A Prayer for Owen Meany is a coming-of-age story that is clearly personal for Irving, yet with themes that should resonate with many: friendship, fate, childhood-trauma, disillusionment, and faith. More than anything else it is Owen Meany’s life and testimony to the idea that everything happens for a reason.
In the opening paragraph, narrator John Wheelwright reveals some astonishing things about his friend Owen. According to John, Owen…
had a “wrecked voice”
was “the smallest person I ever knew”
was “the instrument of my mother’s death”
and was “the reason I believe in God”
Owen and John were best friends, indeed each other’s only friend, growing up in Gravesend, New Hampshire. Most of the novel is John’s childhood and young adult memories from the 1950s – 60s New Hampshire, with occasional flash-forwards to his current life in Canada, 1987.
Owen is an unusual child: small and with an unnatural high-pitched voice, which Irving always denotes by putting Owen’s dialogue in all-caps. (not yelling, just distinctly Owen Meany’s voice). Owen’s unimpressive physical traits are offset by a highly intelligent and perceptive mind.
Several events in Owen’s life convince him that he is fated, or more precisely, chosen by God for an extraordinary purpose. Some of these epiphanies are vague, some are crystal clear, such as the precise date of his own death. Owen develops several puzzling obsessions, such as practicing a basketball shot over and over, for years, with John. Neither were basketball players, and the shot would not have been lawful in any regard, and yet Owen is obsessed with perfecting the shot in under three seconds.
All these quirks are quite out of character for Owen and puzzling to John, but John obliges as he has become accustomed to Owen’s eccentricities. Owen never reveals all that he knows — or believes? — about his destiny, but John begins to realize that Owen is convinced about his fate and calling.
At first, I just thought Owen was a little nuts. Along with John I slowly realized he was a man on a mission. According to John…
…on the subject of predestination, Owen Meany would accuse Calvin of bad faith.
And…
I know that Owen didn’t believe in coincidences. Owen Meany believed that “coincidence” was a stupid, shallow refuge sought by stupid, shallow people…
Irving’s narration, via John is vivid and accessible. The characters are hopelessly flawed and believable, with the possible exception of Owen, who is intended to be extraordinary. Irving paints a quaint picture of a small-town New England where everybody knows everyone, and the slightly annoying issue that they know everyone’s business too.
John Wheelwright is in many ways autobiographical, but Irving has stated the character is a “what-if” version of himself. John is boring, even to himself, but he has Owen, and according to John…
Owen Meany was enough excitement for a lifetime.
That’s the good stuff. But Irving does something during the flash-forward sections that I didn’t like. John, and I presume Irving by proxy, makes political commentary on the United States late 1980s. I didn’t feel it was relevant or necessary to the story; nor was it compelling. I believe the author has the right to use his novel in this way, and I have the right to not like it. I didn’t like it. I found it hypocritical when John accused a historical person of “bullying patriotism” and more so when John admitted that he possessed a “shallow, superficial” understanding” of world affairs, but not such that it stopped him from his own intellectual bullying.
Overall, it was an enjoyable read. I’m taking off half a star for the politicization.
My rating: 3 ½ out of 5 stars
This novel satisfies the “First and Last Name” category (the title must contain a first and last name) in the What’s in a Name? 2025 challenge.
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