ARTS
Thursday, June 20, 1985
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Page 6
The Michigan Daily
'Cider House' enjoyable but unbalanced
The Cider House Rules present in the last two books in order When Irving devotes his attention to
By John Irving to further his theories on abortion. characterization the results are
Morrow, 560 pages, $18.95 Thus the book reads somewhat like a terrific. Larch is a wired ether addict
fictional treatise, or perhaps a who learns to love by loving Homer
cautionary tale. Wells. The growth of his love and need
T HE FIRST THING readers of Those who had a hard time with the
John Irving should know about violence and graphic detail of Irving's
The Cider House Rules is that it is not earlier books should be forewarned.
In advancing his theories Irving
demonstrates a thorough knowledge
of the technical aspects of abortion. In
.....,, ~addition, he straightforwardly J .11
presents the ills that occur in a T
By John Logie choiceless community. This is not
beach reading.
Cider House is the story of an or-
chapter three of The World According phanage in St. Cloud's Maine, and the
to Garp at the Hotel New Hampshire. lives of its inhabitants. William Lar-
While Irving's last two novels are ch, the orphanage doctor and illegal
peas in a pod, with their patriarchs, abortionist, becomes attached to
bears, and Viennese whores, Cider Homer Wells, a bafflingly unadop-
House is in a different pod. Even so, table child. Larch gradually developsI
the book is part of the same plant. a paternal desire to have Homer
In Cider House, Irving sacrifices a follow in his footsteps at the hospital.
certain "literariness" that was For Homer, growing up in an or-E
phanage has made abortion
distasteful. He sees Larch's patients
No one faces cancer alone. come and go, having "an abortion or
Callus. an orphan" as Larch puts it. Homer
AMERICAN CANCER oci~ry, has to face not only the pressure that
Larch puts on him, but also the un-
deniable pull of the orphanage. St. for Homer is at odds with the physical
Cloud's is home for Homer. and mental decline Larch experien-
ces, and each lends urgency to the
other. Larch's deterioration is
LESBIAN-GAY PRIDE WEEK '85 ANN ARBOR palpable.
Cider House is stuffed with Ir- later. His writing captures the quiet
vingesque characters, quirky people. echoes which sometimes startle us,
Irving uses a minimal amount of the minute allegories and metaphors
description. The characters achieve that travel with us. In Cider House,
full development only in the reader's his treatment of abortion does not
observation of their actions. It is receive the same delicacy and sub-
almost as if Irving creates a vague tlety. It looms over the novel, constan-
sketch, and tells the reader to paint tly making such a bold statement that
over it. the book loses persuasiveness. A
Because characterization is a balanced treatment would probably
collaberative effort in Irving novels, it make Irving's point quietly, but suf-
is frustrating when Irving bends the ficiently.
rules, forcing characters into unlikely This having been said, there is cer-
situations and reactions. Even though tainly enough that is right with this
the characters are certainly the novel to make it entertaining reading.
author's, and the author has the right, Irving manages to create in the
if not the obligation to challenge both reader a deep running concern and
the reader and the character, one sympathy for his protagonists.
feels at times cheated by Cider House. And now a word or two about David
The reader, unable to identify Copperfield. Garp bore significant
motivation, loses understanding of the structural similarities to Dickens'
character. novel, Hotel bore fewer, and Cider
While I am sympathetic toward Ir- House bears fewer yet. Nevertheless
ving's need to do something about Irving continually injects the book
what he sees as a great social in- into.Homer's life, constantly forcing
justice, I am not sympathetic with his the reader to make comparisons bet-
doing so at the expense of charac- ween Irving characters and Dicken-
terization. The people in Cider House sian characters.
stop short of the fullness that Irving The characters in this novel are im-
invested in the characters of his peded by these forced comparisons.
earlier novels, paving the way for a Cider House has no characters on the
discussion of abortion which ranges order of Copperfield's, and it probably
from compassionate to heavy-handed. shouldn't.
Irving is a delicate writer, weaving good diatrihe. As a diatrie, it is com-
threads, sometimes dropping on pelling, frustrating, and at times
only to pick it up hundreds of pages fascinating.
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True West brings their guitar-laden sound to the
Blind Pig tonight. Staff writer John Logie spoke
with co-lead guitarist Russell Tolman.
Daily: What does the band sound like?
Tolman: Lots of guitars, big huge slabs of guitars with
hopefully a lot of really good songs underneath.
D: When you're compared to other bands, who do you
like to be compared to?
T: If I have to be compared to another band - like
compare me to another band or cut my arm off - I'd have
to say the Byrds, Yardbirds, Television, bands like that.
Guitar bands.
D: Writers often say you're just around the corner from
signing with a major label -..
T: We've had so many big labels come and do a one
night stand with us, but not want to marry us that you
can't imagine. .. Finally it comes down to "Well, we
don't know how to package you.' and 'We've never had
anything quite like you. We need to know what to do.'
D: True West seems to get lumped in with '60s revival
hands ...
T: Whenever people hear guitars that aren't like, Les
Pauls through Marshalls on '10,' with that fuzz sort of
sound, they think, 'This must be '60s, it's jangly soun-
ding!' We all like the Byrds, we all like Dylan, the Yar-
dbirds, but we're not trying to revive anything. We're not
trying to carry a torch, we're just taking little bits from
what we like.
D: Both you and Richard McGrath play lead guitar?
T: We switch back and forth ... He's technically a
much better guitar player than I am. When we were in
England there was all this talk about him being one of the
top five guitar players in the world. We all had a great
laugh about it, it's a pretty strong statement . .. he was
always my guitar God when I was just a wee lad.
D: Guitar music seems to be riding a wave of popularity
these days ...
T: Yeah, it's the flavor of the week ... guitars sound
great. You can express a lot more emotion on a guitar
than you can on a stnthesizer. A guitar is like a Ford - it's
dependable. It's gonna be there when you need it.
D: What sort of guitar sound does the band have?
T: I play more jangly, and Richard has more of a
sustaining sort of sound. The reason why I wanted
Richard in the band is he's the only guy I know who could
play a guitar and make it sound like it was on tape running
backwards while he's actually playing forwards.
D: Does he give lessons?
T: He won't even teach me anything. Actually we have
kind of a rivalry. I'm the kid who can't play, and he's the
guy why really can play, and so my purpose in life is to try
and be the bee in his bonnet, kick him in the butt, make my
playing piss him off enough that he'll do something dif-
ferent.
D: Have you ever been asked to keep a lid on the
volume?
T: We've never been able to play at a tolerable level,
that's why we had to leave our hometown.
D: Do any of the band members have any hearing
loss?
T: Richard... I don't think he can hear anything above
15kHz, in fact he can't hear 15kHz ... most people can
hear 20kHz.
D: Is he considering ear plugs?
T: Earplugs don't work at all when you play guitar. You
just can't hear the tone of the guitar right, and that's the
most important thing. I haven't noticed any real hearing
loss on my part . . . it might be creeping up on me, but it's
worth the price, right?