A Prayer for Owen Meany

Although he is convincing in his appraisal of the tragedy of Vietnam and in his religious philosophizing, "Irving's storytelling skills have gone seriously astray in this contrived, preachy, tedious tale of the eponymous Owen Meany, a latter-day prophet and Christ-like figure who dies a martyr after having inspired true Christian belief in the narrator Johnny Wheelwright," warned. - Publishers Weekly

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Sun, 11/14/2010 - 12:49
#1
mikeal
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Joined: 01/21/2010
User offline. Last seen 2 years 9 weeks ago.

I tried. I really did. My sister and you fellow Palahniukists (if you will) all recommended 'A Prayer For Owen Meany' and although it was at times a good read I certainly can't make the connection between a novel like this one and say for example...Diary, Rant, American Psycho, The Contortionist Handbook, etc...This is more comparable to perhaps 'Of Mice and Men' or 'Catcher in the Rye'. It's a gret piece of literature, just not at all as intense or engulfing as some of the other novels recommended on this site.
This book was around 600 pages loooooong and the message could have been delivered just as well if the story was cut in half (see also; Glamorama). Owen Meany is certainly a lovable character, but there were a number of things that I thought were lacking in the story. I think I was 'supposed to' fall in love with Meany and get emotionally distraught at the end of the book, but quite honestly, I was just happy to be done reading it after the five weeks or so that it took me to finish...

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