A Prayer for Owen Meany
by John Irving
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Book Summary Information
Author: John IrvingEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1990-04-14
ISBN: 0345361792
Number of pages: 619
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780345361790
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Book Reviews of A Prayer for Owen Meany
Book Review: A Prayer for Owen Meany
Summary: 5 Stars
Riveting, exciting, mere words cannot describe the kind of book that A Prayer for Owen Meany is. Written by John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany won the international number one best seller.
Even Playboy Magazine had commented on this extraordinary piece of work. "A Prayer for Owen Meany leaps off the pages with an imaginative passion that is startling...This is John Irving at full throttle: riveting narrative, a cast of richly developed characters, and a story as complex and unbelievable as life itself...[A] joyous, provocative read!" It is simply miraculous that even Playboy of all magazines could comment on this book.
A Prayer for Owen Meany is definitely my favorite book that I have read. The length of the book did not matter to me even though it was approximately five hundred pages because I simply could not put the book down. Before I knew it, I was starting another chapter or turning another page. This book made me happy and sad both at the same time and even brought tears to my eyes. This book began with a bang and ended in the same manner, literally. Nothing in this book was boring, in fact, it made you want to read on and on to see what would happen next. A Prayer for Owen Meany kept on the edge of your seat.
John Irvings style of writing is not only great but also unique. IN certain parts of the book he skips from the past to the present, not meaning to confuse you but to help you better understand what he is trying to say or also to help you see the point that he is trying to make. Irving bases his story around religion which in most cases would be very controversial due to the obvious reason that not everybody shares the same religion or belief for that matter. I believe that John Irving took a risk by publishing this book, but it was definitely a good one.
There are so many different types of elements that his writing included, such as the element of surprise. When John, who is Owens best friend, found out who his father was. Never did John think that the minister of his church would turn out to be his father. Owen Meany knew who his father was but told John that he would find out when the time was right. Even though Owen Meany was four feet tall, he thought he could conquer the world and believed that he could accomplish anything that he set his mind to do. Owen loved to play basketball and he would always practice a trick called "the shot." He would practice with John for hours after school or until John got tired. Owen would set a timer to see how long it would take him to jump in the air and have John throw him up towards the hoop, and slam the basket ball into the hoop. They both perfected this shot and got it exactly in three seconds. Little did they know that "the shot" would save the Johns life but also the lives of Vietnamese children.
Children who were being escorted by nuns to be taken to the Catholic Relief Services and then would be taken to new families and homes in Arizona. Owen was to escort the children and the nuns to their new families to make sure that they would be safe. The nuns asked Owen if he take the little boys to the men facilities and that herself and other nuns would escort the little girls to the ladies bathroom. Owen had no problem complying with her. Seconds later an outraged young man, Dick Jarvits kicked opened the bathroom door. Owen had met Dick before but only briefly; and for that brief amount of time that he knew him for, Owen knew he was up to no good and was only looking for trouble. "This is just the place for you to die, With all these little dooks- with these little dinks" (612). Some of the children began crying but Owen had learned a word or two in Vietnamese and one of those was "doong sa". "Doong sa" Owen would tell the children. It meant stop crying. Dick Jarvits threw a Chicom grenade which seemed to have landed right into Johns hands. It wasn't as easy to handle as a basketball, but immediately John and Owen Meany both knew what had to be done. Here is where "the shot" came into play. John threw the grenade to Owen and John lifted Owen up into the air. The bomb detonated.
It was know that Owen realized what his destiny was. It was now that he realized why he was so small and light, it was to have John be able to lift him up to practice and actually put into play, "the shot." Owen now knew why his voice sounded like a five year olds. It was to calm the children down when they were crying. Owen Meany literally saw his whole life flash in front of him. He knew he was going to die a hero but before this incident, he just did not know when or how he was going to die. Even though his future scared him, he knew that this was God's plan for him and he was more than willing to accept his destiny.
Unfortunately, Owen Meany had died. But he died heroically which was what he would have wanted. Owen knew that he was going to die a hero, but he just didn't know how or when. Owen Meany was Gods instrument and thus will never be forgotten.
Summary of A Prayer for Owen Meany
Owen Meany, the only child of a New Hampshire granite quarrier, believes he is God's instrument; he is.This is John Irving's most comic novel, yet Owen Meany is Mr. Irving's most heartbreaking character.
"Roomy, intelligent, exhilarating and darkly comic...Dickensian in scope....Quite stunning and very ambitious."
LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK REVIEW
"John Irving is an abundantly and even joyfully talented storyteller."
THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOKR EVIEW
Owen Meany is a dwarfish boy with a strange voice who accidentally kills his best friend's mom with a baseball and believes--accurately--that he is an instrument of God, to be redeemed by martyrdom. John Irving's novel, which inspired the 1998 Jim Carrey movie Simon Birch, is his most popular book in Britain, and perhaps the oddest Christian mystic novel since Flannery O'Connor's work. Irving fans will find much that is familiar: the New England prep-school-town setting, symbolic amputations of man and beast, the Garp-like unknown father of the narrator (Owen's orphaned best friend), the rough comedy. The scene of doltish the doltish headmaster driving a trashed VW down the school's marble staircase is a marvelous set piece. So are the Christmas pageants Owen stars in. But it's all, as Highlights magazine used to put it, "fun with a purpose." When Owen plays baby Jesus in the pageants, and glimpses a tombstone with his death date while enacting A Christmas Carol, the slapstick doesn't cancel the fact that he was born to be martyred. The book's countless subplots add up to a moral argument, specifically an indictment of American foreign policy--from Vietnam to the Contras.
The book's mystic religiosity is steeped in Robertson Davies's Deptford trilogy, and the fatal baseball relates to the fatefully misdirected snowball in the first Deptford novel, Fifth Business. Tiny, symbolic Owen echoes the hero of Irving's teacher Günter Grass's The Tin Drum--the two characters share the same initials. A rollicking entertainment, Owen Meany is also a meditation on literature, history, and God. --Tim Appelo
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