waited about a year for it to finally come out in paperback- and it was worth every moment!! i loved this book (all 820 pages of it!). it was classic irving with all his regualr themes and more. i enjoyed the payoffs and the
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suprises that popped up. i'm so sad it's over!!! read this book!!! Show Less
LibraryThing member Nodressrehearsal
By now I think I've clearly established that I'm a huge John Irving fan. I just finished his most recent, Until I Find You, and I loved it. I adored it. I didn't want it to end, which may seem odd since it's 820 pages long. Please don't let the length deter you.
I loved the narrator's voice, the
Two favorite passages:
So much of what you think you remember is a lie, the stuff of postcards. The snow untrampled and unspoiled; the Christmas candles in the windows of the houses, where the damage to the children is unseen and unheard.
If you can't forgive her, you'll never be free of her. It's for your own sake, you know- for your soul. When you forgive someone who's hurt you, it's like escaping your skin- you're that free, outside yourself, where you can see everything.
I loved the narrator's voice, the
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characters-major and minor. I loved the story, the journey, the quest; the twists and the passage of time. Every last bit of it seemed plausible to me, but I've always embraced the bizarreness of Irving's characters and settings.Two favorite passages:
So much of what you think you remember is a lie, the stuff of postcards. The snow untrampled and unspoiled; the Christmas candles in the windows of the houses, where the damage to the children is unseen and unheard.
If you can't forgive her, you'll never be free of her. It's for your own sake, you know- for your soul. When you forgive someone who's hurt you, it's like escaping your skin- you're that free, outside yourself, where you can see everything.
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LibraryThing member JBarringer
Wow, this was a long book. In page length I've read longer, of course, but not all 800 page books feel so tedious. I would compare this novel, to some extent, with Anthony Trollope's longer novels, where far too much detail is included, far beyond what any central plot would require. Still,
This story focuses on Jack Burns, a man who as a child is dragged across Europe by his mother, in search of his father. They never are reunited with Jack's dad, of course, so the rest of the novel is Jack trying to deal with his parents and his own identity (or lack thereof). Jack is victimized by just about everyone he meets, it seems, so that just as modern entertainment numbs us to horrible things on screen, Jack is unaware of or at least unconcerned about the horrible things people do to him. He has no concept of what a normal, healthy relationship looks like, with parents, friends, siblings or lovers. While tedious as a novel, there are some great scenes and topics in this book, and lots to digest and discuss. This is not a book for readers who are concerned about sexual trigger warnings, and there is a lot of fairly explicit sexual material in this story.
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Irving's writing has a more modern style, and some nice imagery, interesting turns of phrases, and unusual situations and characters, enough that I prefer this novel to Trollope. Still, a bit of harsh editing would have helped this book (and cut it down by a few hundred pages, perhaps). This story focuses on Jack Burns, a man who as a child is dragged across Europe by his mother, in search of his father. They never are reunited with Jack's dad, of course, so the rest of the novel is Jack trying to deal with his parents and his own identity (or lack thereof). Jack is victimized by just about everyone he meets, it seems, so that just as modern entertainment numbs us to horrible things on screen, Jack is unaware of or at least unconcerned about the horrible things people do to him. He has no concept of what a normal, healthy relationship looks like, with parents, friends, siblings or lovers. While tedious as a novel, there are some great scenes and topics in this book, and lots to digest and discuss. This is not a book for readers who are concerned about sexual trigger warnings, and there is a lot of fairly explicit sexual material in this story.
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LibraryThing member ctorstens
Some of these people actually exist! I met Tattoo Ole exactly where he was in the book!
LibraryThing member SFM13
This story centers around Jack Burns who with his mother Alice, has been on a lifetime quest to find William, Jack's father. William left Before Jack was born ... never married Alice. Knowing that he is an ink addict, after her father gave him his first tattoo, she learns the trade herself, and
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visits tattoo studios across the Baltic seas in search of William. She is quite skilled and sets up her studio in many ports, looking for William. The story has hidden twists, and although Jack becomes the center fiqure, finding his father after his mother dies, I became partial to Alice. She is an intirquing character and does many unexpected things. I also like her taste in music. She blasts Bob Dylan while working, and Jack himself says: "Dylan is kind of like a tattoo ... he gets under your skin and stays with you." Show Less
LibraryThing member presto
We follow Jack Burns from an early age and on into maturity. As a child he is taken by his Scottish mother from Canada to tour Europe in search of his father who had deserted his mother. On his return to Canada we follow him through school, college and eventually into his career as an actor. But it
Until I Find You is an involving novel, and one needs a good memory for many of the characters we meet in the early pages will reappear in one way or another much later, one also needs to remember events for we may well get a different slant on them as the story unfolds. But of course it is Jack that we follow throughout; and as a child he is a bright and endearing, but he may well loose some of our affections as he grows up for he is not always best behaved, but I am sure that if you stick with him and understand what made him he will reclaim your feelings, for ultimately this is a very touching and moving read, and Jack really does come out of it with honours.
Along the way we encounter an array of those characters beloved by Irving, the misfits, the mis-formed, the eccentrics and those on the borders of acceptable society, as well as some truly caring individuals; there really are those who are watching over Jack for his welfare.
It all adds up to a typically engrossing Irving novel, humour and wit intermingle with passages that are moving or touched with sadness or even tragedy. Never predictable but ever inventive, and of course beautifully written as one would expect from Irving, it all makes for a very worthy read.
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is not until his mother dies that he begins the search of his own for his father, and what he discovers is very different from what he remembers from when he was a child.Until I Find You is an involving novel, and one needs a good memory for many of the characters we meet in the early pages will reappear in one way or another much later, one also needs to remember events for we may well get a different slant on them as the story unfolds. But of course it is Jack that we follow throughout; and as a child he is a bright and endearing, but he may well loose some of our affections as he grows up for he is not always best behaved, but I am sure that if you stick with him and understand what made him he will reclaim your feelings, for ultimately this is a very touching and moving read, and Jack really does come out of it with honours.
Along the way we encounter an array of those characters beloved by Irving, the misfits, the mis-formed, the eccentrics and those on the borders of acceptable society, as well as some truly caring individuals; there really are those who are watching over Jack for his welfare.
It all adds up to a typically engrossing Irving novel, humour and wit intermingle with passages that are moving or touched with sadness or even tragedy. Never predictable but ever inventive, and of course beautifully written as one would expect from Irving, it all makes for a very worthy read.
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LibraryThing member jimrgill
Beginnings are hard. Endings are harder. And in the case of “Until I Find You,” both the beginning and the ending are quite rocky. The middle of the book, however (and in a novel of more than 800 pages, the middle is quite hefty) ...well, the middle is rather delightful. Reading this novel is
It pains me to fault Mr. Irving for his apparent meandering in the first section of this novel and for the disappointment of the novel’s conclusion. To be fair, no imaginable ending could have lived up to the inevitability of this tale’s conclusion. Irving’s masterful storytelling throughout the bulk of the novel sabotages its own ending. An empathetic reader—and as a lifelong fan of Irving’s work, I consider myself forgiving to a fault—can happily overlook the seemingly random details of the novel’s opening section as their impact and significance emerges clearly through the development of Jack Burns, the novel’s protagonist. But the ending. Not even a writer of Irving’s talent could have wheedled his way out of the trap he set for himself.
This novel’s—and its main character’s—resemblance to numerous other Irving novels (most notably TS Garp in “The World According to Garp,” Homer Wells in “The Cider House Rules,” and Owen Meany in “A Prayer for Owen Meany”) is both its greatest strength and its most debilitating weakness. All of the hallmark Irving quirks and issues are there, but he’s handled them more artfully in those earlier novels. Jack—a budding actor with a talent for cross-dressing and a penchant for older women (who are, in fact, molesting him)—is an inscrutably complex character but almost certainly not the most likeable character in the novel. As he grows up without the guidance or support of a father, he becomes a true conundrum—an introverted actor.
Halfway through the novel, the narrative pivots dramatically (to provide more details would certainly spoil the plot), but suffice it to say that Jack shifts his focus from constructing identities and stories to reconstructing identities and stories—he realizes that everything he thought he knew about the most important people in his life was a mere narrative construct, and he sets about attempting to reconstruct those narratives in a search for truth—quite an ironic undertaking for a man whose profession relies on his ability to create convincing fictions.
In the end, Irving’s prose is—as ever—amusing and poignant (often at the same time), and this novel proves that he has regained his ability to weave a compelling tale around interesting characters, a skill that came into question in “The Fourth Hand,” the novel that preceded this one. While by no means his best work, “Until I Find You” demonstrates an imminent return to form for Irving—a form that I hope continues to evolve in his next novel.
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like eating a gourmet sandwich beautifully crafted between slices of two-day old soggy bread.It pains me to fault Mr. Irving for his apparent meandering in the first section of this novel and for the disappointment of the novel’s conclusion. To be fair, no imaginable ending could have lived up to the inevitability of this tale’s conclusion. Irving’s masterful storytelling throughout the bulk of the novel sabotages its own ending. An empathetic reader—and as a lifelong fan of Irving’s work, I consider myself forgiving to a fault—can happily overlook the seemingly random details of the novel’s opening section as their impact and significance emerges clearly through the development of Jack Burns, the novel’s protagonist. But the ending. Not even a writer of Irving’s talent could have wheedled his way out of the trap he set for himself.
This novel’s—and its main character’s—resemblance to numerous other Irving novels (most notably TS Garp in “The World According to Garp,” Homer Wells in “The Cider House Rules,” and Owen Meany in “A Prayer for Owen Meany”) is both its greatest strength and its most debilitating weakness. All of the hallmark Irving quirks and issues are there, but he’s handled them more artfully in those earlier novels. Jack—a budding actor with a talent for cross-dressing and a penchant for older women (who are, in fact, molesting him)—is an inscrutably complex character but almost certainly not the most likeable character in the novel. As he grows up without the guidance or support of a father, he becomes a true conundrum—an introverted actor.
Halfway through the novel, the narrative pivots dramatically (to provide more details would certainly spoil the plot), but suffice it to say that Jack shifts his focus from constructing identities and stories to reconstructing identities and stories—he realizes that everything he thought he knew about the most important people in his life was a mere narrative construct, and he sets about attempting to reconstruct those narratives in a search for truth—quite an ironic undertaking for a man whose profession relies on his ability to create convincing fictions.
In the end, Irving’s prose is—as ever—amusing and poignant (often at the same time), and this novel proves that he has regained his ability to weave a compelling tale around interesting characters, a skill that came into question in “The Fourth Hand,” the novel that preceded this one. While by no means his best work, “Until I Find You” demonstrates an imminent return to form for Irving—a form that I hope continues to evolve in his next novel.
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Pages
848
ISBN
1400063833 / 9781400063833