- Hardcover: 656 pages
- Publisher: Random House Inc; New edition edition (6 Jan 2002)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0679642595
- ISBN-13: 978-0679642596
- Product Dimensions: 14.6 x 3.5 x 20.9 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (127 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 741,664 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
A Prayer For Owen Meany
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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 --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
DOMINIC HOLLAND, Sunday Express
'a heartbreaking masterpiece of a novel... tremendously ambitious and fiendishly clever'
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
Inside This Book
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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
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt
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
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
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 is never mentioned) who is highly intelligent and socially manipulative. But as well as being clever Owen is convinced he has been chosen by God for a special purpose. He also claims to know the date of his death - a fact that Johnny treats with great scepticism. There is much sadness in the book - Owen seems to come from such an unloving family, Johnny would love to know who his real father is, people die unexpectedly and tragically. But the friendship and love of Johnny and Owen overcomes all this as they move through childhood to adulthood.
The narrative is brilliantly constructed and everything in the story is relevant. Irving explores ideas on organised religion and spiritually and although the story is set in small town New Hampshire the wider political scene is referred to as John links his narrative with facts about the Vietnam War and the Iran-Contra affair.
I chose to read this book as it so often appears on those lists of "most favourite books". I left in on my book shelf for over a year - initially put off by the 640 pages. But now I realise it was a wonderful treat just waiting for me! Owen Meany must be one of the best literary creations of all times.....
The narrative is brilliantly constructed and everything in the story is relevant. Irving explores ideas on organised religion and spiritually and although the story is set in small town New Hampshire the wider political scene is referred to as John links his narrative with facts about the Vietnam War and the Iran-Contra affair.
I chose to read this book as it so often appears on those lists of "most favourite books". I left in on my book shelf for over a year - initially put off by the 640 pages. But now I realise it was a wonderful treat just waiting for me! Owen Meany must be one of the best literary creations of all times.....
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
It would be pointless to summarise the plot and main features of this terrific novel, as other commentators have done so already. Suffice to say, however, that Owen Meany is a character who stays with the reader long after the book has been put down. John Irving has created a hauntingly beautiful fable in which our personal values are challenged. I have had coversations with complete strangers in bookshops about this novel - and I defy anyone not to weep at the end.
32 of 34 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
"What's your favourite..." can be such an irritating question, but for me, for books, there's an instant answer - 'A Prayer For Owen Meany.' I could tell you about angels and armadillos, armless Indians and the headless Mary Magdalene, the lethal baseball, what the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come saw and exactly how it connects with the corpse of a helicopter pilot burned and blistered in Vietnam, and, of course, THE VOICE - and I'd still not manage to get you to the heart of this novel. And the heart is the key to it; like his beloved Dickens, Irving sets out to speak to your emotions, to make you laugh and - ultimately - bring you to tears. It is a masterpiece both of virtuoso plotting and of creating heartbreakingly involving characters. A friend of mine, after finishing the book, said 'For a few days I missed Owen Meany as if I'd known him.' If you do nothing else today, take a recommendation and read this book. Just think of it as my litle gift to you...
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Wonderfully enterntaining and sad, an amazing book
This is an amazing book, I loved the story and the way that John told it. It was funny, heartbraking and slightly shocking all at the same time. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Mrs. S. East
A Parayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
This has to be one of the best books ever written. It is a re-read for me having let some time lapse in between. Read more
Published 4 months ago by ashleigh
An Intriguing Story
"A Prayer for Owen Meany" is an intriguing story. It took me quite a while to really get into the book. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Thelma Batchelor
LK book review
This was purchased second hand. the delivery was extremely efficient and the process has proved to be a very good way of trying books which may not have been bought at full price
Published 7 months ago by lk
Wonderful Owen Meaney
John Irving has a habit of making me fall in love with his characters and then breaking my heart with the things he does with and to them. Read more
Published 7 months ago by D. Pauls
A Prayer for Owen Meany
This book was recommended to me as a 'must read'. If I had seen the size of it before purchase I would not have touched it as it is a very long and heavy tome. Read more
Published 8 months ago by Albertfrog
Lovely read
This was the first book that I have read by John Irving and I loved it. It is wonderful for those who like an author who carefully crafts his gentle storyline. Read more
Published 9 months ago by JCL
My favourite book ever (I think)
I would recommend anyone with a strong sense of humour and a wish to experience a brilliant modern writer at the top of his form to read this. Read more
Published 10 months ago by London Reader
I miss him too .....
I've just finished this book, which I picked up from a charity shop 2 months ago. I've read several of Irving's novels, such as The Cider House Rules. Read more
Published 11 months ago by Max Reed
Patchy
If it hadn't been for the fact this was a Book Club choice, I'd have put this down. Sometimes it was hilarious, but it was also far too detailed in places - resulting in me... Read more
Published 12 months ago by SamB07
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