Rating: 
Summary: Maybe, maybe not...
Review: I dunno. This John Irving novel just doesn't live up to his previous ones. There are the usual LOL moments, the usual quirky characters, the usual brilliant schticks, but the character development strikes me as weak and hurried - or rather, almost nonexistent. Except for the women, and they steal the show. I know, I know: it's satire, but I'm sure someone of Irving's prodigious gifts and talents can do better with delving into the depths of the human condition. I mean, come on: he's already done it a thousand times over in his previous books.
On the plus side: there're the typical romps through the complicated, twisted, quirky, and inter-twined Irvingesque explorations of all the various relationships involved. TV journalist Wallingford loses his hand to a lion, live on TV, and some fan wills his hand to Wallingford, just in case, and all too soon, he conveniently dies, Wallingford gets the hand, and the widow of the donor wants visitation rights.
Um, yeah, right. Read it and decide for yourself.
Rating:
Summary: A departure from Irving's other works, with mixed results
Review: In one of his shortest novels to date, Irving weaves three interlocking stories and themes. A reporter for a tabloid-style news channel, Patrick Wallingford gains international notoriety when he loses his hand to a lion in a videocast that his employer shamelessly milks for ratings. Wallingford then falls in love with the Wisconsin-based widow of the donor whose hand is surgically attached as a replacement, but tension results between his comopolitan world "in which sexual anarchy ruled" and her relatively chaste, laid-back Green Bay upbringing. And, finally, Irving uses the death of John F. Kennedy, Jr., and the crash of EgyptAir 990 as backdrops for a scathing and contemptuous denunciation of the crisis-driven television news industry.There's also a pleasing and comical subplot about the hand surgeon and his strained relationships with his ex-wife (who loathes him), his son, and his maid. Irving devotes a whole chapter to introducing them, but all the characters involved are entirely forgotten in the last half of the book. They are probably meant to foreshadow Wallingford's own story, but the parallels seem lopsided. Most of the characters display Irving's trademark eccentricities, but none of them fills the role spot on. Simultaneously amiable and thoughtless, Wallingford transforms himself from an empty-headed playboy to a paternal and solicitous gentleman caller, but the metamorphosis seems strained. The reader never quite understands what motivates Doris (often referred to as Mrs. Clausen), the somewhat unemotional and all-too-practical widow. Patrick's conniving, near-hysterical colleague, who wants to have his job and his baby, borders on all-too-familiar sexist stereotype. More than a few additional characters make repeated appearances in the early chapters, only to exit the stage inexplicably well before the final act. In addition, a noticeable number of paragraphs follow a bizarre and cloying pattern: two or three sentences--sometimes non sequiturs--preceding a cute or explanatory parenthetical aside that serves only to describe something that, all too often, should have been mentioned elsewhere. At times it feels that Irving wanted to write a type of fiction different from the farcically Dickensian, three-ring-circus novels to which his readers are accustomed. One can never fault a writer for wanting to branch out--but, in this case, different is not necessarily better. Irving's longer novels can support and sustain his meandering, almost chatty prose style, but this effort's brevity and the plot's sparseness serve to emphasize certain faults. Overall, "The Fourth Hand" reads a bit like an early draft of a potentially brilliant satirical novel.
Rating: 
Summary: a disappointment from irving
Review: _The Fourh Hand_ is the only book I have read by John Irving that didn't raise goosebumps on my skin or cause me to cry. Not that those things are automatically required of a great book, but what I do require is being made to care. I found that as I read I didn't like Patrick Wallingford, the TV journalist ("Disaster Man") main character whose hand is eaten off by a lion, and didn't like the people surrounding him. Even after Patrick's humanization, presumably caused by the hand transplant and the "strings" that were attached, he seems shallow, more bemused by the fact he'd fallen in love than anything. _The Fourth Hand_ is written in an acerbic comedic tone, ostensibly a treatise against the media and the news that transfixes us as a nation. Almost Swiftian, the novel might have made a better essay, possibly even without the love aspect which is supposed to be the redemptive force of the book but is not entirely believable. Great writers cannot be great all the time, and upon finishing all I wanted to do was re-read _The Cider House Rules_ or _A Prayer for Owen Meany_. First time Irving readers would be better off with one of his earlier works, and long time fans shouldn't expect too much.
Rating: 
Summary: Another First Class Effort
Review: Ever since "The World According to Garp," John Irving has been one of my favorite philosophers. His work in "The Fourth Hand" has not caused me to change my mind. Irving's ability to create funny and three-dimensional characters, while making thoughtful commentary on the human condition, is unparalleled in modern literature. Patrick Wallingford, Irving's mutilated protagonist, is a shallow, womanizing pretty-boy who, nevertheless, grows as a person before our eyes. The woman who becomes the love of his life, Doris Clausen, is good hearted and sexy, but preternaturally weird. Nobody does set pieces that are both funny and poignant, and full of both bitterness and love, than Irving. He does it again here. His description of Wallingford's tryst with a gum-chewing makeup girl, and its attendant complications, is worth the price of the book. Irving's side of the mouth dismissal of cable news as shallow, callous, insincere, and intrusive is right on the mark, too, it seems to me. Irving's usual devices, maiming, violent death, the love of a child, wild animals (lions this time, not bears) and circuses are in evidence here. Nobody understands the chaos that is life better than Irving, but his optimism and his obvious love for his characters make that recognition fun and instructive, not off-putting. I heard this book on tape. Jason Culp, who reads this audio book is very effective. Finally, I give this Irving outing 4 stars out of 5 instead of 5 out of 5 only because of his obsession with Wallingford's hand. Although Irving has used traumatic amputations in other books, they have never before been the central theme of any one of them, as is the case in "The Fourth Hand." In fact, it is for this reason that I (uncharacteristically for a John Irving novel) waited as long as I did to read it. I highly recommended it, anyway.
Rating:
Summary: A mediocre tale, poorly told
Review: Having read, and mostly loved, all of Irving's previous works, I rushed out to get "The Fourth Hand" the day it was published. I just finished it and I agree with the previous reviewer: this was a real disappointment. In addition to the fact that it's a rather skimpy idea for a novel, the writing seemed extremely amateurish to me. A couple of times I asked myself if it was really John Irving writing. The book is absolutely larded with cliches: "so to speak," "as it were," "was wont to say," and almost every paragraph ends with a distracting parenthetical aside. Was there no editor on the job? An even bigger problem is that most of the story is told in a "once-removed" style. There are very few real scenes until the second half. The first half feels like a quick retelling of some other novel. This is especially disappointing from Irving because he has always been the master of storytelling. (Think of the orphanage scenes in "Cider House Rules" or the scenes about Jenny's early days in "Garp.") If you're a true fan, you'll want to read this. After all, there are glimmers of the real John Irving here -- a scene in which a young lady nearly chokes to death on her chewing gum comes to mind. But wait for the paperback. If you haven't read John Irving before, please don't start here.
Rating:
Summary: A middling effort by Irving is miles ahead of the pack
Review: Book Review: The Fourth Hand, by John Irving I borrowed this book from the library with the thought that, since Irving has written three outstanding novels in my collection (Cider House Rules, Owen Meany, and Hotel New Hampshire), I should probably read everything else he's written in case there are other gems in his life's work
The Fourth Hand is not such a gem, but nearly half the book was a delight to read.
Irving departs from the formula that has guided other of his works that I've read. In The Fourth Hand, the characters are not insulated from the real world; as a television field reporter with a degree of fame, protagonist Patrick Wallingford is as immersed in the real world as it is possible for a minor celebrity to be. He gains international notoriety when his hand is eaten by lions while covering a story at a circus in India. A significant time after the accident, Patrick receives a hand transplant. The widow of the donor, Doris Clausen, demands visitation rights with the hand, which is, after all, a still-living part of her husband. Patrick falls in love with Doris, perhaps because, on first meeting him hours before the transplant, she has sex with him in order to conceive the child that she and Otto never could.
The doctor who performs the transplant, Dr. Zajac, is an extremely interesting character who tries to develop a relationship with his son despite the best efforts of his ex-wife. Zajac's frumpy housekeeper is so moved by the doctor's feelings for his son that she falls in love with him, and transforms herself into a sexpot in order to gain his affection.
The second half of the novel tracks Patrick's efforts to develop a relationship with Doris after his body has rejected her late husband's hand. At the same time, Patrick's dalliances with women and the office politics of his television anchor job become entangled in these efforts and each other.
Most of Irving's novels track their protagonist from beginning to end; they are sprawling, and let you know how everything turns out. In this book, we get a section out of the middle of Patrick's life, and I was left wondering about the ending, and not in a good way. I would have preferred to see what contributed to the curiosities of Patrick's character; he is an affable man without any sense of "deepness," but we don't know why. The book tracks his development into someone with values and integrity, but there is something missing.
Despite these complaints, The Fourth Hand is an interesting read, and some of the scenes are absolutely delightful. As always, Irving finds a way to incorporate text from other authors; in this case, EB White's children's tales Stuart Little and Charlotte's Web share time with The English Patient. And the intricacy of certain of the characters should serve as a model for novelists everywhere. Dr. Zajac, who is unhealthily thin, a bird watcher, a former lacrosse player, a brilliant hand surgeon, a miserable observer of human nature, a struggling father, and more, is the prime example of how to make a character interesting and engaging.
Irving has tinkered with the formula that has made his writing such a unique joy; the deviations are, on balance, more negative than positive, but I hope that the experience will help him to produce more masterpieces.
Rating:
Summary: Forgettable
Review: I love John Irving. I love the way his stories start under the most bizarre situations, and I love how they make you believe in the unbelievable. Having been a huge fan of A Prayer for Owen Meany, I was waiting impatiently for the release of The Fourth Hand. I should have waited a bit longer. While Irving's character is certainly real enough, the idea of him inheriting the hand of a dead man, and then the dead man's wife making love to the hand as it's attached to our "hero" is, well, goofy. Irving to this point has had no problem selling weird ideas and scenarios to me. This one, however, was just too weird to comprehend. While it's an enjoyable read, it's quickly forgotten. Because our protagonist is unlikeable from the start, it's difficult to muster up any sympathy for him when dealing with a lion snatching his hand. One almost wishes the lion would have aimed higher and between the ears.
Rating:
Summary: What is the sound of one hand clapping?
Review: I'd read "Cider House Rules" and enjoyed it, so I gave this one a try. And glad I did. A very different style, more magic realism, yet the focus is on the human heart, the human condition, the need for people to understand themselves, and how we can help each other to do that, sometimes in unexpected ways. Irving veers unerringly between pathos and bathos, sometimes throwing in hilariously rude comments about his own characters! The main characters change and grow. Passive seducer Patrick Wallingford meets his match, loses his touch (and his hand), and gets a life-lesson. Is this a comedy? A romance? Irving keeps the touch light, shining a light on life's profundities yet without being in any way maudlin or sentimental or preachy. The surgeon who performs the operations on Wallingford's hand has problems of his own: a quirky character bordering on the obsessive, a bitter, vengeful ex-wife, a son who he has trouble relating to; he jogs, he can't stand dog turds, he used to play lacrosse. Irving comes up with a hilarious combination: the jogging doctor takes his lacrosse stick with him, scoops up dog-poop on the run, and flings it in the Charles river! The comic zingers took me completely by surprise and had me in stitches. I could not put this book down. Check out the one-night stand with Angie, the "mess" who asks for Wallingford's home phone number to give to her parents "in case of emergencies", and of course the whole family calls up! The one-night stands highlight Wallingford's lack of principle and direction, yet the encounters usually teach him something about himself, and eventually something about other people, especially women, who, Wallingford slowly realizes, he never really knew. The ending was good, though a little too expected. The book reminded me of Balzac in its scope, characterization and humour, also of Kurt Vonnegut in the humour and magic realism and symbolism (the jokes about "hands" got a little too cute after a while, tho) and also a little of Nick Hornby's "About a Boy" (tho I've only seen the movie of the latter, not read the book). There was a little too much getting laid (I couldn't figure out the purpose of one of the meetings at all), altho it figures that a spineless womanizer like Wallingford couldn't learn about life any other way! Irving has fun with names: there's a character who has 3 names. Is it Irving the author who can't make up his mind what to call this character? Or is it Wallingford's lack of interest in his fellow human beings that causes the confusion? Notice when the main character is called Patrick, when he's Wallingford, and when he's Pat. A fun read.
Rating:
Summary: A Worthy Read
Review: Because it is a John Irving book it is a worthy read. Definitely a quirky story and contains the usual: sex, references to Austria and India, and truly bizarre comical situations.
Rating:
Summary: A good book
Review: Maybe a little dull in it's characters but time well spent.
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