WOW! OWEN MEANY...YOU ARE THE MAN!
OWEN MEANY IS ONE OF THOSE LITERARY CHARACTERS YOU WILL NOT SOON FORGET.
THIS BOOK RUNS THE GAMUT OF EMOTIONS AND IS VERY THOUGHT PROVOKING.
I'M WRITING THIS REVIEW IN ALL CAPS IN HONOR OF OWEN MEANY AND JOHN IRVING FOR SUCH A WONDERFUL READING EXPERIENCE. IF YOU HAVE READ THIS BOOK YOU WILL UNDERSTAND. AND IF NOT, YOU SHOULD READ THIS POWERFUL STORY.
THE WRITING IS RICHLY TEXTURED.
AMAZING!

I can honestly say that this is one of the worst novels I've ever read. John Irving's writing was terrible and his rambling, seemingly unedited style was the death of A Prayer for Owen Meany. The novel is about two boys growing up as best friends in New Hampshire in the '50s and '60s. One boy is John, the narrator, who is telling the story looking back from the 1980s. The other boy is Owen Meany, whose small size, high-pitched voice, and uncanny religious fervor make him an outsider. Owen, as John discovers, believes he is God's instrument and has all these abnormalities so he can carry out the mission God has for him.

The plot at its core wasn't terrible and I was curious to see how Owen's visions of the future and his religious conviction panned out. Irving is good at foreshadowing and there was definitely humor in the novel, especially in the character of Grandmother Wheelwright, John's stubborn grandmother. But I can honestly say that I didn't care for either John or Owen and to have both of the main characters be unlikable was a mistake. Irving has a tendency to rant. John in the 1980s spends pages and pages ranting about the Iran-Contra affair, president Reagan's shortcomings, and the Vietnam War. These rants do nothing to move the story along and are basically just a heavy-winded, often redundant criticism of American politics. Owen is always so holier-than-thou while being such a flawed character himself that I found him to be a frustrating know-it-all bordering on the insane. I couldn't see why John and Owen were friends, since Owen acts so superior to John and they have little in common.

What really got to me was this novel's blatant sexism. Irving would go out of his way to make it clear that the only purpose of the female characters in this novel was to be sexual objects (unless they were over sixty, like Grandmother Wheelwright). Irving would spend paragraphs ranting about each female character's breasts and would go out of his way to make sexual references about the women in the story. There were many unnecessary crude remarks about women, such as a description of how a twelve-year-old girl looked in her dress without underwear, a stripper picking up an orange with her vagina, and John going on for paragraphs about his own mother's breasts. These descriptions were offensive and demeaning to women and Irving certainly could have left them out.

A Prayer for Owen Meany could have been considerably shorter if Irving had had a decent editor to considerably cut back his ramblings. As it was the novel was boring and pointless. The sexism disgusted me and was wholly unnecessary. I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone. Reading it is a colossal waste of time.

This is the book that made me want to be a writer. I read it in high school, thanks to my favorite English teacher, Mrs. B, who had written down the title on a Post-It note and said, "You need to read this." I immediately went and found a copy and had it finished it by the end of the week.

There is no way I can write a review that is worthy of this novel, but I shall try. It is the story of two boys in New Hampshire in the 1950s: the narrator is Johnny Wheelwright, whose family is wealthy; and his friend, Owen Meany. How to describe Owen? He was small and light, and he had a loud, high-pitched voice. He was smart and a loyal friend. Owen's parents were a bit odd, and his family was poor enough that the Wheelwrights often helped Owen with tuition and clothing.

The first chapter brings a tragedy: Johnny and Owen are playing baseball. Owen, who doesn't usually get to bat because he was so small, was told by the coach to go ahead and swing. Owen hits a foul ball that strikes Johnny's mother and kills her. Johnny is devastated and has trouble forgiving Owen, but they eventually make peace, thanks to a stuffed armadillo toy. (Thus explaining the armadillo pictured on some editions.)

The rest of the chapters cover the boys as they grow up and go to prep school. Owen has a gift for writing and pens some inflammatory columns in the school newspaper. There is also a hilarious prank that Owen pulls on a teacher he doesn't like, which involves a car, some athletes and a stage.

One of my favorite sections of the book describes a church Christmas pageant that goes horribly awry. Owen, who can be a bit bossy, takes over the pageant and assigns himself the role of Baby Jesus, even though in previous years it was just a doll. It's a laugh-out-loud disaster, and almost every year at Christmastime I'll pull out this book and reread the chapter.

When the boys turn 18, the Vietnam War is escalating and Owen signs up for the Reserve Officers Training Corps, which will pay for his college tuition while he serves. Owen even comes up with a plan to spare Johnny from having to go to Vietnam. Owen always has a plan, you see.

The plot slowly builds and builds, and I would describe it as a crescendo. There is a purpose to everything in the story, and by the end of the book, we understand why things had to be exactly what they were.

If you are a first-time reader of this novel, I need to warn you that there is a difficult passage at the beginning. Johnny, who is now an adult and has left the United States and moved to Canada, discusses his feelings about religion. I think this is the point where some readers get frustrated and abandon the book, but I urge you, I implore you, I beg you -- do not give up. There is a reason for it. If you can power through the discussion of churches, you will break through to a wonderful story.

Speaking of religion, I would be remiss not to mention the comparison to Jesus that Irving made. Whenever Owen speaks, his dialogue is in ALL CAPS. Bible readers will note that Jesus' words were printed in an all-red font in many editions. There are other similarities to Christ, but the less said on this, the better.

I have reread this book many times since I first read it in 1990, and each time, it moves me again. Some novels are easy to explain -- this one is not. It's a marvelous mix of comedy and drama and bildungsroman and the meaning of our lives, and I am grateful to have it in my life. I am not a religious person, but I became so attached to the character of Owen that thinking about him can make me a bit misty-eyed. He is complex and fleshed out in a way that few fictional characters are.

Note: This book meant so much to me that I was horrified to hear that Hollywood made it into a movie. There is no way this book could be captured on film. Luckily someone had the good sense to change the title -- probably a demand of Mr. Irving -- but I have no intention of ever seeing it. Some of you may know that I have a hobby of comparing movies adaptations with the source material, but this book is the exception. I want to remember it in its pure form. Owen would want it that way.

I started this book with high expectations: a few of my friends had said that “A Prayer” is the best Irving-book, even better than The Cider House Rules, which I loved. I must concede I was a bit disappointed. “A Prayer” has some nice, even hilarious, passages. And the character Owen Meany, with his small stature, his odd voice and unconventional opinions and behavior, certainly arouses sympathy. But I have an issue with the message of this book: it has no clear focus. There’s a lot of attention to religion, but it’s not clear what Irving exactly tries to say about that: did he want to ridicule religion or on the contrary illustrate the value of it? Especially the predestination-theme, related to the Owen Meany-character, was troublesome to me.

The book devotes at least as much attention to the moral bankruptcy of the United States since the sixties, and this is illustrated by the fiasco of the Vietnam war. In his political message Irving is very sharp and critical for his fellow Americans and especially their political leaders (Reagan included, of course). This double message – political and religious – hampers the storyline and makes some chapters rather long-winded. In short: this is certainly a worthy and entertaining read, but it is not the masterpiece I had expected.

I read this book a long time ago and my memory of the plot is ... sketchy ... to say the least.

However I do remember how well John Irving captures not only people but the way in which the years change them, and how well he describes that endless interplay between their past and their present. He nails the way in which the random moments of our childhood - those scattered points of light that mark our joys and shames - become the constellations that guide us, imbued with all the mythological significance that astrology imposes on the meaningless patterns of the stars.

Irving knows that nostalgia cuts, and also that it's a blade we cannot keep from applying to our own flesh.



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It's been almost 25 years since I first read A Prayer for Owen Meany. I remembered I loved it. I remembered Irving's wisdom and wit. I remembered laughing out loud about Owen Meany's all-caps rants and hilarious observations. I remembered his high-pitched voice, small stature, and his unshakeable faith, of course.

But I'd forgotten so much more than I'd remembered. How could I have forgotten the dressmaker's dummy or the nativity of 1954? How did I possibly forget Hester, for goodness sake, or the Holy Goalie and her missing arms? I even forgot about the armadillo! If you've read Owen Meany, you know how John Irving expertly crafts this quirky story out of little details that often seem bizarre, mostly because Owen Meany was involved in them, but he somehow manages to make it feel light-hearted and familiar, too. The amazing thing to me is that every single one of these strange, funny, sweet details plays a role in Owen's destiny. His finale of all finales. I'm astounded at the scope of it all.

There's also an element of nostalgia to this story that throws the reader off guard. You don't realize for quite some time that you're actually reading a book full of very insightful views on politics, religion, and morality. You're not aware of this because John Irving is a genius and a master storyteller. I'm looking forward to spending more time reading his writing. I think I'll start with The Cider House Rules next.

Thank you, thank you, John Irving, for this wonderful book. I can't wait for my kids to grow up a little and read it for themselves.

I cannot remember the last time I so bitterly regretted taking time out of my life to read a book. A Prayer for Owen Meany is the worst kind of soggy, sentimental claptrap. It shares the same space in my mind as cream of wheat, late-night infomercials, and crying children on airplanes.

First, let me address the fact that every single character in this book is either dull or horrendously irritating, or, in the case of the title character, both. If I met Owen Meany in real life, I would find him insufferable to the point of contemplating homicide, and in the grueling process of reading this book, there were times when I wished he would come alive by the power of my hatred just so I could carry out said homicide. Owen's arrogance and self-righteousness were acknowledged by the author/narrator on so many occasions that I began to wonder if he was trying to make me find them endearing, provided the lack of literally any other positive attribute. Spoiler alert: I didn't. And John's characterization of himself as a "Joseph" was spot on. Despite spending 630 pages looking through his eyes, I felt no more attachment to him at the end of it than I did on page one.

Still, I have read books where I didn't like a single character and still liked the book. The difference between that type of book and this one is that the characters, in addition to being unlikeable, lack complexity and dynamism. Even though numerous truths were revealed over the course of the book, they added nothing to the characters concerned. They stayed almost totally static from beginning to end in terms of emotional development, and they were so profoundly un-compelling that each page seemed to take a week.

I forced myself to read to halfway because this has been recommended to me by so many people, and honestly, I will now give all of those people major side-eye. Once I got halfway, I forced myself to the end simply because I hate abandoning books. I'm going to rethink my position on that.

4 stars for A Prayer for Owen Meany

This book forced me to think about how far my faith in God could be pushed until I broke. If my faith was ever truly tested, what would/could happen? I like to think that my faith is strong enough for anything and that I believe wholeheartedly with no qualms and no regrets. I hope I’m right!

Another thought provoking and enjoyable book by Irving. Great storytelling and strong characters. The topics covered were big too; faith, doubt, fate, fathers and modern american history. Charting America in the 1950s and 1960s; hope and disillusionment. Most of all a wonderful story; you can tell Irving is an admirer of Dickens.
Owen and John are two boys growing up in 1950s America. Owen kills John's mother with a baseball. They are best friends whose futures are inextricably linked. Owen believes he has a destiny, God has given him a purpose and a unique voice. The book is the working out and even the endless basketball practice has a reason. So much has been written about this that more is superfluous. A damn good read!

This is a well written book, with unique characters, and it was a "good read," but I don't think I can say I actually liked it. A Prayer for Owen Meany, despite the narrator's insistence that the Resurrection is the heart of Christianity, presents a joyless Christianity. Christ said, "I have come to give you life, and to give it more abundantly," yet no Christian in this story seems to have an "abundant" life.

I noticed that all of the characters who are representatives of Christianity, even Owen Meany, seem to have one thing in common: their Christianity is a Christianity without joy. There is the narrator, who is isolated, lonely, judgmental, and bitter, constantly condemning the Pharisees; there is the minister whose faith is dry, whose belief is purely academic, whose family is portrayed as dead inside; there are the parents who are burdened by the weight of superstition and live an almost ghostly existence. Even the hero's Christianity, the Christianity that is the narrator's ideal, the Christianity of Owen Meany, is ultimately a Christianity without joy. Owen has faith in God, but he is resigned, even bordering on fatalistic; he may arguably be content, but to me he seems to utterly lack joy. Like the narrator, he spends a great deal of his life judging others, and he is described as difficult to live with; at times he even seems miserable. The narrator (or Owen?) says: "watch out for people who call themselves religious; make sure you know what they mean—make sure they know they mean!" Does the narrator know what he means by "religious"? Does Owen Meany?

The narrator delights in railing against those he deems to be false Christians. He takes little pity on others for their lack of faith, though he himself wrestles with doubt; he has no mercy for politicians forced to make hard choices in a fallen world beset by sin. He spends a good part of the book raging with polemics against Americans, America, and Ronald Reagan, as well as against evangelical Christians. His best friend and hero Owen Meany would agree: "What's wrong with…them is that they're so sure they're right." But so too is Owen Meany "so sure" he's right, so too is the narrator; and with that assurance they condemn those who are not as they are.

The narrator does admit that his "lack of forgiveness" is the least Christian thing about him, and yet he does not seem to strive to do anything about it. For me, the lonely, isolated, embittered narrator is an uncomfortable reminder of how easy it is for any one of us to waste our lives in washing the outside of the cup and in pointing fingers of censure, instead of simply getting on with the business of living and loving and praying and serving and laughing. A Prayer for Owen Meany shows us a Christianity of mystery, of blood, of fate, and of miracles, but never a Christianity of joy.

A Prayer for Owen Meany was one of John Irving's earlier works that I have waited too long to read, what a beautiful and engaging book. This is the tale of two young boys growing up in a small community in New Hampshire, Gravesend, and their friendship throughout the late twentieth century, the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. They remained close friends throughout their childhood, their college years and beyond. This is the story of Owen Meany, an extremely small child, his father working in the granite business, often rumored to give Owen's pale skin its translucency and his voice its loud timbre. Owen's best friend is Johnny Wheelwright living with his single mother and grandmother in the family home that was established in the mid-1600s. The Wheelwright family was a matriarchal family with a large and raucous extended family. As the book opens we learn much about the enduring friendship between Owen Meany and John Wheelwright:

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"I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice--not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother's death, but because he is the reason that I believe in God; I am a Christian because of Owen Meany."

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There is also a vibrant history of America during that time from the Camelot days of the Kennedy's, through the turbulent 1960s with its assassinations and into the Vietnam war and the anti-war demonstrations as more Americans were being killed during the Johnson and Nixon administrations. This is also the time of Reagan's presidency and the Iran-contra scandal. It was a time awash in a lot of political upheaval. In the words of John Wheelwright:

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"If someone ever presumed to teach Charles Dickens or Thomas Hardy or Robertson Davies to my Bishop Strachan students with the same, shallow, superficial understanding that I'm sure I possess of world affairs--or, even, American wrongdoing--I would be outraged. I am a good enough English teacher to know that my grasp of American misadventures--even in Vietnam, not to mention Nicaragua--is shallow and superficial. Whoever acquired any real or substantive intelligence from reading newspapers? I'm sure I have no in-depth comprehension of American villainy; yet I can't leave the news alone!"

Four strong winds that blow lonely,
Seven seas that run high,
All those things that don't change come what may,
But our good times are all gone.
And I'm movin' on,
I'll look for you if I'm ever back this way."

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Ok someone with lots more technology intelligence has to make Owen Meaney Memes like baby yoda memes because I swear they are loved just the same! OMG! I want a build-an-owen and I will hug him and squeeze him

This book is going to break my heart, isn’t it? Something is going to rip open my chest, yank out my heart and smash it with a sledgehammer. I know it! Just smash