A Prayer For Owen Meany

[janeite]

I have finally read it! Would anybody like to discuss it with me?

I am going to have look up that scene from Garp seeing as everyone who has read the book seems to remember none of it

Right shall add that one to my library list then!

I wish I could discuss books with DH but the most he reads is his F1 mag

DH has never been a reader where as I can get totally lost in a good book, when I was reading The 13th Tale he didn't see me for days as I kept hiding in our room behind a closed door to read it!

Just remembering crying with laughter at the baby jesus part. I might have to dig it out again myself.

I told dp it should have been 300 pages shorter. Then again, I think so many books are just over-written and far too long, as though editors are afraid to edit.

For a book of the right length, where just about every word matters, I offer you -

'Of Mice And Men' - perfection imho.

I absolutely love Prayer for Owen Meany - I read it about three years after it came out when I was in my early twenties and it was a lost weekend book, I literally did not put it down.

I remember seeing Jerry Maguire and thinking the kid in that would make a good Owen later in life if he stayed short and acted tortured instead of grinning and being insufferably cute.

The actual use of The Shot broke my heart when I first read the book and realised what was about to happen.

I read it recently and loved it to bits. So do you think he really was a virgin birth, or what?

Oh dear, oh dear, what am I missing?

I bought this book with my Christmas vouchers after seeing so many recommendations on MN, and I just cannot get into it.

I'm reasonably well read and I don't think its 'beyond' me in that sense, I just found it disjointed and uninteresting.

[wanders off to retrieve it from the bookshelf for the umpteenth time...]

Owen Meany is my favourite book - I've ready it twice but the last time was a good ten years ago. I was particularly affected by the friendship between the two boys, Owen & the narrator, and actually sobbed all the way through the last 40 pages. John Irving's novels are undoubtedly weird which can make them hard to get into but they are totally different from everything else which is why I like them.

Lightshines - it is worth trying again - but it is not the work of genius (imho) that many people seem to think it is.

Having said that -
the car bit is wonderful;
the finger bit is good, especially when you start to see it coming;
the last couple of pages are good - again, as you have realised where it's going;
the prayer bit on the stage is wonderful;
the virgin statue bit is good fun.

Was he a virgin birth? Erm....I suspect that it desn't matter. What matters is that everything that he does is shaped by the idea that he is and that his role in life/death is therefore defined.

I LOVED this book and also went through a phase of buying it for all and sundry come birthdays and christmas. I recently listened to a dramatisation on Radio 4 which brought it all back to me. Just like John Irving's best novels (IMO The Cider House Rules, World According to Garp) , a warm, funny, deeply human read.

One of my favourite books.EVER. I never got it. I never got the why he needed to get the hoop jumping right. Till the end. then it was like realisation.
Cried. what a great great book. as are many of his. but owen meany is in a league of its own.

oh off to see if I can find radio 4 dramatisation now

for those that are struggling. please perservere. as others have said, it takes a bit of effort, is a bit hard work. but when you read the final chapter(s), it changes your view of the whole book. and you suddenly realise how clever john irving is and what a good writer he is. up until then you may have thought, oh he is shit, i can't get into this.
agreed everyone ?

I LOVE this book, v v much. I haven't read it for ages though. And no matter how many times I read it I still cringe and squirm as I get to "the finger" bit.

Oblomov - I do see your point and yes, the ending is v good but I still think it would have been a far better book if he hadn't wallowed in it all so much. It would have made a stunning novella.

love love love this book, and all of his actually.

Am watching masterchef aso just marking my place for later!

I loved this book too.

I loved the way he wrote so affectionately of Robertson Davies in it.

It was a little long, I agree. My choice of a perfect length book is The Stone Book Quartet by Alan Garner.

I love this book. I tend to find with John Irving books that you start off thinking "Hmm, not really feeling this one" and then all of a sudden, it's 4am,you are still awake, reading and unable to put the book down until it's finished.
I was the same with "Until I find you" I thought it was a classic Irving tale.