THE LAST CHAIRLIFT, by John Irving (Simon & Schuster, $55 hb)
t takes a certain confidence to write a novel of 912 pages – such expansiveness and certainty of narrative’s explanatory power hark back to the Victorian age, the age of Thackeray, Trollope, Eliot, Gaskell and Dickens. It’s Dickens most of all that I’m reminded of when reading Irving. I’ve read both authors all my life – I was almost fated to read Dickens, as I. (“You know!” my mother said cheerfully, “The little crippled boy!”)
