About this title: This saga of the Berry family, set in a series of venerable old hotels that house various eccentrics, including an old vaudevillian, incestuous family members, and bears.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Dutton Books
Date Published: 1981
ISBN-13:9780525128007ISBN:052512800X
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Very Good, In very good dust jacket. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. With dust jacket. 401 p. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Dutton Books
Date Published: 1981
ISBN-13:9780525128007ISBN:052512800X
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Very Good, In very good dust jacket. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. With dust jacket. 401 p. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Dutton Books
Date Published: 1981
ISBN-13:9780525128007ISBN:052512800X
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Very Good, In very good dust jacket. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. With dust jacket. 401 p. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Dutton Books
Date Published: 1981
ISBN-13:9780525128007ISBN:052512800X
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Very Good, In very good dust jacket. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. With dust jacket. 401 p. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Dutton Books
Date Published: 1981
ISBN-13:9780525128007ISBN:052512800X
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Very Good, In very good dust jacket. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. With dust jacket. 401 p. Previous Owner's Inscription. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Dutton Books
Date Published: 1981
ISBN-13:9780525128007ISBN:052512800X
Description: Good in good dust jacket. Very Good, In very good dust jacket. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. With dust jacket. 401 p. Ex-Library expected imperfections. read more
Edition: Third Printing
Binding: Cloth Backed Boards
Publisher: E. P Dutton
Date Published: 1981
ISBN-13:9780525128007ISBN:052512800X
Description: Very Good in Very Good + jacket. Size: 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" tall; remainder mark top edge, else clean bright & tight-in mylar cover. read more
"It is very difficult to summarise the plot of The Hotel New Hampshire because there are many characters and many events, and I regard all of those characters and events as being important. Very basically, it is about the Berry family: Win; Mary; Frank; Franny; John; Lilly; Egg; and Iowa Bob. However, saying that The Hotel New Hampshire is about the Berry family is like saying War and Peace is about the French invasion of Russia, or Animal Farm is about farm animals. The most memorable things for me about the The Hotel New Hampshire are the following: The saying "Keep passing the open windows". This phrase recurs throughout the book as a catchphrase among the Berry family, and something now that I also frequently say, or think. It is drawn from a story that the Berry parents tell their children, about a street performer called "The King of Mice." Saying "Keep passing the open windows" is the family's way of telling each other to persevere when things aren't going well. Lilly, the second youngest child, eventually kills herself by jumping out of a window, having become too depressed with her life to "keep passing the open windows". When the family moved to Vienna, the parents took separate flights, just in case one of the planes crashed; and one of the planes DID crash. Mary, the mother, and Egg, the youngest child, died in the crash. That seemed horribly sad, yet inevitable, to me. I try to not think of bad things happening because of that. "Sorrow floats" is another catchphrase frequently repeated in the story after that incident because, when rescuers were searching for remains of where the plane crashed into the Atlantic Ocean, amongst the wreckage found floating was the family's pet dog, Sorrow, who Frank, the oldest child, had stuffed after the dog had been put to sleep because of excessive flatulence. I don't use that phrase, but I remember it sometimes when I'm feeling sad. After his mother died, John, the narrator and third oldest or third youngest child (in other words, the middle child), decided that he wouldn't use swear words anymore, because she hated how everyone in the family, especially Franny, the second oldest child, used foul language all the time. I never really swore much before reading The Hotel New Hampshire, but I made a point of it afterwards. I like to think my vocabulary has benefited tremendously because of it. After Franny was raped, John took up weight-lifting to try to get bigger and stronger so that he could protect her in the future, if not in the past. I thought that was a good idea, so I took it up too. John continued with it for the rest of his life, as have I, although I have never achieved the mass of muscle that John did. John was in love with Franny. I was intrigued by this, and reminded of it when later in life I fell in love with one of my cousins, though that relationship faded very quickly rather than coming to the drawn-out resolution that John's and Franny's did."
"I was attempting a description of this book for my friend some days ago, boiling it down, stripping it from its simple-y, Irving prose, as well as its tremendous sense of humor, and thought to myself, "My oh-my, this novel certainly sounds dark and disturbed." But it's not. Only Irving--and his populist-writing ways--has the ability to take such ludicrous ideas, ideas that conservative people would go red in the cheeks for and grab their heart--"Lord, this is too much! I must turn back to my trustworthy CS Lewis!"--ideas and stories that would never come to fruition in the 'real' world; he takes this mess of ridiculousness and shapes it into something anyone could believe, unflinchingly too. Thank you, Mr. Irving, for yet another fabulous and quirky read. I will further pet your ego and label you as today's Dickens!
PS If only the royalty of being a fabulous writer hadn't gotten to your head and turned you into the pretentious live personality you are today, I would love and respect you all the more. Please, remember who puts the bread and love onto your table. Okay? We do, so be nice to us."
"The cover that is showing is not the real cover for the book. It is very misleading. I collect motorcycle books and was very upset to find this out when the book arrived."
"I did not begin to read novels by John Irving until the early '90s. Graduate school was all-consuming and left no time for reading outside of the required course work. "The Cider House Rules" - so typical of Irving's style - was a great re-introduction to the joy and absorption of reading for pleasure. I essentially read his works "forward" from that point on and have only recently taken up "Garp" and, now, "The Hotel New Hampshire". As a result I am not a highly objective reviewer of these particular books. This author will forever represent my link to that time when I was able to return to good fiction.
It is fascinating to now recognize the themes he was to revisit over and over again in future works: bears, New England Prep Schools, wrestling, the film industry and some much edgier, ever-controversial topics (abortion, rape, incest, homosexuality, race relations). I must say that if I had started with "Garp" and seen this pattern earlier, I most likely would not have made it to his best novels. The thematic repetition - and my anticipation of it - would have become tiresome, I think. Missing out on "A Prayer for Owen Meany" would have been a true loss, so I am very pleased things developed the way they did.
"The Hotel New Hampshire" is Irving's typical wild amusement-park ride. The characters are eccentric, searching, deeply flawed people causing much of their own misfortune and subsequently doing the best they can to rise above it all. There is enough to love and admire about each of them to keep the reader interested, entertained and generally routing for "the good guys" throughout. Taking his works as an oeuvre, I would put this one in the middle of the pack. If you read and like this novel, you will enjoy virtually every other work of fiction he has written; and vice versa. (I specifically single out fiction because Irving's non-fiction is much too self-absorbed for my tastes.)"
We guarantee every item's condition, as described on Alibris. If you are not satisfied that an item is as described, return your purchase for a refund.
rating
