Status
Available
Call number
Genres
Publication
Stockholm : Wahlström & Widstrand, 1982 ;
Description
""The first of my father's illusions was that bears could survive the life lived by human beings, and the second was that human beings could survive a life led in hotels.""So says John Berry, son of a hapless dreamer, brother to a cadre of eccentric siblings, and chronicler of the lives lived, the loves experienced, the deaths met, and the myriad strange and wonderful times encountered by the family Berry. Hoteliers, pet-bear owners, friends of Freud (the animal trainer and vaudevillian, that is), and playthings of mad fate, they "dream on" in a funny, sad, outrageous, and moving novel by the remarkable author of "A Widow for One Year" and "The Cider House Rules,"
Media reviews
Like a fairy tale - and Irving reminds us with tireless zeal that his novel is a fairy tale -''The Hotel New Hampshire'' is both fanciful and cruel. The Berry family is oddly susceptible to disaster; suicides, airplane crashes, blindings by terrorist bombs abound. Nor is this feisty crew beyond
Show More
wreaking havoc among themselves. ''To each other, we were as normal and nice as the smell of bread, we were just a family,'' observes the narrator (named John, in the autobiographical fashion of the day); but sibling incest is a dominant motif, and their incessant colloquys are conducted in a language heavy with insult and innuendo. Show Less
User reviews
LibraryThing member samantha464
The first "grown-up" book I ever read. I love the zany characters and Irving's typical too far-fetched to believe plot lines. Yet despite all the over-the-top antics of the characters and their ridicolous quirks, I can't help but feel for them and find myself caught up in the same insanity that
Show More
defines their world. Show Less
LibraryThing member bartt95
Fantastic! Irving never fails to drag me into his world full of bears, hotels, dreams and sorrow. The Hotel New Hampshire is a fun, hilarious book that becomes tragically sad in an instant every other chapter. Irving set down perhaps my favorite of his families; the most eccentric one, at least.
And perhaps the ultimate quality of Irving is his ability to show how one's life is shaped by childhood, how one can never let certain things go. Dealing with the past, and dealing with one's family, is the task of every single one of the Berry family members throughout this book. Each does it in their own, eccentric, often bizarrely metaphorical way. Some of them succeed, some of them are not given a chance, and as time passes by, and each Berry becomes older, you remember their childhoods as if they were your own. Reading Irving truly is like reading a life-story, maybe not a perfectly realistic one, but one that makes sense, one that is human.
Show More
And perhaps the ultimate quality of Irving is his ability to show how one's life is shaped by childhood, how one can never let certain things go. Dealing with the past, and dealing with one's family, is the task of every single one of the Berry family members throughout this book. Each does it in their own, eccentric, often bizarrely metaphorical way. Some of them succeed, some of them are not given a chance, and as time passes by, and each Berry becomes older, you remember their childhoods as if they were your own. Reading Irving truly is like reading a life-story, maybe not a perfectly realistic one, but one that makes sense, one that is human.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Glorybe1
I loved this book by John Irving, he is such a great writer. The story is made up of larger than life characters (except Lily!) they are all sooo quirky and unusual, but all quite believable!The Berry family consisting of Win and his wife(who I don't think we get the name of!) There is Frank the
Show More
eldest who is homosexual, there is John who is the narrator of the story,there is Franny, who John is in love with (just a little incest to throw into the mix!!) Lily is next and Lily just can't grow! she is tiny and has a talent for writting, and last but not least is Egg the youngest of the Berry family, who spends his time in his own little world and can't hear what is being said to him! Priceless the lot of them a very funny read although taking in some hefty subjects such as rape and Death all dealt with in the usual Irving witty way. And John Irvings books wouldn't be the same without a Bear to get it all going!! 5 stars from me! Show Less
LibraryThing member Rosa_Saks
After having several of my friends recommend Irving to me, I felt that the time had come to give it a go. I ended up with "The Hotel New Hampshire" simply because it was the only Irving novel currently avaliable at the airport bookshop. I brought it with my on holdiay to Greece, and I ended up
Show More
almost spending more time reading than bathing in the Aegean sea. The story was so captivating already from the first pages, mainly due to the wonderful quirky characters that make up the Berry-family. I won't bother with a plot synopsis here, because I felt that the plot was secondary to the characters in this novel. The characters ARE the novel, and I especially fell in love with Lilly, the tiny little sister who's got a knack for writing novels. I also love the fact that the novel deals with important issues like rape and death in a playful, but alwasys serious and thought-provoking manner. And yet the novel never failed to entertain me. This is definitely a must-read! Show Less
LibraryThing member freddlerabbit
I'm a huge fan of John Irving, and this is my favorite of his books.
This review will contain SPOILERS.
The book involves almost all of the usual Irving tropes - wrestling, hotels, New Hampshire, bears, sex and death (if he'd thrown in some dwarves, we would have had a perfect set). There are
This book essentially details the struggles of a family with a lot of children as they face some of the more difficult things you could imagine, including terrorism, gang rape and the death of a parent. The troubles they face are almost outsize, but the snide wit and perseverance the family exhibits in the face of these things is heartwarming and engaging. And beneath the somewhat overblown facade, the novel allows the reader access to the many real struggles of children forced to be the parents in a family while still young and the difficulties of wanting something you just aren't supposed to have.
This review will contain SPOILERS.
The book involves almost all of the usual Irving tropes - wrestling, hotels, New Hampshire, bears, sex and death (if he'd thrown in some dwarves, we would have had a perfect set). There are
Show More
laugh-out-loud moments and cry-out-loud moments.This book essentially details the struggles of a family with a lot of children as they face some of the more difficult things you could imagine, including terrorism, gang rape and the death of a parent. The troubles they face are almost outsize, but the snide wit and perseverance the family exhibits in the face of these things is heartwarming and engaging. And beneath the somewhat overblown facade, the novel allows the reader access to the many real struggles of children forced to be the parents in a family while still young and the difficulties of wanting something you just aren't supposed to have.
Show Less
LibraryThing member vertigo3l
I like to read this book at least once a year. It's especially nice to read in the second week in September when the air starts to change, but this year I just couldn't wait. In The Hotel New Hampshire, you meet one of the most interesting families in any novel I've ever read. There's Franny, of
Show More
course, to whom everything is sexual innuendo; Lily, who just doesn't seem to be growing, John, who is madly in love with Franny, and Sorrow, the dog, who has terminal flatulence. There's also Frank, Freud, Egg, and State O' Maine, the bear. Just like in all of Irving's novels, the characters are richly developed and one is sure to identify with an aspect of each of them. This is my second favorite Irving novel (for who can deny that A Prayer for Owen Meany is one of the best books ever) and I highly, highly, highly recommend it. Show Less
LibraryThing member rcooper3589
talk about taboos! this is such a great story! i loved the ending!
LibraryThing member bherner
What is it with Irving a dress dummies? Prominent in both this book and A Prayer for Owen Meany. Very strange.
LibraryThing member xtien
I like John Irving. His writing is entertaining, even if the plot is slow. This is not a book you try to finish fast. You just enjoy the reading. The book is about a father who starts a hotel again and again, and fails. Despite failures, he and his kids become heroes, and rich. In the end, he
Show More
succeeds in having a hotel of his own where he's happy, and contributing to society - beit not in the way he thinks. Show Less
LibraryThing member writestuff
Classic Irving. If you are a John Irving fan, this is a must read.
LibraryThing member andyray
one of irving'b est, this has egg, lilly, frank, franny, and susie the bear cavorting in their youth throughout the streets of vienna (the second hotel new hampshire), among the whores and revolutionaries of that time. And then, there is always sorrow.
LibraryThing member hockeycrew
Not my favorite John Irving, but still an entertaining read. As often happens in John Irving books the book takes place in both New Hampshire and Europe.
The reoccuring theme of the bear is definately interesting.
The reoccuring theme of the bear is definately interesting.
LibraryThing member kassandraj
There is always something so haunting about John Irving's work in my memory. This was no exception. Possibly my favorite, I've read in countless times and each time I'm effected as deeply as the last, which to me means great work.
Not everyone can connect you on a personal level with a bear,
Not everyone can connect you on a personal level with a bear,
Show More
flatulence prone dog, prostitutes, radicals and a very disfunctional family, but he certainly succeeds. Show Less
LibraryThing member Doondeck
My least favorite Iriving book. Probably turned off by the incest.
LibraryThing member barefeet4
It made me laugh out loud; it made me want to cry.
LibraryThing member DelennDax7
I must have read this about 20 years ago or so. I could hardly put it down! But, be warned....it's very intense and I wouldn't recommend anyone reading it when they're in a serious depression. But, I love this kind of stuff. The characters are so real and you really get into their minds. Great book!
LibraryThing member phoebesmum
Barking mad, and doesn’t get any less so on a second reading. Bears = good; dead dogs, terrorists and incest = not so much, perhaps. Am forever haunted by Rob Lowe in the movie version.
LibraryThing member danconsiglio
This book is great! A very inventive family drama that turns pleasingly strange at all the write moments!
LibraryThing member Eyejaybee
Most enjoyable. All of the regular features from John Irving's early novels were present - bears, motorcycles (and a bear on a motorcycle), Vienna, circus characters, dysfunctional families.
The novel alternates in almost Dickensian fashion between moments of hilarity and others of heart-rending
The novel alternates in almost Dickensian fashion between moments of hilarity and others of heart-rending
Show More
tragedy. A far more rounded and mature novel than its immediate predecessor, "The World According to Garp". Show Less
LibraryThing member Othemts
Most of Irving's early novels tie together bears, hotels, and Vienna. This one does it best. A multi-generational eccentric family follows their father's dream of opening and living in a hotel with often comic, frequently disturbing, and sometimes tragic results. There is a film adaptation of this
Show More
book too which is pretty good too. This is my favorite of Irving's novels. Show Less
LibraryThing member bookworm12
The Berry family is an odd mix of eccentrics who seem perfectly normal to each other. There’s Frank, the introverted eldest son, Franny, a strange extrovert with no concept of boundaries, our narrator John, Lily the youngest daughter who can’t seem to grow and Egg, the youngest son, who is hard
The family lives in and runs two hotels over the course of their childhood. One is actually in New Hampshire; the other is in Vienna, Austria. Their lives are complicated by loss and inappropriate love. The author loves jarring readers out of their comfort zones when they’re reading his books. I feel like every time I read one of his books, as soon as I start relaxing into the story he does something awful and kills off a major character or throw in a disturbing twist.
Irving has a serious obsession with sex in his books, particularly young men with older women. This made a lot more sense to me after I read an interview where he talked about that being his own first sexual experience. Still it’s always slightly irked me because it often feels forced in the flow of the story. This book kind of takes the odd sex stuff to an extreme. There’s rape, incest and prostitution, yet somehow the book is not heavy or depressing because it’s all done with a jovial tone. Like I said, it’s really odd.
It’s also hard to explain how you can like and dislike a book at the same time. I thought parts of it were incredibly funny, but others just overwhelmed me with their dysfunction.
BOTTOM LINE: I want to like Irving’s work more than I do. I really loved A Prayer for Owen Meany and would recommend that one, but his other books don’t seem to work for me. There’s too much of an emphasis on sex, troubled relationships with older women or relatives, etc. However, his writing is incredibly entertaining and I found myself enjoying the book as I was reading it, but then it lost me somewhere along the way. I stopped rooting for the characters and became too distracted by their problems. I think after this, my third Irving, I’m done with him for awhile. I’ll try him again in 10 years.
Show More
of hearing and constantly changing costumes. Throw in a pet bear, a weight-lifting grandpa, a dog named Sorrow and a few more odd balls and you’ve got a story…. kind of. The family lives in and runs two hotels over the course of their childhood. One is actually in New Hampshire; the other is in Vienna, Austria. Their lives are complicated by loss and inappropriate love. The author loves jarring readers out of their comfort zones when they’re reading his books. I feel like every time I read one of his books, as soon as I start relaxing into the story he does something awful and kills off a major character or throw in a disturbing twist.
Irving has a serious obsession with sex in his books, particularly young men with older women. This made a lot more sense to me after I read an interview where he talked about that being his own first sexual experience. Still it’s always slightly irked me because it often feels forced in the flow of the story. This book kind of takes the odd sex stuff to an extreme. There’s rape, incest and prostitution, yet somehow the book is not heavy or depressing because it’s all done with a jovial tone. Like I said, it’s really odd.
It’s also hard to explain how you can like and dislike a book at the same time. I thought parts of it were incredibly funny, but others just overwhelmed me with their dysfunction.
BOTTOM LINE: I want to like Irving’s work more than I do. I really loved A Prayer for Owen Meany and would recommend that one, but his other books don’t seem to work for me. There’s too much of an emphasis on sex, troubled relationships with older women or relatives, etc. However, his writing is incredibly entertaining and I found myself enjoying the book as I was reading it, but then it lost me somewhere along the way. I stopped rooting for the characters and became too distracted by their problems. I think after this, my third Irving, I’m done with him for awhile. I’ll try him again in 10 years.
Show Less
LibraryThing member SimoneA
I read the word 'haunting' in one of the reviews here, and that is one of the best words for this book, maybe combined with 'perverse'. However, I still loved reading this book and being with the Berry family in this haunting and perverse world for a while.
LibraryThing member ritaer
Just couldn't get into this.
LibraryThing member porch_reader
The Hotel New Hampshire tells the story of the Berry family. In the first chapter, we learn one of the family legends - the story of how Win Berry met Mary Bates when they were working at a resort hotel in Maine. The first sentence of the book carries a lot of the weight of this chapter,
“The summer my father bought the bear, none of us was born – we weren’t even conceived: not Frank, the oldest; not Franny, the loudest; not me, the next; and not the youngest of us, Lilly and Egg.”
That deceptively simple sentence makes me heart break as I re-read it after finishing the book because in the next 400 pages Irving has made me care deeply about this family (and even about the bear). As they grow up in a series of hotels, life is difficult for the Berry kids. But the tragedies that happen are no match for the strength of the Berry family and their friends (including my favorites Junior Jones and Susie the Bear). The Berry kids are equipped to deal with tragedy by the wise words of their father and his father Coach Bob (aka, Iowa Bob):
“The way the world worked was not cause for some sort of blanket cynicism or sophomoric despair; according to my father and Iowa Bob, the way the world worked – which was badly – was just a strong incentive to live purposefully, and to be determined about living well” (p. 149).
It has to be said – there are some events in this book that would sound bizarre and unbelievable if I described them here outside the context of the story, but as I lost myself in the story, they seemed to fit. As our narrator John observes, “to each other, we were as normal and nice as the smell of bread, we were just a family.” And that is what The Hotel New Hampshire is all about. Irving hasn’t written a story; he has written a family – one that is eccentric to be sure, but one that brings the idea of family to life.
Show More
introducing the Berry kids (who are really the focus of this book) and letting us know that this book, like Irving’s others, will be filled with unusual characters and surprising events:“The summer my father bought the bear, none of us was born – we weren’t even conceived: not Frank, the oldest; not Franny, the loudest; not me, the next; and not the youngest of us, Lilly and Egg.”
That deceptively simple sentence makes me heart break as I re-read it after finishing the book because in the next 400 pages Irving has made me care deeply about this family (and even about the bear). As they grow up in a series of hotels, life is difficult for the Berry kids. But the tragedies that happen are no match for the strength of the Berry family and their friends (including my favorites Junior Jones and Susie the Bear). The Berry kids are equipped to deal with tragedy by the wise words of their father and his father Coach Bob (aka, Iowa Bob):
“The way the world worked was not cause for some sort of blanket cynicism or sophomoric despair; according to my father and Iowa Bob, the way the world worked – which was badly – was just a strong incentive to live purposefully, and to be determined about living well” (p. 149).
It has to be said – there are some events in this book that would sound bizarre and unbelievable if I described them here outside the context of the story, but as I lost myself in the story, they seemed to fit. As our narrator John observes, “to each other, we were as normal and nice as the smell of bread, we were just a family.” And that is what The Hotel New Hampshire is all about. Irving hasn’t written a story; he has written a family – one that is eccentric to be sure, but one that brings the idea of family to life.
Show Less
LibraryThing member presto
A family saga told by John, the third child of the Berry family, covering forty years or more. The Berry family is no ordinary family, but a family headed by a father with a vision, the vision of running a hotel; it is a vision that takes the family from New Hampshire to Vienna and back again, and
However it is not father's vision the marks the Berry family as out of the ordinary, it is the extraordinary love that abounds among all its members, and love in many forms including incestuous desires. And one is bound to fall in love with them too, from Frank the eldest and gay son to Egg the youngest who lives in his own world of dressing up, and in between Franny, beautiful and fearless, John our narrator, and the undersized Lily who writes 'to grow'. It is a family that sticks together and pulls together even when in time they move apart geographically.
While consistently funny it yet swings between being moving, occasionally tragic, and at some hilarious for whole episodes, and it is always involving. A most imaginative and engaging novel filled with an array of unlikely yet believable characters - whether those of the Berry family or those of the numerous individuals who become a part of their lives.
Show More
brings them into contact with an array of unusual people.However it is not father's vision the marks the Berry family as out of the ordinary, it is the extraordinary love that abounds among all its members, and love in many forms including incestuous desires. And one is bound to fall in love with them too, from Frank the eldest and gay son to Egg the youngest who lives in his own world of dressing up, and in between Franny, beautiful and fearless, John our narrator, and the undersized Lily who writes 'to grow'. It is a family that sticks together and pulls together even when in time they move apart geographically.
While consistently funny it yet swings between being moving, occasionally tragic, and at some hilarious for whole episodes, and it is always involving. A most imaginative and engaging novel filled with an array of unlikely yet believable characters - whether those of the Berry family or those of the numerous individuals who become a part of their lives.
Show Less
Subjects
Awards
National Book Award (Finalist — 1982)
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1981
1982 (Germany)
Physical description
501 p.; 18 cm
ISBN
9146140603 / 9789146140603