Rating: 
Summary: A Real Stinker!
Review: Although I have thoroughly enjoyed John Irving's previous works, this book did not live up to expectations.Irving's previous works generally include a measure of the bizarre, however, in this book, the plot and main character are simply not feasible. The main character, Patrick Wallingford, while quite bland and forgettable, is effortlessly attractive to all women. Almost every female he meets wants to take him to bed. The unrealistic way that the male-female relationships are portrayed in this book suggests a type of male late-life sex crisis. The plot basically follows Wallingford's journey towards a meaningful life, with a few twists and turns along the way. There are a few not-quite-redeeming features of the book in the form of the minor charaters, for example Angie, the over-the-top, gum-chewing make-up girl. However, the reader would be advised to choose one of Irving's previous books before this one. If, like me, you are an Irving fan, think twice before reading this book, and if you do go ahead, make sure you lower your expectations.
Rating: 
Summary: Vintage Irving
Review: Although not his best, "The Fourth Hand" doesn't disappoint--Irving rarely does. Irving has a gift for taking bizarre incidents--in this case a reporter's loss of a hand at a circus in India and medical advances in transplanting limbs--and turning them into an unlikely love story and social commentary. Patrick Wallingford is a very handsome but shallow person who lives in the media world's fast lane, working for the all-news "disaster channel." Irving roasts the media mercilessly, its focus on accidents and personal tragedy, the unwillingness to develop a thoughtful story, the cut-throat environment. Ironically, Patrick is more successful as a one-handed rather than a two-handed news anchor, but comes to see that there's more to life than choosing successive girlfriends from the news room crew. There's also a great story line involving the Green Bay Packers. We've come to know and love Irving, and his bizarre story twists don't shock us the way they did when "Garp" was first published, but I liked this book. Well-written as always and as imaginative as ever, it's worth your time.
Rating:
Summary: Light Irving Reading
Review: As a longtime John Irving fan, I loved this book. It was a nice change from "Widow for a Year" which was excellent but depressing in places. Don't shortchange this fun, quick read!
Rating:
Summary: Don't Waste Your Time
Review: Author John Irving is a literary icon, having won many awards. And because he has a great reputation he can get junk like this published. It is supposed to be amusing and/or droll, but it reads like a complete waste of time. It may be possible that there is some great message or point to be made here and I am just too stupid to see it. But, failing that, someone would have to point out to me what value there is in this rambling tale of sexual misadventures and attempts to transplant a hand. There is nothing more sad than an attempted joke that falls flat and that's all there is here.
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 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: 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: The Right Hand Doesn't Know...
Review: Having listened to A Widow for One Year, and seen The World According to Garp and the Cider House Rules, when I popped in the first cassette of the Fourth Hand Audio Book I was prepared to be entertained by one of the finest of contemporary authors. I was sorely disappointed from the very beginning and will not finish this trite commentary on the world of television reporting and the mental and physical sexual encounters thrust upon the handless reporter. The redeeming quality is probably that the novel is less a tome than his previous works.
Please, John, give us more of your old self.
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 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.
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