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.
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Pooh
pooh@ut-sally.ARPA {ihnp4, seismo, harvard, gatech}!ut-sally!pooh
pooh@purdue-ecn-cb.ARPA pur-ee!poohjmsellens@watmath.UUCP (John M Sellens) (05/30/85)
But you didn't tell us how the bear, wrestling, and Vienna fit into the plot ... :-)