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  • A Son of the Circus

  • By: John Irving
  • Narrated by: David Colacci
  • Length: 26 hrs and 50 mins
  • 3.9 out of 5 stars (150 ratings)
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A Son of the Circus cover art

A Son of the Circus

By: John Irving
Narrated by: David Colacci
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Summary

Born a Parsi in Bombay, sent to university and medical school in Vienna, Dr. Farrokh Daruwalla is a 59-year-old orthopedic surgeon and a Canadian citizen who lives in Toronto. Periodically, the doctor returns to Bombay, where most of his patients are crippled children.

Once, 20 years ago, Dr. Daruwalla was the examining physician of two murder victims in Goa. Now, 20 years later, he will be reacquainted with the murderer.

©2007 John Irving (P)2007 Brilliance Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Ringmaster Irving introduces act after act, until three (or more) rings are awhirl at a lunatic pace....His Bombay and his Indian characters are vibrant and convincing." ( The Wall Street Journal)
"Irving's nimble humor springs from compassionate insights into cultural and sexual confusion and alienation, baffling questions of faith and purpose, and the kind of hope that thrives in even the most jaded atmosphere." ( Booklist)
"His most daring and most vibrant novel.... The story of circus-as-India is told with gusto and delightful irreverence." ( The Washington Post Book World)

What listeners say about A Son of the Circus

Average customer ratings
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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Absorbing and inventive book

This was the second John Irving audiobook I have listened to - the other being A Prayer for Owen Meany. It's taken me a while to get round to it as I was slightly put off by the length; although I enjoyed Owen Meany, it did lack the narrative momentum that makes a really good audiobook, and I was a little concerned that Son of the Circus might be the same, and this might make it a demanding and long listen.

But I was very pleasantly surprised. The plot is certainly an original one, very interesting and inventive, and the book never flags. The cast is quite a big one, but the author paints them all with a sure and vivid touch, and yoou want to know what is going to happen to them. Narration by David Colacci is excellent and he really makes the book such a pleasure to listen to.

All in all, a very enjoyable book and strongly recommended.

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15 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Loved it

Not as painful a story as Garp and not as unsettling as Owen Meany (even though it involves a serial killer); this is a great yarn. It is a page-turner, if an audio-book can be called such a thing and the characters and setting have a believable richness. The narration is excellent (accents/voices passable and not too distracting). I came to like the readers voice so much I have recently downloaded another book written by him.

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8 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Good fun

This journey is great fun. Irving always cracks me up and this story is as sad, funny, interesting and not entirely believable as all of his others I've read. I just wish Audible would hurry up and put Garp, Hotel New Hampshire and Cider House on the menu!

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6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Enjoyable but takes time to make sense

If you’re familiar with John Irving’s novels you’ll know that he doesn’t tell a straightforward story and spins off into imaginative digressions. I’ve read/listened to four of his novels and this one has more seemingly irrelevant side-tracks. For much of the book I felt that, while I enjoyed the section I was listening to, the different stories didn’t seem to be connected, but after more than 20 hours of listening began to come together. Throughout there is an underlying theme of alienation owing to race, class, disability and sexuality. The harshness of life for many Indians isn’t avoided but there is much to chuckle about as the larger-than life-characters get involved in extraordinary scenarios.

Dr Daruwalla is the common thread of the narrative and is the only wholly sympathetic character. He is an orthopaedic surgeon of Indian origin based in Toronto who makes trips to India to study achondroplastic dwarfism, about which you will learn quite a bit. There’s a surprising amount of medical detail in the book about this genetic disorder as well as, for example, about sex-change operations and the symptoms of terminal AIDS. The doctor also writes story-lines for an Indian detective series so one learns about Indian cinema as well as circus acts, the transgender Hijra communities, prostitution and the Jesuits! In addition there is a serial killer at large and the doctor gets involved in trying to solve the crime.

As a consequence of all these diverse threads there are not only many characters to keep track of but there are also un-signalled jumps back and forth in time. An ambitious and complex book that gets better in the latter parts.

Not as good or memorable as A Prayer for Owen Meany, but in the end a satisfying listen.

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Rambling, funny, odd

I think this is is really worthy of 3.5 stars but I'm being generous as that isn't an option. I was disappointed because I listened to and loved A Prayer For Owen Meany some months ago and this book is nothing like as good - in my opinion anyway. However, I am trying not to make a direct comparison to that story which I thought was superb.

This story is incredibly rambling, so that it often felt disjointed. This eases somewhat by the third volume of the download possibly because you get used to it and also, you've assimilated the eleventy-hundred cast members into your memory and made some sense of it all. Kind of...

On the plus side, I was quite interested in the outcome. The story is basically a series of coincidences of such blatant unlikelihood that you just have to suspend all realistic notions and go with the flow. The characters were often finely drawn and the narration was very good, because there are a lot of accents to be contended with. It's funny, but not very. More dryly observational. The set-piece comedy elements are too long-winded for me.

On the downside, it's far too long and slow. This is quite damning from me, someone who often likes long, slow reads. But this was too much even for me. Long periods elapsed when I couldn't recall even hearing it as my mind had wandered but it never mattered.

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Bombay brilliance

This is a great big book that is funny, gripping and sad. I loved Garp and Owen Meaney but had read them so long ago that I had forgotten just how good a writer JI is. This story is packed; not everything works but the whole is constantly interesting and enjoyable.
The narrator is excellent, adding considerably to the humour and maintaining the pace throughout.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars

Paled into insignificance

I so loved Owen Meanie and was delighted to find another John Irving tale on audible. Not for me, I was disappointed with the story, characters and narration. I may have had a better and more positive view had I read it pre- Owen.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

A sleeper

It took me a while to get into this book. In fact, I got about a quarter of the way through and then stopped for a few months, although this was more to do with the fact that I was listening on my Shuffle in the swimming pool and then stopped swimming while I healed from surgery. I had to go back to the beginning again...

I loved the plot of this book. Although it was slow to start, it was definitely worth persevering. It was rather different to the other John Irving books I've read. David Colacci brought this to life really, really well. It was especially notable when Dr Daruwhalla was getting exasperated and angry! A stellar performance and a narrator I shall keep an eye out for on Audible.

The characters in the book are as lifelike as in any novel of Irving's, or indeed anyone else's. Mr Setna (I don't know the spellings, since it was an audiobook, so please forgive me that!) the steward at the Duckworth Club was superb. And how about Patel, the police commissioner!

I particularly enjoyed following Martin Mills and his change from blind faith to doubt. Both he and John D are 39 in the story, which just happens to be the same age as I am, so it was interesting to hear about how Martin was still finding himself. Me too!

The only thing I find annoying about Irving's writing style, and it's evident in all his novels, is his overuse of beginning a sentence with the word 'that'.

'That his something or other was big or small was evidence of his whatever...'. That kind of thing. I just find it overused and ultimately annoying as a result. But that aside, I loved this book!

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Wow

first irving i have listened to, or read, for that matter. a rich textured novel, funny, surprising and sad seemingly all at the same time.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

So many books, so little time!

Any additional comments?

I lost interest and abandoned this book. Chose it because I had liked a previous John Irving book but I guess I just didn't have the staying power for this one :o(

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1 person found this helpful