A Prayer for Owen Meany | John Irving

You are not a fan of literature, if you don't feel something strong for little Owen Meany. In fact, as I write this... I feel I know what he would say to that: WHY DOES EVERYONE INSIST ON CALLING ME LITTLE, AS IF IT IS A DISEASE?

Owen was someone who you just couldn't help but like. His voice threw you for a loop, his height made you take him lightly... but Owen inspired everyone, and he commanded respect. His brash actions had a purpose to them, potentially because he believed everything happend FOR A REASON. His proclamation that he was "GOD'S INSTRUMENT" not only baffled religious church goer'ers (pun intended), but also the very ministers who preached about a higher power.

Now, I have never been a "religious man." Ask me what I was baptized as, and I couldn't tell you. Ask me my philosophies on organized religion, and you will not hear the words that you would ever want to repeat in a congragation filled with the converted. No, I am a man who questions religion but does not entirely cast it aside. My beliefs about religion are the same as my beliefs about a lot of things. Present to me an argument or an opinion, and I will make a decision on it. If I cannot, I will think hard about it.


This book, however, isn't about religion. It's about faith, but it's also about the state of our society, the principles we uphold and the fears we face (or run from). It's about challenging people and principles, and making an impact in the world by being who you are. Owen Meany was ahead of his time. His words from the 60's mirror some of the problems that society is still faced with today. His best friend, and the rest of us, live with the lessons he taught us... in this world filled with questions of faith and morality, and feelings of hopelessness.


Strongly recommend that you give this one a go.

Thomas Hardy & John Irving

"Tess of D'Ubervilles" and Thomas Hardy's work in general, has been reference quite frequently in "A Prayer for Owen Meany." So much so, that I find myself deeply moved enough to warrant reading one of his novels in the near future. Irving cautions us, that Hardy is so difficult to comprehend and unravel that one would even be better off reading Dostoevsky's "The Brother's Karamazov." I was told, by my best friend's mother that this was a book that I needed to read, when I was ready for it. I still don't know if I am. I find it quite ironic though, that at a book club meeting I suggested two novels: "A Prayer for Owen Meany" and "The Brother's Karamazov" (both of which were turned down). However, "The Brother's Karamazov" was unanimously consented to in my book club... so I wager that we will get to it either this year, or early next.

Anyhow, I digress. I came onto the blog, to share you a quote from Thomas Hardy (which I excerpted directly from "A Prayer for Owen Meany." I hope you enjoy it... it encompasses a lot of my feelings towards literature.

"A story must be exceptional enough to justify its telling. We storytellers are all ancient mariners, and none of us is justifed in stopping wedding guests, unless he has something more unusual to relate than the ordinary experiences of every average man and woman."

And one more, from the point of view of Owen Meany, a chacter of Irving's:

"Think of Hardy as a man who was almost religious, as a man who came so close to believing in God that when he rejected God, his rejection made him ferociously bitter. The kind of fate Hardy believes in is almost like believing in God - at least in that terrible, judgemental God of the Old Testament. Hardy hates institutions: the church- more than faith or belief - and certainly marriage (the instituion of it), and the insitution of education. People are helpless to fate, victims of time - their own emotions undo them, and social institutions of all kinds fail them.

Don't you see how a belief in such a bitter universe is not unlike relious faith? Like faith, what Hardy believed was naked, plan, vulnerable. Belief in God, or a belief that - eventually - has tragic consequences... either way, you don't leave yourself any room for philosophical detachment. Either way, you're not being very clever. Never think of Hardy as clever; never confuse faith, or belief - of any kind - with something even remotely intellectual. That's why I say he was 'almost religious' - because he wasn't a great thinker, he was a great FEELER."

Irving, on television

"Television gives good disaster. I suppose this was nothing but a more vernacular version of my grandmother's observation of the effect of TV on old people: that watching it would hasten their deaths. If watching television doesn't hasten death, it surely manages to make death very inviting; for telvision so shamelessly sentimentalizes and romanticizes death that it makes the living feel they have missed something- just by staying alive."

400 pages through. Irving has made this novel far too long, but he does bring up some very interesting points throughout. The hilariousness of the first four chapters is in total contrast to the seriousness of the last four chapters (although, I must admit to not being able to trust my emotions entirely, right now).

It's not "The World According to Garp," but it is very spellbinding, just the same. Will post some information about the bookclub, shortly.

A Prayer for the Owen Meany's of the world

An excerpt from "A Prayer for Owen Meany", for my sweetie...

"I want you to meet him," she said to us all.

"You've dated him?" my grandmother asked.

"No! I just met him-just today, on today's train!" my mother said.

"And already you like him?" Lydia asked, in a tone of voice so perfectly copied from my grandmother that I had to look to see which one of them was speaking.

"Well, yes," my mother said seriously. "You know such things. You don't need that much time."

"How many times have you known such things-before?" my grandmother asked.

"This is the first time, really," my mother said. "That's why I know."
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For those of you romantics, you must watch the movie "Before Sunrise." This excerpt, reminds me of that movie as well.