Juan Diego
is on his way to the biggest trip of his life: form New York to the
Philippines. Yet, already the start of his journey is difficult, masses of snow
lead to a delay, but while waiting at JFK, he meets Dorothy and Miriam who will
change of a lot of his plans for the following days. However, the elderly
author does not only travel to Asia, but also into his own past, remembering
how he grew up on a Mexican dump together with his mind-reading sister Lupe,
how Jesuits took care of them and how Lupe lost her life.
For readers
of John Irving’s novels, the latest has to offer what you would expect from it:
a great story of a whole life which is neither easy nor does it offer masses of
luck and joy. Nevertheless, again, we get a multifaceted protagonist who is able
to narrate his story and
analyse it at the same
time, who is singular and at the same time representative for a whole group of
persons. He offers insight in his very special life and makes the novel vivid
and complex. Having both stories – the past and the present – at the same time
also provide a lot of suspense, since at the beginning, you cannot really like
the old and the young Juan Diego and you get curious to find out what happened
to his life to make such a turn.
All in all,
a wonderful story to indulge in.
