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A Prayer for Owen Meany
 
 

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A Prayer for Owen Meany (Paperback)

by John Irving (Author) "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,..." (more)
4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (95 customer reviews)
RRP: £8.99
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  • This item: A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving

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Product details

  • Paperback: 640 pages
  • Publisher: Black Swan; New edition edition (25 May 1990)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0552993697
  • ISBN-13: 978-0552993692
  • Product Dimensions: 19.2 x 12.6 x 3.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (95 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 4,676 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #2 in  Books > Fiction > 20th Century Classics > Irving, John

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Product Description

Amazon.co.uk Review

Owen Meany is a dwarfish boy with a strange voice who accidentally kills his best friend's mum with a baseball and believes--correctly, it transpires--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 Dr Dolder, Owen's shrink, drunkenly driving his VW down the school's marble steps is a marvellous 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 change 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' 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



DOMINIC HOLLAND, Sunday Express

'a heartbreaking masterpiece of a novel... tremendously ambitious and fiendishly clever'
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First Sentence
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 I believe in God; I am a Christian because of Owen Meany. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews

95 Reviews
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 (5)
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Average Customer Review
4.7 out of 5 stars (95 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A modern classic, 28 Oct 2006
Owen Meany is one of the great fictional characters of our time. In my opinion, this is the novel in which John Irving reaches the peak of his form. The humour, irony, pathos and humanity that Irving puts into all of his novels blends so well here to create the quirkiest of all stories. Owen Meany is maybe the most unlikely hero of any novel but this extraordinary book tells his story and makes us understand what a hero he is. Very moving.
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23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Weeping for Owen Meany, 15 May 2003
By N. Crump (Surrey, UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
I've just this minute finished Owen Meany and I my eyes are filled with tears. So much is already said about this book. I will simply say that I was impatient through the book, although I enjoyed it, because I didn't understand where it was going. I should have understood all the time that Owen was speaking to me, the reader, as much as to John in saying that "A LITTLE FAITH IS NEEDED".
I perservered (and really it wasn't such a difficult task) and at the end was the reward which was unbelieavbly moving. The most touching story I've ever read - just so emotionally and spiritually big, but accessible. Maybe that was the point. Don't let your impatience get the better of you, treasure every page like you would each moment of your growing child - because the end comes all too soon.
Reaching the conclusion is an epiphany in itself, but its a book full of revelations about humanity and God even to the hardened atheist, the most unsentimental or even the driven agnostic like me. It was a privledge.
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22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars My favourite book, 8 Sep 2006
5 stars doesn't really do this justice. John Irving transcends perfection with 'A Prayer For Owen Meany'. This book is probably the most moving piece of literature I've ever read. That's not because it's particularly sad. It's more down to the love felt by the narrator towards Owen, and Owen's immense faith.
There's not much more that can be said without ruining the intricate plot. Owen Meany is a magical character and I would recommend this book above any other.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars A brilliant narration....
I have done a separate review for A Prayer for Owen Meany. It is a wonderful, compelling book and lends itself well to an audio version. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Wynne Kelly

5.0 out of 5 stars Poignant, funny and thoughtful......
This is a wonderful book in every way - poignant, funny and thoughtful. Johnny Wheelwright recounts the story of his friendship with Owen - a boy of very small stature (dwarfism... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Wynne Kelly

4.0 out of 5 stars A Prayer for Own Meany
This is a truly wonderful book - it manages to be incredibly sad and incredibly funny, often simultaneously. Read more
Published 1 month ago by M. C. Verrall

4.0 out of 5 stars Vivid!
To begin with I was not sure how I was going to get on with this book, but as Owen always points out, have a little faith. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Pen pal

5.0 out of 5 stars My favourite Irving book, brilliant stuff....
This is an amazing book. I read it from cover to cover in one sitting (an all nighter, and the exhaustion in the morning was totally worth it!) Oh and just a thought.... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Ms. S. R. Boatfield

5.0 out of 5 stars my favourite John Irving book
A book so full of characters impeccably brought to life on the page that in spite of their oddities they seem just as real as members of your family and you want to cherish them... Read more
Published 3 months ago by H. Lacroix

5.0 out of 5 stars Quirky and extraordinarily moving
I bought this book for my wife after she'd listened to a radio adaption of the story; she gave it to me to read after she'd finished it. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Jeremy Walton

5.0 out of 5 stars My favourite book of all times
First I like John Irving a lot. I like his style and his quirk. I do not like all of his books but this one is high up there. Read more
Published 7 months ago by French reader

4.0 out of 5 stars Special, meaningful and memorable
This is a really beautifully written novel with a powerful message, and although I didn't immediately fall in love with this book, and did feel that it was somewhat over-hyped, I... Read more
Published 8 months ago by Lulushka8

5.0 out of 5 stars Very unusual but compelling story
I like a book to tell me a story and my nature is for this to be in order. I struggled at the start of this book as the story jumps around in time quite a lot. Read more
Published 8 months ago by KT

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