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A review by lilylanie
The Cider House Rules by John Irving
4.0
This is another book that has sat on my shelf for decades, mainly because I saw the movie and didn’t particularly like it. I hoped that with enough time I’d be able to forget it, and for the most part I did with the exception of the casting - I couldn’t get their faces out of my head even though most of them wouldn’t have been my choice. Except perhaps for Michael Caine who is amazing in everything and perfect for the role. (I’m never going to believe Tobey Maguire stole anyone’s girlfriend. Nuh uh.)
It’s a long book, and even longer if you choose the audio version, but if you have the time I definitely recommend it. It’s a full 24 hours’ commitment, but just beautifully read.
It took me a while to grasp the connection between the title and the story, but seeing it now, it really encapsulates the message. Just like those rules that were tacked up every year inside the cider house, the rules that people make and impose are often incomprehensible to others and totally pointless in the grand scheme of things. Where we draw the line on what we will and won’t do, what we think makes us a good or bad person, seems very real to us but completely arbitrary to others. And what we think is a hard no can change to a yes in a blink when the situation is right. Every “I would never” can safely be followed by an “unless”.
This book may have been written 40-ish years after the main time period it portrays, but abortion was still not a thing discussed in polite company in the 1980s - hell, that hasn’t changed all that much today - so I wish I’d been old enough to take in the conversations that this book produced when it first came out. I wonder how many minds it changed and if it had any effect at all on the decision makers of the time. I think John Irving did a very important thing for women with this book and I hope he got credit for it.
It’s a long book, and even longer if you choose the audio version, but if you have the time I definitely recommend it. It’s a full 24 hours’ commitment, but just beautifully read.
It took me a while to grasp the connection between the title and the story, but seeing it now, it really encapsulates the message. Just like those rules that were tacked up every year inside the cider house, the rules that people make and impose are often incomprehensible to others and totally pointless in the grand scheme of things. Where we draw the line on what we will and won’t do, what we think makes us a good or bad person, seems very real to us but completely arbitrary to others. And what we think is a hard no can change to a yes in a blink when the situation is right. Every “I would never” can safely be followed by an “unless”.
This book may have been written 40-ish years after the main time period it portrays, but abortion was still not a thing discussed in polite company in the 1980s - hell, that hasn’t changed all that much today - so I wish I’d been old enough to take in the conversations that this book produced when it first came out. I wonder how many minds it changed and if it had any effect at all on the decision makers of the time. I think John Irving did a very important thing for women with this book and I hope he got credit for it.