A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving

John Irving is no stranger to me — I’ve read The World According to Garp and The Hotel New Hampshire, which can be both superficially described as kilometric readings. I seriously enjoyed both, and I think of Irving as someone who always finds the comic in dark matters. Severing of body parts, rape, and deaths in the family are recurring themes in his novels, and I’m glad to take a quick break from these in A Prayer for Owen Meany, which provides a scrutiny of faith and religion — and an amusing look at the small-town American life — through the enduring friendship of two boys from the fictitious town of Gravesend, New Hampshire.

Growing up in the 1950s are best friends John Wheelwright and Owen Meany, a “tiny” boy with a “wrecked voice” who believes himself to be God’s instrument. Owen is an extraordinary boy, no less, but not only due to his stunted physical growth or the mysterious circumstances that surround his voice and weird family. From hitting a foul ball at a fateful Little League game to seeing his own name on Scrooge’s grave during an amateur play, Owen embarks on a journey through faith, a lasting friendship with John (who rather fades in the background as a boy, but whose adult life as a self-exile in Canada is revealing of a political disease) , and his believed predestination of dying a hero.

But what does it really mean to have faith? Is believing as “simple” as seeing the parting of the Red Sea (“Miracles are not that easy!” says an incredulous Owen)? If a dream of saving children and dying a hero recurs, would you outline your life in a way that agrees with this divine scheme of things? Owen, however, is no simpleton; he has always excelled in school and displayed a sense of precociousness. The religious fervor he has displayed does not stem from intellectual naivete, but instead bears fruits from its exact opposite — the logic of salvation, a scholarly investigation of the divine “attention” showered to Owen through the narrator’s eyes.

A Prayer for Owen Meany is an energetic 617-page novel, and it’s my favorite among Irving’s works so far. I don’t think it enjoyed the as much success as Garp or The Cider House Rules yielded (both in the novel and cinema formats), but it’s where Irving is funniest and most revealing as a writer. But I don’t think I’ll ever see the movie — I prefer the Owen Meany of the imagination to the Owen Meany of serviceable visuals.

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