 It's time for a tome! Welcome to Church of the Chair where we celebrate all the things we do while seated. I'm your host, E, and today we are talking about the last chairlift by John Irving. It's been a long time. I shouldn't have left you without a review to step two. Step two. How y'all doing? So I recently finished the last chairlift by John Irving. Every first thing I'll say is this is a mammoth monster of a book, and it is supposed to be Irving's final tome. The final book of this length that he will be publishing. Not the final book he'll be publishing, but the final tome. This one clocks in at a, just a sicken, just a thicken. It clocks in at 889 pages. Just shy of 900 pages, but y'all can do math, y'all can count, so I didn't have to tell you that. This one revolves around a young man, well I shouldn't say young man. He grows up, it's all throughout his life, from early childhood all the way until he's an older gentleman. It's a many decades worth of story, a saga if you will. His name is Adam, and Adam has a very unique family, a very unique living situation, just all around unique. What I appreciated the most about this book is the diverse cast of characters. Everyone feels real, everyone feels fleshed out. There's not a single person in this book that I did not enjoy, that I didn't enjoy reading about. Especially Adam's mother. Pardon me, as far as the characters names are concerned, there were quite a bit of them, and I don't want to get anything wrong. This is of course quite a long book, so remembering the full cast of characters, especially when I've read several books since then, is going to be difficult. I like the aunt, the aunt character, the two was it, okay, it's a slur coming up in a couple of words, a slur to some people. Two Dykes, one who talks is a show, a stage play that the two of the characters put on, which ends up leading to a very tragic incident later on in the book. There is a lot of tragedy in this book, there is a lot of beauty in this book, especially with regards to Adam and how he interacts with the varying people in his life. The character of the, I believe it was the professor, this is also, I'm pretty sure, the only John Irving novel with a supernatural element. Now it's not to say this is a horror novel, but there are some scenes that could lean in that direction. The ghosts are used more to a comedy point, especially the professor. The professor emeritus, or whatever, that's not his name, of course, but that's what he's called in various different ways. Another thing that I liked about the book was all the crazy ways that John Irving not reacted, but had the characters thinking about that character, various different nicknames. He was rarely ever called the same thing, which I thought was hilarious. About the book I kept expecting something that did not happen. I don't want to spoil it for you, but after reading John Irving's The Hotel New Hampshire, where there is a spoiler alert for the hotel New Hampshire in 3, 2, 1, there is a consensual incestual relationship between a brother and sister. They end up having sex toward the end of the book and they are both adults. Think of that, what you will. There was a little bit of that aspect in this one too, I don't want to spoil it for those of you that want to read it, but there was a bit of that aspect early on, hinting, foreshadowing, and I think Irving did that on purpose, is like, okay, let's boost this point and make people feel uncomfortable. And then nothing ever comes of it, which I also appreciated because I didn't want these two characters to get together whatsoever, and they didn't. Another thing is, John Irving does a very good job with trans representation in this book. If you don't know, John Irving has been writing about trans people ever since The World According to Garp. The movie version of that starring Robin Williams had John Lithgow playing a trans woman. Would I have preferred a trans woman playing that part? Of course. Suffice to say, John Lithgow did a fine job. Now, with here, for the longest time, I had no idea that John Irving's daughter is trans. I had no idea about that. I found out afterward, watching an interview with him, the fact that he was writing about trans characters before this child was even born really stuck with me. It wasn't a matter of him trying to gain credit or trying to boost himself up with the queer community. It was more about a father's love for their child and wanting to be inclusive, at least for this book. Now, back in the 70s, when The World According to Garp came out, it wasn't unheard of, but that was far more controversial than it'll be nowadays. I know there are going to be people saying, it's still controversial, either I don't like it or he got it wrong or whatever, I'm just giving you my point of view. You can do with that what you will. There is a whole gambit of LGBTQIA representation in this book from asexual to bisexual to, I guess you'd either say pan or demi to lesbian relationship. There's so much in here. And I found that absolutely fantastic. Now, as far as the title is concerned, the part that broke my heart the most in this book has to do with The Last Chairlet. It really struck me. It hit a chord and I was a crying mess. On to a little bit more about John Irving himself. Irving has always pushed the boundaries of what is, I guess, acceptable in literature. Now, he doesn't go as far as like a Philip Roth or like a Chuck Pollanik, but he does subvert expectations. This is not a thriller. This is not horror. This is not plot heavy. This is a saga that happens over many decades, but the pacing is off the charts. I really enjoyed that. The only part of the book that I did not enjoy was this reading the scripts that are throughout the book. There are several hundred page scripts. I believe it's three of them in a almost 900 page book where I saw the point of those scripts. I don't like reading them. I don't enjoy reading them. I have no problem writing them, any of that, but I just do not enjoy the reading of a script and there were numerous ones in here. Could I have done without it? Yes, but I don't see any other way that he could have done the book, so congratulations to him. I never go into an Irving novel with expectations because they never pan out anyways. With the same with the Hotel New Hampshire that I talked about earlier, I never would have thought that he would have carried through with it. In this one, I was sure he was going to carry through with the consensual, ancestral relationship. But he did not. It ended up becoming a deeper love than just a physical love that these two characters possess. But if you have not read Irving at all, I do not suggest starting here. This is like a culmination of all of his ideas, all in one book. Much like Horuky Minakami's Killing Commendator or Commendatore, I'm not sure on the pronunciation of that. I apologize. I found one specific source that says 100% it's one way or the other. But I wouldn't suggest starting here. If you are an Irving fan, you're going to absolutely love this book. It is 889 pages of pure Irving, and I loved every minute of it. Even the scripts, I did not enjoy reading them, but I did enjoy their relevance to the story at hand. My final note here is if you want to start with Irving, I suggest you start with something like the £145 marriage, setting free the bears, something on the smaller side, or if you are one of those people who love a tome, that's what this series is all about, time for a tome, then definitely check out The World According to Garp or, let's see here, Owen Meanie. A song for Owen Meanie? I can't remember the title up top of my head, but it's Owen Meanie. All you gotta do is google that. But this one, if you want to start with this one, just know that when you go back and read those other books that I mentioned, you are going to find hella similarities between those books and this one, because this one feels like a culmination of all the things he's been saying all of these years. That's all the time I have for you today. If you are curious as to where the old stuff went to, if you know, you know, there is a link down there in the description that says exactly where it went. There is no explanation available for why. I've already discussed this multiple times, gave you guys six months worth of heads up. And still, the number one comment I've been getting is, hey, where's all the old stuff? But there is a link down there in the description you can go to. You do have to join the Discord, then you can save the links and go on about your business. You can leave if you want to. But anyways, like I said, that's all the time I have for today, but until next time, I'll hail the chair!