"At first, a dense, complicated, hard to get through "tome" that transforms into a truly inspiring, heartbreaking meditation on life, Faith, predestination and how the people in our lives mean so much." 5 Stars
Pros: A truly unique coming of age story with memorable characters/Owen Meany in and of himself is larger than life in every aspect but for his physical appearance/The scenes of New Hampshire are truly vivid and for someone who has spent her entire life in New England, I could see everything with crystal clarity/The mystery behind the identity of Johnny's Father is what keeps the novel moving forward, also the idea of how every action leads to the next, that everything is intertwined, was interesting.
Cons: The idea that Owen Meany is always right and far above and removed from the average human, though that was the authors intent/The Owen Meany flame text (all capital letters) took some getting used to/Johnny's opinions of current events, for then, basically the Vietnam War and current political strife happening in the United States were understandable but tiresome/A strange and uncomfortable feeling regarding adults and also Johnny's somewhat incestuous lusting for his cousin Hester.
Full Review: (Spoiler alert - Review reveals important plot points, do not read if you do not want to know the end.)
At the start of the novel, we are introduced to Johnny Wheelwright, the novel's protagonist but more importantly, we are also introduced to his best friend, Owen Meany. A boy who is closer to the size of a toddler than that of a pre=-adolescent and who is often the subject of "loving" torment from his fellow Sunday School classmates. The ritual is to lift Owen Meany clear over their heads and pass him around like a person crowd surfing at a rock concert. Everyone else finds this hilarious, all except for poor Owen, who is flustered at being so man handled and also that his treasured baseball cards often fall from his pockets and he has to spend time putting them back into the order they were in before they met with such misfortune.
We learn about Johnny's life in a small town in New Hampshire called Gravesend. His Grandmother, Harriet Wheelwright, is akin to royalty in this small rural area, able to trace her lineage back to the Mayflower. And Johnny's friendship with "that boy" as she often calls Owen, is always cause for complaint. He is obviously lower class, his Father the owner and proprietor of the Meany Granite Quarry. They are hard workers while Johnny is raised wanting nothing. Despite their differences in class and upbringing, Johnny and Owen are best friends. The two, as they grow older, are basically inseparable. And part of that bond could be because during their little league days, when Owen was sent up to bat because the game was already lost, he hit a foul ball which in turn struck Johnny's Mother in the temple, killing her instantly. This alone is tragic but the fact that Tabitha (Johnny's Mother) died before she could ever tell him the identity of his Father, is what drives the plot.
Johnny is the product of a "fling" and Tabitha often refers to him, lovingly, as her "little fling." All she will tell anyone regarding who Johnny's Father is is that she met him on the Boston and Maine (a train) and that's about it. She regularly takes the Boston and Maine to attend singing lessons, since she is blessed with a remarkable singing voice but as far as Johnny knows, she only met his Father once and did not pursue a lasting relationship with him. Her death leaves a large void within Johnny and an eager need for information regarding the identity of his Father. And so he and Owen, as the years pass, begin to try and piece together who was at that long ago baseball game to see if they can deduce who it was Tabitha was waving to seconds before she was struck dead.
The book is also peppered with the regular struggles of a boy growing from childhood into adulthood. There are strange feelings of lust for his cousin Hester, on both Owen and Johnny's accounts. There are the struggles of being accepted into a prestigious academy, wherein Johnny is accepted because his step father, Dan Needham is Faculty there and so he is guaranteed a spot. Owen on the other hand, at the charity of Tabitha Wheelwright, and then Harriet Wheelwright, pay for him to attend Gravesend Academy because they know an intellect like Owen Meany's cannot be wasted in a public school. Johnny struggles academically while Owen flourishes, gaining favor as "the voice" on the school newspaper, often free with his opinions, so much so that he is often asked to meet with candidates for the position of headmaster, just so the other Faculty can see what he thinks.
Owen and Johnny grow from young boys into young men and in the background, the horrors of the Vietnam War are happening. And for some reason that no one, especially Johnny, can fathom, Owen is determined to go to Vietnam. He knows, without a doubt, that he is meant to do something heroic there. He has seen, in a dream, that he will save Vietnamese children from something terrible. In that dream, Johnny is with him, there are palm trees, it is warm and Owen knows that at the end of the dream, he dies, but he doesn't know how or why. And after finishing the book, I realize that it wasn't Johnny's search for his Father that drove the plot, it was Owen's dream.
His purpose.
He believes that he is God's instrument. And he believes that the dream is a vision of the future. He believes that his voice, which has never deepened with puberty, was given to him by God for a purpose. He believes he is so small because of something God wants him to do. And in the end, he is right. All of his beliefs, though he struggles and frets and questions, everything is proven right. There is a reason he is so small, there is a reason his voice never deepened, there is a reason he and Johnny practice "the shot" over and over until they can accomplish it under three seconds. There is a reason for everything when it comes to Owen Meany. And in the very first sentence of the novel, Johnny explains that Owen is the reason that he believes in God.
And to be perfectly honest, after finishing this novel and seeing how it all came together in the end, I'm finding it hard to not believe in God myself.
A truly moving work, where everything is connected, every action has a consequence, that leads to another action that leads to another consequence. This book will have you wondering whether we do all walk a path that is already laid before our feet. Do we all have a destiny? Unlike Owen Meany though, we are not privy to how our lives will pan out. He knows when he will die, he sees it written in stone. And he is right. Cursed/blessed with this knowledge, he lives his life as well as he can and tries his best to get Johnny to "believe" as well.
This is definitely a book that takes awhile to read and yes, there are some tiresome points wherein Johnny's political rants get irksome, but in the end, you find yourself wondering. You find yourself saddened, amazed, and curious, wondering whether we do all have a purpose, whether there is such a thing as fate, that our lives are planned and each step we take leads to the next chapter.
My Mother and Sister always said that I should read this novel and for the longest time I neglected to. I tried, time and again but Irving's use of capital letters to portray Owen's voice was annoying. But now, this time, determined to actually read the book to its end, I realize that as with everything in the novel, those capital letters served a purpose. And I am so very glad that I finally read this book. I wasn't alive in the sixties, I didn't know the horrors of the Vietnam War but I do have Faith and this book reassured me and convinced me that there will always be people in this world who come into our lives for a reason. But unlike Owen Meany, we won't know that reason until everything is done.
I would recommend this book to anyone who ever wonders about destiny/fate, to anyone looking for a truly unique coming of age story and to anyone who wants to take the time to read and truly appreciate the way everything in life is connected.
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