May / Irving Reading: 'A Prayer For Owen Meany'

[Scheherazade]

In May, we are reading A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving.

Please post your comments and questions here.

Synopsis:

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.

http://www.amazon.com/Prayer-Owen-Me...8035298&sr=8-1

Book Club Procedures

[Prometheus'Wake]

Hey, so i still can't vote in these polls but I guess public opinion was with me on that one. I have not begun the book yet as I've been deep "Under The Volcano" with Malcolm Lowery. I am, however, really looking forward to it. Not only because my wife tells me it is quite good, but because it will also be the first book I have discussed through an online forum. How does this work? Do we talk chapter by chapter? Who begins the chat? I'll take a look at some of the earlier discussions to get an idea. In the meantime i thought I 'd say hello. Look forward to hearing from you.

[motherhubbard]

I’m still pretty new here. What do I need to do to get in on the book club? I’d love to be able to discuss a book I’m reading with others who know what I’m talking about!

[Idril]

Just buy the book and join in.

[Janine]

I am only up to page 120 - when will the discussions on this book begin, does anyone know?

[Idril]

Whenever anyone wants to start, I think. I'm around page 200 but I'm waiting for someone else to begin because I want to make sure I don't say something people haven't read about yet. I will say that I was kind of worried about reading this again because it was a book I read for the first time many years ago and loved it but I've recently reread some other books I had read and loved from that time and I was horribly disillusioned to discover they were really very mediocre books. I'm thrilled to find that Owen Meany is as good as I remember, it's quite a relief.

[Janine]

Maybe as a suggestion we could talk about parts of the book such as only up to page 50, or even 100. I say this because no doubt most people are still reading it and we should not mention the ending. As we have been discussing Lawrence's short stories we have used this system and it seems better than just jumping all over the place in a story, especially a novel as long as this one.
Perhaps we could start with the fact that the narrator tells us right off about his mother's death, which is a little different than most books I have read before. He tells a key event in the book at the start.
Also, maybe we could concentrate on the first characters presented in the book: Owen for one, the narrator's mother and grandmother, and the woman who lives with them, secondly, Owen's parents....key characters to the plot.
I think that in Irvings books the characters really stand out and are the prominent element in the book. 'Fate' also seems to become a character. After this we could go on to discuss the cousins and the mother's finance/husband.
I am only up to about page 120 so maybe not go over what we find out up till 100 pages, so we allow others to have time to finish the book. To me, to 'structure' the discussion a bit 'anchors' it and helps us direct our thoughts to specific aspects of the book, rather than randomly floundering around wondering what to talk about next.
So what does everyone else think of this idea?

[Virgil]

That's fine wh me. I don't care even if people talk about the whole book, but then again I've never cared about reading for suspense. To me knowing as much as possible is always more important. That's why it's really hard to appreciate a novel only on one reading.

I've got to say I've got mixed reactions so far. I'm up to page 67 or so. First on the negative side. I can't believe this novel was published in 1989. This reads like a 19th century novel. In fact it feels like I'm still reading David Copperfield from our read of a few months ago. Even Irving's sentence structure seems outdated. Sometimes Irving is elaborating on things that seem trivial, like a fishery or the big business Gravesend or Congregationist versues Episcopalians or whatever. And the style meanders from one subject to another without a direction, or at least it feels that way. And here I am 15% of the way into the novel and I have no idea what the central conflict is about. It's certainly not a novel that throws the reader into the center of things.

On the positive side, the vignettes of Owen and of the mother (boy I would like to see those perfect breasts ) are excellent. Very well done. I can really see them and feel them as characters. They do come alive.

[Schokokeks]

I've got to say I've got mixed reactions so far. I'm up to page 67 or so. First on the negative side. I can't believe this novel was published in 1989. This reads like a 19th century novel. In fact it feels like I'm still reading David Copperfield from our read of a few months ago.

Yes, I agree, his style is somewhat Dickensian, which would also account for the length of the novel. However, that's one of the things I love the book for. I'm trying to remember if the style was that Dickensian in his other novels... Idril ?

(boy I would like to see those perfect breasts )

Boys will be boys .

[Virgil]

Boys will be boys .

I'm bad, I know. But Irving made such a point of it.

[Idril]

There really isn't one basic conflict in the book, it's just a story about Owen and how he effects people's lives. There is a moment it's building up to, one of the last scenes in the book that will make some of his...particularities...make sense but as far as central conflicts, you're not going to find it in this book.

I think this book is pretty typical of Irving, he always skips around like that, picking bits and pieces here and there to expound on. There is an underlying order but sometimes it's hard to find.

And I love the Congregationalists vs. the Episcopalian stuff. I grew up in a home where religion and sunday school and christmas pageants and church choir were a way of life and even that, for the most part, comparing of religions to reassure yourself that your's was better is almost like going home for me.

[Virgil]

And I love the Congregationalists vs. the Episcopalian stuff. I grew up in a home where religion and sunday school and christmas pageants and church choir were a way of life and even that, for the most part, comparing of religions to reassure yourself that your's was better is almost like going home for me.

Oh I don't mind the fact that there is religious tension, but he should dramatize rather than explain. Here's another instance that I take to be a central theme (it's hard to really say without finishing the book) where he explains rather than shows through suggestion:

It was Owen Meany who told me that only white men are vain enough to believe that human beings are unique because we have souls. According to Owen, Watahantowet knew better. Watahantowet believed that animals had souls, and that even the much-abused Squamscott River had a soul--Watahantowet knew that the land he sold to my ancestors was absolutely full of spirits....

Frankly if that is important to the theme of the novel, a greater writer would not have put those words in a character's mouth but would have integrated it into the web of the story and made the reader feel it. Second, that's not a very original notion, so to make it sound like Owen Meany suddenly thought of it seems (I'm not sure what the right word is) trivial, if that is the right word.

[SleepyWitch]

I've got to say I've got mixed reactions so far. I'm up to page 67 or so. First on the negative side. I can't believe this novel was published in 1989. This reads like a 19th century novel. In fact it feels like I'm still reading David Copperfield from our read of a few months ago. Even Irving's sentence structure seems outdated. Sometimes Irving is elaborating on things that seem trivial, like a fishery or the big business Gravesend or Congregationist versues Episcopalians or whatever. And the style meanders from one subject to another without a direction, or at least it feels that way. And here I am 15% of the way into the novel and I have no idea what the central conflict is about. It's certainly not a novel that throws the reader into the center of things.

yep, you're right.. Irving is a great fan of full-length novels and is very outspoken about fast-paced 100-pagers. He doesn't regard those post-modern 200-page books as proper novels and wants to prove that "the novel" is not quite dead yet.
he said so in an interview once.. I can look for it if you want. i think it's somewhere on his official fan club's homepage

[Idril]

Oh I don't mind the fact that there is religious tension, but he should dramatize rather than explain. Here's another instance that I take to be a central theme (it's hard to really say without finishing the book) where he explains rather than shows through suggestion:

Frankly if that is important to the theme of the novel, a greater writer would not have put those words in a character's mouth but would have integrated it into the web of the story and made the reader feel it. Second, that's not a very original notion, so to make it sound like Owen Meany suddenly thought of it seems (I'm not sure what the right word is) trivial, if that is the right word.

I don't know that I would say the quote you added is vitally important to the novel, it's all part of establishing who Owen is and how he thinks. This book is all about Owen, everything that happens in the book is seen, if sometimes only peripherally, through his eyes even though it may be Johnny who's relating the information. It's about how Owen affected the people around him and how he chose to live his life and who he thought he was. He is the central theme to the book so putting those words in Owen's mouth makes sense in that context.

[Janine]

There really isn't one basic conflict in the book, it's just a story about Owen and how he effects people's lives. There is a moment it's building up to, one of the last scenes in the book that will make some of his...particularities...make sense but as far as central conflicts, you're not going to find it in this book.

I think this book is pretty typical of Irving, he always skips around like that, picking bits and pieces here and there to expound on. There is an underlying order but sometimes it's hard to find.

And I love the Congregationalists vs. the Episcopalian stuff. I grew up in a home where religion and sunday school and christmas pageants and church choir were a way of life and even that, for the most part, comparing of religions to reassure yourself that your's was better is almost like going home for me.

Idril, I agree with you on all three points.

First off there really does not seem to be any conflict. It seems (and I am only to about pg 130) that the book is a peaceful recollection of fateful events. It feels like no character is really antagonistic. In this way I feel like I am reading a true story about real life people. I think that Irving has a way of doing this and I feel it is very commendable. If tomorrow someone told me this was all true (and it is not, right? or based on truth?) I would believe it. The characters are all so acceptable to me, even their quirks and funny things that happen. Isn't real life like that? Aren't the serious moments sometimes lighted by a bit of humor or wit? I feel real life is like this - the way Irving writes. I don't feel like it is contrived at all.

On the second point, the skipping around, I feel, is just Irving's intentional style; I sense that a central theme will emerge from exploring different aspects of Johnny's and Owen's lives. I feel as though a sort of circular narrative is pivoting on a centerpoint, and that I am not yet fully aware of the meaning of that centerpoint, but eventually this central theme and meaning will make perfect sense - the core of the story will be revealed.

On the third point, I agree about the two religions being pitted against each other. I also was brought up similar to you, Idril, and live in a small town still, where this still goes on today. Divisions probably were more pronounced back when I was a kid. Anyway, this part of the book is greatly amusing me.