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A Prayer for Owen Meany (Modern Library) | 
 enlarge | Author: John Irving
Publisher: Modern Library
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $14.88
You Save: $10.07 (40%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  1071 reviews
Sales Rank: 20716
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 672
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.6
Dimensions (in): 8.1 x 5.8 x 1.4
ISBN: 0679642595
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780679642596
ASIN: 0679642595
Publication Date: June 4, 2002
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand new item. Over 3.5 million customers served. Order now. Selling online since 1995. Few left in stock - order soon. Code: R20080823231638H
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
Owen Meany is a dwarfish boy with a strange voice who accidentally kills his best friend's mom with a baseball and believes--accurately--that he is an instrument of God, to be redeemed by martyrdom. John Irving's novel, which inspired the 1998 Jim Carrey movie Simon Birch, is his most popular book in Britain, and perhaps the oddest Christian mystic novel since Flannery O'Connor's work. Irving fans will find much that is familiar: the New England prep-school-town setting, symbolic amputations of man and beast, the Garp-like unknown father of the narrator (Owen's orphaned best friend), the rough comedy. The scene of doltish the doltish headmaster driving a trashed VW down the school's marble staircase is a marvelous set piece. So are the Christmas pageants Owen stars in. But it's all, as Highlights magazine used to put it, "fun with a purpose." When Owen plays baby Jesus in the pageants, and glimpses a tombstone with his death date while enacting A Christmas Carol, the slapstick doesn't cancel the fact that he was born to be martyred. The book's countless subplots add up to a moral argument, specifically an indictment of American foreign policy--from Vietnam to the Contras. The book's mystic religiosity is steeped in Robertson Davies's Deptford trilogy, and the fatal baseball relates to the fatefully misdirected snowball in the first Deptford novel, Fifth Business. Tiny, symbolic Owen echoes the hero of Irving's teacher Guenter Grass's The Tin Drum--the two characters share the same initials. A rollicking entertainment, Owen Meany is also a meditation on literature, history, and God. --Tim Appelo
Product Description
In the summer of 1953, two eleven-year-old boys—best friends—are playing in a Little League baseball game in Gravesend, New Hampshire. One of the boys hits a foul ball that kills the other boy’s mother. The boy who hits the ball doesn’t believe in accidents; Owen Meany believes he is God’s instrument. What happens to Owen, after that 1953 foul ball, is extraordinary and terrifying.
A Prayer for Owen Meany was first published in 1989. This Modern Library edition includes a new Introduction by the author.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 1066 more reviews...
 AWESOME September 2, 2008
I LOVE this book. I am an avid reader and a writer, and I'm fairly particular about the fiction I read. This book was amazing. The characters are so clearly drawn that they seem like real people. The plot kept me enthralled till the end. The ending itself surprised me (and I'm hard to surprise). Irving is a great writer; his skill at putting together words made the story move along mostly effortlessly. (Though I agree with one of the other reviews - some of the flashbacks were hard to follow at times.) None of his characters are "perfect," which makes them all the more likeable. Parts of the story are totally hilarious, while other parts are sad -- a lot like life. This is the best book I've read in years - and I've read a LOT of books in the past several years! I recommend it to everyone I know who reads a lot.
Read This Book! August 17, 2008
What can one say about A Prayer for Owen Meany that hasn't all ready been said? If you have a heart and a soul, this is a book that will change you. Owen Meany will continue to remain a part of your life; an indelible character as profound and rich as any who has ever really lived or breathed. Read this book.
Hold onto your hats, this is a wild ride August 6, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
As with other John Irving novels, this one has a sometimes meandering style that is chock full of minutiae. The author is a master craftsman of descriptive language, and it may be initially unclear what many of the details have to do with the evolving story. The book is unquestionably not one that anybody would consider concise, and the content of each chapter goes well beyond the scope of what its title intimates. Yet in the end, everything comes together in a way that few books ever do.
The book becomes far more emotionally compelling once the reader reaches the point where the meaning of the title becomes clear. From then on, all the small details continue to gel with the overall cohesiveness of the story.
In typical Irving style, this novel jumps around temporally. Although some readers were put off by the "present day" Reagan era events, these read like the views of the narrating character, are consistent with how his experiences might have shaped him, and comprise relatively few pages of the overall novel. By placing the chronological ending prior to the physical ending of the book, Irving manages to build up to a crescendo without leaving loose ends, and without overshadowing the final chapters.
I did not find Owen Meany to be an immediately lovable character, but his is a character that grew on me. By the end of the book, when one truly understands what Owen was about, it becomes clear just how strong both the book and the character turn out to be. By then, all the details make sense, the meaning behind each chapter becomes clear, and you are left with the feeling that you have finished a truly remarkable book.
Mystical Hope July 26, 2008
This was the first John Irving novel I read; it's also my favorite, even after having read all of his other books.
The characters - as well as the winding plot progression - are imaginative and throroughly interesting.
Irving's protagonist's (Owen's) strength, unbending faith, conviction and certainty are a nice portrait in contrast: With his tiny, fragile physical frame. The true self certainly radiates forth from within, and Irving illustrates this beautifully. Unlike some books with metaphysically speculative themes; this one is hilarious ! As the story unfolds - out of nowhere - side-splitting humor emerges again and again.
Johnny's METANOIA is convincing and - ultimately - inspiring. When all is said and done, this is a tale of MYSTICAL HOPE: NOT in outcomes, but in TRUSTING THE PROCESS of evolution ... or ... God's will. Choose any theological/metaphysical characterization you like ... in the end, IT'S ALL THE SAME.
 Terribly boring July 21, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This was the assigned book for my book club. I was so entirely bored and unengaged with the characters that I could not get more than a third of the way through the book. Painfully SLOW. I simply didn't care what happened to any of the characters.
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