The 158-Pound Marriage (John Irving) Chapters 4-5

Irving’s interest in and knowledge of wrestling is on display once again, and includes an interesting passage on wrestling as an acquired taste.  ‘I understood perfectly what Edith didn’t like about the wrestling.  She was attracted by an aspect of Severin that could also weary her; she liked his cocky sureness, his explosiveness; she wasn’t that way, but she liked it in him, except when it seemed too strong, threatening to suck her up in it.  And that aspect was strongest when he was involved with his wrestlers.  How crazily committed all Severin’s wrestlers looked to her!  They seemed hypnotized by themselves, drugged in ego, which unleashed the moment their physical frenzy was peaking.  It was too loud, too serious, too intense.  It was also more struggle than grace; though Severin insisted it was more like a dance than a fight, to her it was a fight.  To me, too.  Also, more to the point, it was boring.  So few of the matches were really close; often you just watched someone maul someone else – the only issue in doubt being whether or not the obvious winner would finally pin his victim or have to be content with just rubbing him all over the mat.’

The sexual undertones in passages like these are obvious if you’re looking for them.  More blatantly, in a discussion of one of the black wrestlers:  ‘”Why do you like him?” Edith asked her; she meant Tyrone Williams.  “He’s just my size,” said Utch, “and I think he’s a wonderful color.  It’s like caramels.”  “Yummy,” Edith said, but she didn’t mean it.’

The description of The Narrator (who never identifies himself by name) and Edith “making love” in the shower at the beginning of chapter 5 provides an interesting contrast to the descriptions in the few Romance novels I’ve read.  In Romance novels, there is a curious mix of literal depiction and eye-rollingly trite clichés applied to the “love-making” scenes.  This makes me wonder why such scenes written by (and for) women would be so much more graphic than those written by men.  Men are supposed to be cruder in their desires, right?  I question that.  Even in the gritty, futuristic crime novels of J. D. Robb (a.k.a. Nora Roberts), the sex scenes are as trite as the ones in her love-story novels written as Roberts.  Of course, they also say that men find pictures of scantily clad women sexier than pictures of completely naked ones.  “Leaving more to the imagination.”  Do men really have more highly-developed imaginations than women?  I question that, too!

Why do I put quotes around “making love” and “love-making”?  Well, it seems self-evident to me that what’s really going on here is copulation.  You “make” a sculpture; or a coffee table.  “Having sex” is almost as semantically awkward; you’re not “having” something; you’re “doing” something.  It’s an “act,” not a hamburger.  But “copulation” sounds too clinical and that takes the fun out of it, doesn’t it?  I guess that’s why I’m not a Romance writer.  This is related to the point that Severin was making in chapter 3; ‘”No, I think it’s sex,” Severin said suddenly.  “It’s just sex, and that’s all it can be in a thing like this.”’

The long sequence at Edith’s mother’s isolated house “on the Cape,” with no children around, contained passages that could be considered pornographic.  It also developed the personality dynamics between the four characters that made for some of the most interesting reading so far.  It’s a good example of Irving’s uncanny ability to create a sense of reality through the use of odd details.  (“This has to be true; you can’t make this stuff up.”)  Of course, some of it may well be borrowed from personal experiences...




Next Week:  Chapters 6-7

Week 4:  Chapters 8-10