I was already reading The Cider House Rules and thinking as I read, “There are groups out there that would probably like to ban this book if it came out today.” I was pleasantly surprised then upon hearing that the theme for February’s Book Club was “Books that aren’t banned but could be.” We were supposed to answer some questions about the book we choose.
Here is my review of John Irving’s novel The Cider House Rules:
This novel, is largely the story of two main characters . One is Dr. Wilbur Larch, a compassionate medical doctor, who oversees a small orphanage in a tiny isolated settlement in rural Maine, where he delivered the babies of the troubled women who came to give up their babies for adoption, and performed abortions on those distressed women that sought that solution.
The other main character in the novel is Homer Wells, who was one of the orphans who grew up at the St Cloud’s Orphanage. Homer had been adopted two times, but was then returned to the orphanage when things didn’t work out with his new parents. After a third prospective new couple took Homer out on a camping trip, the prospective new parents drowned when a log boom came roaring down the the river in which they were taking a morning swim. Upon his return to the orphanage , it was decided by the small staff that Homer was probably destined to spend his life with them.
Dr Larch, who normally tried to stay unattached to the orphans because they would be adopted, decided to take Homer under his wing and teach him medicine, in hopes that Homer might someday take over his practice. Homer was a natural for medicine, he was intelligent, learned human anatomy quickly, and before he was out of his teens, Homer had a vast knowledge of medicine and had delivered babies on his own.
After discovering a tiny fetus that had fallen from some medical waste, Homer decided he didn’t want to participate in that aspect of Dr. Larch’s practice, but he continued to help with the birthing. Homer began to question whether he really wanted to be a doctor.
He was in his early twenties when something happened at the orphanage that changed Homer’s life. A good looking blonde couple in a convertible came to see Dr. Larch, to get an abortion. Homer immediately fell in love with Candy, the strikingly beautiful young lady, who was his own age and Homer really liked Wally, her handsome boyfriend too.
During the time they were there for the abortion, the young couple was drawn to Homer and were impressed with his medical knowledge. They invited Homer to return with them to Wally’s parent’s apple orchard for the summer. Homer leaped at the chance to get away from St Cloud’s, and said a sad goodbye to Dr Larch and the nurses he had spent his life with.
At the orchard, Homer lived with Wally’s family, the wealthy owner’s of the orchard, and began to experience the things normal to most young Americans, that Homer had missed out on while living at the orphanage. He watched his first movie, experienced making-out at the drive-in, learned to drive vehicles, saw the ocean, examined his first map of the world, and spend glorious days working and learning about the orchard.
He was loved by both Wally and Candy, and when Wally left university to enlist in the Air Force after the Pearl Harbor attack , and then was reported missing and assumed dead after his plane was shot down over a jungle in Burma, Candy and Homer’s love for each other intensified and became too big to control.
Soon Candy became pregnant. Homer and Candy sought to hide the fact, because Candy was still considered Wally’s “intended”, so they went together to St Cloud’s, telling Wally’s and Candy’s parents they were needed at the orphanage to “help out”. They didn’t want an abortion, or to give up the baby, they went to just wait out the pregnancy and to secretly give birth.
After their baby boy was born in St Cloud’s, and had grown a bit, they took him back to the orchard and told everyone the unexplained infant was an orphan from the orphanage which Homer really liked and so adopted. Unexpectedly then, they learned that Wally was alive. When he returned from the war, he was paralyzed from the waist down. Candy married Wally, but was also still in love with Homer, who took care of Angel, the “adopted” baby.
Homer, Candy, and Wally become a close-knit family unit caring for Angel, whose actual parentage remained a secret. There is a lot more of the story to come, involving Homer, Candy, Wally, Angel, and the aging Dr. Larch.
Why might this book be banned?
I think this novel was fortunate to be published when it was in 1985 when the United States was a more liberal country. Since then, ultra- right conservatives and evangelicals have made abortion an intensely “hot button” issue in the States. Anti-abortion fanatics have stealthily changed state laws in an attempt to deny this medical procedure to women, some have actually murdered doctors at abortion clinics. I have little doubt that such religious zealots would have any qualms about banning The Cedar House Rules because of the book’s pro-choice abortion stance.
Who might ban it?
In the US, not Canada, the book could be a target for banning by both Tea Party Republicans along with conservative Evangelical Christians. Abortion is one of the main reasons that an inept, crude, amoral, greedy, and narcissistic man-baby is now President of the United States, because he promised to put only anti-abortion justices on the Supreme Court.
What would be an argument against such a ban?
Like all books, the main argument against such ban would be the right of free speech, but there is also the argument that women have a right to control their own bodies.
You can view my paintings at: davidmarchant.ca
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