A Prayer for Owen Meany

The Christmas holiday has come and gone and I have 3 whole days to do something meaningless, but enriching with my life. I think I might pick up a good book. My house is spotless, I have leftovers to eat for the family for a day or two and I'm looking forward to just chillin'.

As I rummaged through a pile of books that I have in a box in my attic I came across A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving. If you're not familiar with John Irving's writing style, then you must go out and try to read at least one of his books. I've read several, but Owen Meany was the best, in my opinion. I also liked A Widow in One Year. A pretty famous book by John Irving is The World According to Garp, which was later made into a motion picture.

John Irving always displays one character in his books (and it may not even be the main character) that is usually 'a few fries short of a Happy Meal.' Or perhaps you like the expression, 'bats in the belfry.' Now this is not the same as saying, 'not the sharpest knife in the drawer' nor 'not the brightest star in the sky.'

The expression 'a few fries short of a Happy Meal' doesn't imply ignorance to me. It implies that the person is just a wee bit 'off.' The person may not be dumb, just strange or weirder than the norm.

Owen Meany is 'a few fries short of a Happy Meal.' He sees things totally different than the average person, but it possibly could be due to the fact that Owen, as a child in grade school, was so small in stature that he got to play the baby Jesus in the church Christmas pageant; yet he was such a powerful person, despite his small stature, that they let him play the part of 'The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come' in the production of The Christmas Carol with the local theater group. Or perhaps, Owen is a bit strange due to the fact that his family believes he was born of a virgin. Or perhaps, Owen is just so poor that he didn't have the privilege to engage with his peers in some of their more expensive activities which shape and mold their characters into what most would consider 'normal.'

But all that is not to say that Owen Meany is ignorant or dumb. In fact, he is so intelligent that he entered prep school on a scholarship, and he received backing from a local family. No, Owen does not fall under the category of 'not the brightest star in the sky', but he does fall under the description of 'a few fries short of a Happy Meal.'

Well, I don't want to reveal the entire book to you, but the narrative takes you through Owen Meany's entire lifetime. The character of Owen makes you laugh, cry, ponder your own sense of being and stays with you long after the last page has been read.

We get a peek at Owen in love with the narrator's cousin, his school days, and beyond to the Vietnam war.

Owen is a great character that you might like to get to know in the John Irving book of A Prayer for Owen Meany. Even though the book is one that I read then reread years ago, it's one of those kind of books that just remains with you long after you finish reading it.