pooh@ut-sally.UUCP (Pooh @ the Utility Muffin Research Kitchen) (05/27/85)
The Newsweek review of this book entirely missed its point: _The Cider House Rules_ goes much deeper than its fictional tale of an orphanage at the turn of the century. Last year I had the good fortune to be able to attend a reading by Irving of parts of this book, which at that point was still in manuscript form. He said [and I paraphrase]: "When I originally began this book, I had wanted to write a historical novel about orphanages at the turn of the century. But I found that I could not write about orphanages without dealing with the issue of abortion." _The Cider House Rules_ deals with the graphic details of pregnancy, miscarriage and abortion--something which revolted the Newsweek reviewer--but deals even more with choice. Dr. Larch, the head of the orphanage, performs illegal abortions as well as delivering babies because "the woman's got to have a choice. Don't you understand? To have the baby, or not to have the baby--she's got to have a choice." He could choose not to perform them if women at that time had had another recourse besides dangerous back-alley abortions. (One passage in the book, describing the horrible infection a woman contracted as a result of an abortion she attempted herself, was so graphic that at its public reading a male doctor fainted.) Homer Wells, an orphan groomed to become Dr. Larch's assistant and successor, refuses to perform the abortions because of his moral convictions. "If he has a choice, then I have a choice too." But John Irving, in the voice of Larch, responds: "You are involved in a process. Birth, on occasion, and interrupting it--on other occasions. Your disapproval is noted. It is legitimate. You are welcome to disapprove. But you are not welcome to be ignorant, to look the other way, to be unable to perform--should you change your mind." All this, interwoven with the stories of life and birth and death, leads to the message that Irving stated outright in his public reading: that he believed everyone should have a choice--to follow their own mores--but "a world in which abortion is illegal is a world in which you would not want to live." I highly recommend this book. ========================================================== Pooh pooh@ut-sally.ARPA {ihnp4, seismo, harvard, gatech}!ut-sally!pooh pooh@purdue-ecn-cb.ARPA pur-ee!pooh
jmsellens@watmath.UUCP (John M Sellens) (05/30/85)
But you didn't tell us how the bear, wrestling, and Vienna fit into the plot ... :-)