A Prayer for Owen Meany

Rating:
Summary: Unforgettable
Review: Owen Meany is easily the best book that I have read to date. I will not be able to read more of John Irving's work soon, nothing can reach OM's standard

Rating:
Summary: A book that grows on you, slow build to an explosion!
Review: If I were stuck on a desert isle, here's the book I'd bring. It's long and slow, but grows to an incredible ending. You will remember the characters and think about them for YEARS! It's about boys at a religious New England prep school and a unique character, Owen Meaney. This book has it all, I don't want to give away more--serious and funny, hard to read but worth it. A book of depth and great characterization. Also some of the most incredible foreshadowing you will ever see. Irving's masterpiece. Start with Garp, end with Owen Meaney

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Summary: A superb treatise on the power of friendship and faith
Review: After you read the story of Owen and his best friend Johnny, you'll never look at faith the same way again. This novel takes the basic premise of faith itself----faith in God, faith in destiny, and most importantly, faith in what you know to be right---and creates a dark mirror in which we clearly see the fragility of that faith and the way it can shape and sometimes distort our lives. Owen Meany is a champion of faith. His trust in God is so absolute and such a tangible thing that he accepts without question the glimpses he has of the future, not only of his life but of others' lives as well, as personal instructions from God. Johnny Wheelwright is Owen's best friend and the novel's narrator. The relationship between the two boys, which begins in childhood and continues throughout adolescence and into adulthood, is a complex and beautiful one. Owen is the mystic. He sees signs, has visions, and is committed to being, as he puts it, "God's hands". Johnny is the doubter, the regular kid, who views Owen's absolute belief with skepticism. Even after Johnny's mother is killed by a baseball thrown by Owen during that most normal and pleasant summer pastime, a Little League game, in an accident that redefines the adjective "freak", Johnny is unconvinced. Owen believes in God's plan; Johnny believes in coincidence. By the end of the novel, when countless examples of Owen's precognitive glimpses (or communications from God) become reality, Johnny, too becomes a believer. The last chapter of this novel is so shattering in its summation of Owen's absolute and total faith in God and destiny, that it not only makes Johnny a believer (he lives the rest of his life as an Anglican priest); it makes the reader equally convinced. Are there those among us who are divine? Those whom we may know and love, but who are never really ours? Who belong to a purpose much greater than simply to be the recipient of our friendship and love? The last line of the novel is, "Oh God! I shall keep asking You!". This question, although it may never be answered, is the perfect summation to this beautiful, tragic, enlightening and ultimately enriching book of faith

Rating:
Summary: Rewarding!
Review: I read Owen Meany over 2 years ago, and it still touches me. John Irving has created a cast of characters who come to life in an extraordinary way. Never before had I laughed out loud while reading a novel. I got some mighty strange looks on the plane from fellow passengers who could not keep up with my chuckles and weeping. I can still hear Owen's voice and it makes me smile. READ THIS BOOK, IT IS EXCELLENT!!

Rating:
Summary: Amazingly Hilarious. Must Read!!
Review: This book was so good, I try to recommend it to everyone I see. You cannot read this book while on public transportation as you cannot control your laughter. Owen Meany is a beautiful character and as you turn the pages, you PRAY there is more text in capitals (as that is when Owen speaks). The best John Irving book ever. Even better that Hotel New Hampshire

Rating:
Summary: One of the most engrossing books I have ever read!
Review: I just finished "A Prayer For Owen Meany", and the only complaint I have it about it is that it has left me thinking of practically nothing else in the days since I finished reading it. The character of Owen Meany grabbed me and drew me in to the book from the very start. I was enthralled with his smallness, his presence, and most of all by his terrible, wonderful voice. The author conveyed this voice magically by description and the use of all capitals. Whenever Owen spoke, I wasn't reading, I was "hearing" his voice! I was so intruiged by the seemingly insignificant details of his life, and what they would all come to mean. It is a book of love and faith, and the strength of the human spirit, even a spirit so small and almost weightless that he needed that voice just to get people to notice him. I noticed Owen Meany and I will never forget him.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Novel
Review: When someone shoves a book at me, and tells me I have to read it and write a report on it, I usually groan, and put off reading the book. However, my mother told me to choose this novel. Being the teenager I am, I was all cranky that I had to read it. However, now that I am finished with it, I must say that this is a great novel, a work of art even. It really made me think, and expand my mind on things that I would look over in my every day life. This book was excellent, and now the hard part is finding some critism on it for my report......I somehow doubt there is any

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Summary: Irving will be remembered for his book 100 years from now...
Review: Even after four years have passed since I read this book as an assignent for a Seminary class on images of God in American Fiction, I am still deafened by the scene with the grenade; my temple still has traces of blood sprayed from the circular saw; I'm still gargling from the pain elicted from Owen's day in Vienna; and I'm still covering my genital with my cupped hands (since, unlike other Irving stories, nobody lost theirs!!). I cannot remember a time I read a novel, hoping to find the time to re-read it - there's simply too many other great works to be read!! However, I have plans to excerpt the Christmas Pageant chapter in a Short Stories Reading Group I'm leading (we read excerpts from novels on occasion. I'm also very happy to see so many others who agree that 'Prayer'is such a work of art: I, too, believe it has earned a place in the canon of great World Literature. John Joachim, Indianapolis, I

Rating:
Summary: Yes, a great book, but not everyone agrees.
Review: I discovered Irving when Garp was published and became an instant fan. I went back and read his earlier novels (OK, but nothing really special) and went forward as new novels were published. From _Hotel New Hampshire_ to _Cider House Rules_ to _Owen Meany_, they just seemed to get better and better. (_Son of the Circus_ was a major disappointment, but he can't always top himself) However, although Irving has the rare ability to combine wonderful storytelling with profound ideas and present them in wonderfully crafted prose that appeals to a broad range of readers, I *have* met a few people who can't stand the book. I hesitate to recommend it--or anything--too highly, having been greatly disappointed myself after listening to someone's rave reviews of, say, _The Horse Whisperer_. All that aside, however, Owen Meany is one of the finest novels I've ever read, on my Top Five (which I'm simply going to have to expand to a Top Ten--I'm just not sure I could get them all to the island. I'm not a very strong swimmer.) Irving's heavy use of coincidence, which has bothered me a bit in some of his other works, operates in Owen Meany to support the whole idea of destiny. Perhaps this is a sub-text of all of Irving's work (intentionally or not), but it is certainly most effective in Owen Meany. I've read this novel several times and always find something new in it

Rating:
Summary: A must read.
Review: Tired of being able to guess a work of fiction's story line? Irving's unusual, compelling and imaginative twists and turns of this fine and unique book make this a sure must-read. You'll be fascinated from start to finish