One holy mess

This novel, John Irving’s 14th, took the sheen off my Christmas, and here are the reasons.
 

1. The comments on the back of the book (‘Irving is the wisest, most anguished and funniest novelist of his generation’ — Chicago Sun Times) made me feel lonely. He might have been wise, anguished and funny in The World According to Garp, 33 years ago. But never once in these 458 pages did I laugh, sympathise, or glean an ounce of wisdom. Instead, I lost confidence that reading novels could ever be a pleasure.
2. Take the main character, Juan Diego, a ‘dump kid’ growing up on one of the vast rubbish dumps on the edge of Oaxaca (‘Wahaca’). I enjoy reading about a dump as much as the next person, so was hopeful. But the picture Irving paints of the dump is two-dimensional: fires, stray dogs, dead dogs and burning books. The young Juan Diego reads the dumped books before they’re burnt, thus educating himself.