Rating: 
Summary: Ahhhh, lighten up, fellow readers!
Review: I'm apparently a lone voice crying in the wilderness on this one, but I found it a good read. No, it hasn't got some of the dimension and nuance of some of the other Irving books, but bear in mind that my favorite Irving work is "A Son of the Circus" -- for crying out loud, guys, a book doesn't have to be deep and profound to be good! Sometimes, it's enough that it just be fun.I wasn't prepared to like Pat Wallingford, but his character got under my skin by the end of the book. He ended up a sort of endearing bumbler, vulnerable despite his apparent "made for television" slickness. He reminded me of Inspector Dhar from "Circus". Certain of the scenes in the book (dog turd lacrosse, the tryst between Patrick and Angie) were laugh-out-loud funny. And the ending was as marginally anticlimactic as most such scenes are in life. That's a great bit of restraint, to sacrifice drama for verisimilitude -- and in an Irving ending, restraint is a rare virtue indeed. Perhaps we've become spoiled by Irving, the way he tends to spin such a great yarn while creating such unforgettable and nuanced characters as Homer Wells and Owen Meany . . . I don't think that was what this book was *for*. Vonnegut seldom bothered to develop a character beyond a strange situation and a beguiling turn of phrase! Why should it be a sin when Irving does it? I liked it. I'll read it again.
Rating: 
Summary: Huge Disappointment.
Review: Having read every published work by John Irving (yes, I even suffered through Setting Free the Bears), I look forward to each new novel. Typically the multi-year wait is rewarded with what I call "book-gasm". The Fourth Hand doesn't even get to verbal foreplay. The characters are weak, uninteresting individuals who never develop and about whom I never am able to care. The book further suffers from a conspicuous absence of plot. Which, normally, is not a problem since Mr. Irving's books are usually so strongly character-driven. I felt that I was reading either a first draft or a cheap romance novel. The clever turns-of-phrase and complications of sexual character that mark Mr. Irving's novels -- also absent. [....]
Rating:
Summary: Not one of his better works...
Review: Frustrating . . . I'm a huge admirer of his work and I really wanted to like this book. Two thoughts kept coming to mind as I read: 1) Could there have been a more effective way to incorporate this story into a larger, expansive and more dveloped story? 2) Was his ticked off at Random House for some reason, and owing them one more work on a soured book deal, just turned in this undeveloped, incomplete piece? I was dismayed at the complete lack of John "Irvingisms": no sympathetic characters, no "evil" people getting their comeuppances in John Irving's fashion--e.g. the priest in "A Prayer for O.M.", the prostitute killer in "Widow...", and the transexual in "Son of the Circus", none of that incredible subtle foreshadowing Irving is famous for--cleverly introducing an innocent object or event that recurs throughout and ultimately leads to some horrible tragedy or cathartic experience. And it seemed that the whole story was tied up just a little too neatly. Well, he is human--even Shakespeare wrote a few lame plays. I just hope his next piece is on the same level as "Widow...", "A Prayer for O.M." or "Cider House..."
Rating: 
Summary: It Isn't Garp
Review: I think I would like this novel a lot more if I had never read THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP, and that's probably unfair to John Irving. I loved Garp, but I often found the comings and goings of the Lion Man only mildly amusing. The usual elements of an Irving novel are here. The befuddled characters, the repetition of the story line, the easy language. Although I still remember the "undertoad" from my reading of Garp years ago and the mantra that "Sorrow floats" from Hotel New Hampshire, I found no such chestnuts in this one, at least not to my liking. A dumb dog who eats her "own poo," something we are reminded of over and over, or the wad of gum on the alarm clock, for example, are not images that I care to remember. The novel certainly has its moments. The satire of twenty-four hour news television networks is one of the best things in the book. Irving ridicules nicely the vanity, the egos, the in-fighting of the TV personnel as well as the news readers who become the news. Much is made of the incessant TV coverage of both the death of John Kennedy Junior and the crash of the Egyptian jetliner. (I remember from the real world two news people from one of the national TV networks standing in front of the Kennedy compound at Martha's Vineyard making small talk, when there was no new news about the awful tragedy, saying that they had never been inside the Kennedy home.) Descriptions of Patrick's attempting to care for his infant son are quite moving. I suspect that Irving is a very decent man. He is the only male writer that some feminists I know read. Certainly Patrick, womanizer that he is, gets more knocks from the opposite sex than they from him-- I'm not punning here. And I won't spoil the title of the book for you. Patrick unsuccessfully keeps attempting to find a passage from THE ENGLISH PATIENT that both he and Doris like. Irving says: "Good novels and films are not like the news, or what passes for the news--they are more than items. They are comprised of the whole range of moods you are in when you read them or see them. You can never exactly imitate someone else's love of a movie or a book, Patrick now believed." Perhaps at another time or place I would like this book better. It certainly is worth reading even if it isn't Garp.
Rating:
Summary: waste of time...
Review: I agree with the first reader review. This book was pointless, crude and nothing made me care about any of the characters. The protagonist was a "30 something" "boy" who was very shallow.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointed
Review: I had saved this novel to read during my summer vacation. As a long time Irving fan, I looked forward to reading this latest novel. How disappointing! This book can't be compared with his other works. I loved all his previous novels with 'a prayer for Owen Meany' being the absolute best. I can only agree with the other reviews, read his other works first.
Rating:
Summary: The worst of John Irving
Review: I generally adore John Irving's novels, but this one was a bitter disappointment. There was barely a plot, and nothing exciting ever happened to the characters. Don't waste your time or your money.
Rating:
Summary: Well, I have enjoyed it so far
Review: I am currently about halfway done with this book and so far I have really enjoyed it. On a whim, I thought I'd see what other people thought of it because I don't know anyone who has yet read it. I was quite suprised to see the bad reviews. I too am a huge fan of John Irving. However, I am not disappointed (unlike many of the other reviewers). Perhaps I am not critical enough (I didn't major in English). That said, since other reviewers seem to think this book is an unwelcome departure for Mr. Irving, perhaps my husband will actually like this one (he could never get through any other of Mr. Irving books).
Rating:
Summary: What if?
Review: Like most of the reviewers who've written about "The Fourth Hand" here, I count myself an Irving fan and have always awaited his next with great anticipation. "Fourth Hand" was a disappointment. The protagonist, Patrick Wallingford, a television news anchor and ethical cipher, seems like a character meant to engage that enormous "married with" Boomer audience out there whose minds, beneath the claptrap of SUV payments, college tuitions and prostate examinations, pulse with that immortal, burning question: What if I were still getting laid a lot? More specifically, it seems calculated to engage the heterosexual male segment of that population who ponder that more primal (or at least adolescent) question: What would it be like if getting laid a lot happened with little effort on one's part? For Patrick Wallingford is not a sexual predator; he's just a man at whom women throw themselves. A tough problem, but Wallingford is the perfect man for it, and he is, thereby, a character we cannot hate. Unfortunately, he's also a character about whom one can have any sort of complex sentiment. Throughout the novel as Wallingford becomes more conscious of the ethical compromises he makes in his job, he experiences a sort of moral awakening, but, thank the gods, he's still getting laid a lot. Somehow, the loss of his hand and the subsequent implant attempt tie into this awakening but only is a sort of hazy way. Irving claims in his postscript that all of his novels begin with a "what if?" The "what if?" here ends up as idle speculation. What if a donor's relative asked for visitation rights with the implanted organ? seems like a question with as much literary depth as one of those sports conundrums like "What if Mickey Mantle had never taken a drink?" What if? Whatever. And so, to bring this muddled series of inert questions to consummation, Wallingford "commits" to one woman (ahhh, sighs the audience), the one woman who makes his ghost hand come alive--guess when? And that somehow is all related and, you know, kind of deep, for some reason, if you just don't think about it too hard.
Rating:
Summary: Poor Delivery
Review: Its hard to understand how an author can create a thoroughly engaging novel one year then follow-up with a novel that comes no where close to his previous work. This is the case with Irving's latest novel, "The Fourth Hand". His previous novel, "A Widow For One Year", is a superb novel. It's a well written, engaging story with interesting and credible characters. "The Fourth Hand" drags. It's a great premise for a story but Irving has butchered the delivery. The primary character (Patrick) loses his left hand in a freak accident (it's eaten by a lion). He receives a hand transplant, acquiring the left hand of a truck driver after he accidentally kills himself. The truck driver's wife insists on maintaining a relationship with the hand, although it's attached to someone else. Again, great concept, poor delivery. I stopped reading "The Fourth Hand" after 175 pages. The novel up to that point lacks imagery. The characters are uninteresting and flat. The writing is non-emotive and curt. The author injects the JFK Jr. disaster into the story in what appears to this reader as an attempt to maintain interest. It doesn't help. I expect a better quality of work from Irving, hopefully his next novel will deliver.
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