A Prayer for Owen Meany

I picked this book up on the advice of a friend and found it to be one of the most enjoyable, funny, and thought-provoking novels I’ve ever read.

Sitting here now, having just finished the book, I find it hard to put into words my feelings. Over these last weeks I feel as if I’ve come to know Owen and respect and admire him. What would he say about my hesitation to write about what is essentially his life’s story?

“START AT THE BEGINNING AND GO FROM THERE,” he would probably say. “DON’T OVERTHINK IT.”

Of course saying that suggests incorrectly to the reader that I view myself as having more in common with Johnny Wheelright. Nothing could be further from the truth, as I found myself loathing and resenting the narrator right from the start, for so many reasons.

To begin with, he was cruel to Owen when they were children. I have no patience for bullies.

Next, he was spoiled and spineless and lazy. He was given everything and he made nothing of it. In my opinion the essence of what it means to be an American is to better oneself. If you are born into wealth, find yourself some adversity, grow some guts, and find a way to improve yourself and help others.

Third, he was a jerk of an English teacher. The worst kind of snob who assigned his tenth grade students obscure books and then looked down on them when they failed to get the insider jokes that, quite frankly, aren’t very funny. Such teachers do a masterful job of turning kids off to the joys of reading and that should be a crime. Few things are as enjoyable to me as reading a wonderful book and feeling for a time as if the characters and their world is within my grasp – a place I could go as soon as I could go to my own backyard.

There are more reasons but they aren’t worth listing. Instead, I prefer to remember what it was about Owen that made me laugh and admire him. In many ways he was a similar hero to Orson Scott Card’s Ender character. And, looking around the Internets, I see that a good number of people who enjoyed Owen Meany also enjoyed Ender’s Game. I wonder how many of them see the connection, and whether there is something in their psychological makeup that makes them root for the little guy and dream of being a hero.

There was so much to like and respect about Owen. His hard work, his reliability, his loyalty, his recognition of his own limitations.

In retrospect, I wish I’d stopped reading the book about halfway through. Once the boys entered high school and the war loomed in their future and the author’s rantings about Vietnam began, the book began to sour for me. And worse, it started to become apparent to me where the story was heading, and that was a place I didn’t want to go. I would rather have stopped mid-way, not knowing what was to become of Owen and Hester and the rest.

Still, an outstanding read.