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Summary: Unless you've read all of Irving's other stuff...
Review: Irving's my favorite, and I read everything he writes as soon as it's out, but this was a little of a disappointment. I didn't feel the same connection to the characters that I normally do, and the prose was much lighter and faster than his better books. This was widely panned by critics, and although I didn't dislike it, it wasn't my favorite.
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Summary: The Fourth Hand
Review: It's John Irving doing what he does well, but too many characters change drastically; too little realism.
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Summary: I needed four hands to turn the pages fast enough!
Review: John Irving is a great American writer of the 20th century. I've grown up reading his novels and found this recent edition as good as his heralded works.
Garp, Hotel, Cider House (I read in the projection booth in college), Widow and now 4th hand. These are wonderful entertainment!
There is lurid sexuality, rubber neck tragedy and a page turning love story.
Read it for fun.
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Summary: Leave No Regrets On The Field
Review: John Irving is in fine form with The Fourth Hand. While initially I looked at the size of the book (a scant 313 pages) with disdain, compared to the Irving books that have preceeded it (Garp, Owen Meany, Son of the Circus, Widow for One Year); the story found inside these 313 pages is every bit as sizeable as the others.Patrick Wallingford, a nationally known television journalist, gains further notoriety after losing his left hand during an assignment in India, and again when he undergoes surgery to replace it with a donor hand. Enter Doris Clausen, the widow of the donor, and Nick Zajac, the surgeon who performs the surgery. Dr. Zajac wants the fame associated with the surgery, should it be successful, but Doris Clausen wants something else...a baby, 'fathered' by her now deceased husband, and visitation rights to his hand, even after it is attached to Wallingford. While Doris Clausen and Dr. Zajac go through transformations of their own during the course of the story, Wallingford, a devout womanizer and divorced man with little faith in his ability to be faithful to any one woman, finds that through the loss of his hand, and the subsequent events, he finds himself and his soul. The story is typically Irving...with many recurring themes from prior novels. But Irving's adroit writing skill keeps them fresh and fascinating for this new tale. Anyone who has invested some (well spent, in my opinion) time reading past novels by the same author will see these themes, and relish the treatise that Irving once again gives them. John Irving succeeds with this novel as with his others. Though to compare it in size to them it is to perhaps view it as 'dwarfed'. But the story is as fully realized as any of his others. His quote at the end, puportedly placed above the door to the locker room of the Green Bay Packers football team, 'leave no regrets on the field' is poignant to the story and to the book itself...the characters come full circle in many ways, though perhaps not to the exact resolution they anticipated or desired, and I as a reader found that although I expected to be disappointed by what I considered a 'shortchanged' offering from Irving, I left no regrets between the covers of the book. I highly recommend this book, to all fans of Irving, or to those who wish to give him a try. Like his earlier novels, The Water Method Man, The 158 Pound Marriage, etc...its not the size of the story that counts, its the content inside. This book doesn't disappoint.
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Summary: A good book
Review: Maybe a little dull in it's characters but time well spent.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing!
Review: Patrick Wallingford loses his left hand to a lion's bite while working as a reporter on a news story in India. Dr. Sajac, a world famous neurosurgeon receives an offer from Doris Clausen to replace Patrick's lost hand with that of her husband Otto. The repercussions of this arrangement are somewhat surprising. What begins as a very interesting story with a typical John rving odd assortment of characters slowly deteriorates into the more mundane story of Patrick's sexual proclivities versus his desire to win Doris Clausen. It simply loses the threads of the lives of the other characters which make more lively reading. Although the novel induces the reader to want to reach the conclusion, the latter part of the story is far less engaging than the first half.
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Summary: Very good book
Review: The Fourth Hand, like John Irving's other novels is a very well written and all around exceptional book. Patrick Wallingford is a TV journalist who is divorced and likes to hit on other women single or married. Patrick is reporting a circus in India when he gets his left hand bit off by a caged lion. When the novel first begins you will think this guy is a jerk but by the end of the novel he has changed dramatically. Meanwhile, a man in Wisconsin has accidentally shot himself. His widow wants to offer his left hand to Patrick. Things occur throughout the novel and soon Patrick begins to fall in love with Mrs.Clausen, the widow. She is not too quick to let Patrick know how she feels. By the end of the novel Patrick is no longer the person he once was. This is a comic and love story compiled together to make an exceptional novel.
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Summary: A great way to get into Irving's writing
Review: THE FOURTH HAND, which is so short that it is a rarity among Irving's work, is a greta way to take the plunge into his writing. Although it does not have the power of THE CIDER HOUSE RULES or A PRAYER FOR OWEN MEANY, THE FOURTH HAND is very entertainingly funny. From the means by which the main character's hand is removed to the way he and Mrs. Clausen resolve their relationship in the end. The striking part of this book for me was by far how bizarre it was but was, at the same time, understandable to the reader. I must agree, however, that THE FOURTH HAND tends to jump all over the place. Initially, this was not bothersome, but as I grew more attached to the characters I began to wish their storylines were more cohesive--Dr. Zarjac's, in particular. I felt like I missed out on a lot of his storyline especially when, in the break between two "Zarjac chapters", he is all the sudden married and his life is drastically different. I would have liked to see more of a transition than dodging back and forth between what was going on individually with Zarjac and Patrick.
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Summary: How bizarre, how bizarre!
Review: The main element in the book is bizarre as it usually is with John Irving's books. I thought it made very pleasant reading and got through it a lot easier as "Son of the Circus" for instance. As far as I'm concerned John is one of the best story tellers around. Don't pick this though if you are easily offended! Strange and bizarre elements but a marvelous story.
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Summary: Best quality: Uniqueness
Review: The story that Irving weaves combines a barage of eccentric characters: A man who loses his hand, his doctor, the man who's hand is donated to replace the lost hand, a wife who demands visitation rights to the transplanted hand... the list could stretch on and on. The most appealing thing about this novel was the uniqueness of the story - I can assure you that you will not read another even remotely the same. Fortunatly, the plot moves, so while the story itself lacks some of the depth that we are used to from Irving, it is not an effort to negotiate. Overall, I was expecting something more worthy of Irving's name.
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