The Fourth Hand

John Irving

Finished "The Fourth Hand" a few days ago. It never got any better. I don't know what Irving was thinking. All the Irving elements were there, but nothing came together, and too many times his authorial voice was simply patronizing.

Worse, he tries to explain character traits that resist explanation and seem contrived. One of the main characters is a Green Bay Packers fan. This isn't bad in itself, but Irving insists on explaining the fine points of Packer history in case there are readers who don't know it. The thing is, anyone who isn't inspired by the Ice Bowl or other great Packer moments won't understand them anyway, whereas those of us who do know them wish Irving would just get on with it.

The book also spends pages on end taking on wallpaper media coverage and media types. Now, I may be biased -- I do work for an all-news network -- but, again, he's hitting the reader with a sledgehammer. Believe me, there are plenty of people around here who can't stand wallpaper coverage (I knew this Condit thing would get out of control ... the fact that he's a sleaze may cast aspersions on his character, but says nothing about *the case at hand*), and there are writers who have written well and humorously, or cynically, about wallpaper coverage and journalists/journalism. Irving merely comes off as a crank.

Of course, all this would be forgivable if "The Fourth Hand" were a good book. It is not.