“Reading Is a Gift” : Why John Irving’s Novels Might Matter More as We Age

Tate, Andrew (2025) “Reading Is a Gift” : Why John Irving’s Novels Might Matter More as We Age. In: Fiction and Poetry to Help Us Age : Criticism and Reflections by Professors of Literature. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, pp. 157-168. ISBN 9783031934858

Abstract

John Irving writes very long novels that frequently follow the lives of his typically outsider protagonists across decades. I have been (re)reading these digressive and meticulously plotted books for approximately 30 years: A Prayer for Owen Meany (1989), in particular, has become, I realize, a vital part of the language with which I reflect on loss, hope and the experience of grace. Irving’s novels of education take a quietly subversive approach to empathy; indeed, his fiction is both admired and disparaged for its candid debt to Charles Dickens. This chapter examines why I believe that a decelerated re-reading of Irving’s fiction might illuminate aspects of our shared, as well as individual, experience of time and the potential of narrative to give shape to grief.