It took me
half a lifetime to read Moby
Dick,
with multiple stops and starts, each effort taking me a
little
further into the dense forest of words, many having no bearing I
could see on the story. Eventually, several years ago, having come to
understand there's more to literature than story and that as an
important classic Moby
Dick
needed to be read, I girded my loins and slogged to the end, to the
544th page after "Call me Ishmael." I have no intention of
ever trying to review it.
I have
every intention of trying to do justice to the 626 pages of A
Prayer for Owen Meany
despite my ambivalence toward it, one of the strangest novels I have
read. I read it because several female friends, whose literary taste
I respect, loved it. I might have demurred, though, had I read the
opening of Publisher's Weekly's review:
Irving's storytelling skills
have gone seriously astray in this contrived, preachy, tedious tale
of the eponymous Owen Meany, a latter-day prophet and Christ-like
figure who dies a martyr after having inspired true Christian belief
in the narrator, Johnny Wheelwright.
Other
prominent reviews saved their "problems" with the novel
until further down, after saying the standard nice things reviewers
say about heavily promoted books by popular authors, the kind of
puffery Owen Meany loved to lampoon as MADE FOR TELEVISION. But I
didn't consult any reviews—not even the plethora of
“boring”
and “tedious”
single-star comments among Amazon's "customer reviews"--before
I downloaded this leviathan novel to my Kindle. I'd never been sold
on Irving. I did read Garp
and possibly Setting
Free the Bears.
I remember nothing of the latter, precious little of Garp
the movie and less of the book. Mainly that there were weird
characters and startling plot twists. The only character I can recall
is the transvestite (transsexual?) football player John Lithgow
portrayed in the film version of Garp.
It occurs to me my reading Irving back then was also female prompted.
Photos show him to have been a classically handsome man. Perhaps that
has something to do with his popularity.
Do I sound
envious? Maybe I am, just a tad. But were the guy a better wordsmith
he could have women lined up for blocks and it wouldn't matter that
much. Same were he a better storyteller. I can forgive a lot for a
good story well written. Owen
Meany
is a rather silly story told with three times too many words. The
only characters that amused me were Owen Meany and his childhood
friend-cum-lover Hester the Molester. Meany's either a dwarf or
a midget—it's never made clear, although
we learn that as an adult he's five-feet tall, which would make him
simply short--with
a voice problem that forces him when talking to practically scream
through his nose. I kept thinking of a fellow in my small Wisconsin
hometown who had some kind of palate malformation. His voice was loud
and nasal. He also was mentally disabled. Owen Meany is mentally
over-abled.
Meany is a
know-it-all, and because he is always correct, at least in his
context as a character, I felt no tension waiting for him to screw
up. He serves as a living truth meter, at least in the mind of his
best friend, the novel's wimpy narrator, whom Meany shoots down at
virtually every turn. This initially presented me with a problem, as
I invariably identify with narrators. This may seem to some a
weakness of character, but I try to rationalize it as enabling me to
better suspend my critical disbelief and lose myself in a story.
Thus, Owen Meany was shooting me
down every time he shot down, along
with everyone else,
his best friend. Started
pissing me off, to be frank. Fortunately, at some point early on I
found myself identifying with the screaming Meany, which enabled me
to distance myself enough from the wimp narrator to calm me for
riding the story. Albeit bumpy ride that it is.
In
retrospect, it's the bumps that keep the ride alive. Bumps and
abrupt, screeching turns and brilliantly executed, thigh-slapping
comic sketches. These are what kept me awake through the deadly, arid
stretches of description and background and
cameo visits from inconsequential characters and—sometimes I
wondered if Irving had accidentally cut and pasted entire chapters
from some other work-in-progress. Or maybe he keeps a database
labeled fill
or padding,
and simply stuffs chunks from it hither and thither with an eye on
word count to satisfy his publisher.
And then
there were the tedious tropes and gimmick scenes. Meany or his friend
getting “the shivers” like ninnies every time something spooks
them, which is often. Hester the Molester, the narrator's cousin,
gets drunk and barfs in her grandmother's rose garden every
New Year's Eve. For years. You could bank on it. Every year.
Hahahahaha. But I forgave poor Hester. It wasn't her fault Irving
used her so lazily.
So what's
the big deal about Meany thinking he's the Second Coming? He thinks
he's God's instrument and is able to persuade others that he is. He
predicts the precise date of his death, and dies a hero and a martyr.
But to what end? To save one atheist? His friend, the narrator, who
then goes on to save his biological father? Two heathens brought to
faith in the Bible by one dinky, squeaky little maybe prophet? And
does faith in the Bible make one a Christian? I know virtually all
self-proclaimed Christians insist it does. Evidently Irving does,
else what other message should we take from this monster of a novel?
Then again
maybe Owen Meany is
a prophet of sorts. Here's an exchange between him and the narrator
(Irving always represents Meany's voice in upper case letters):
“Do we
have a generation of drunks to look forward to?”
“WE HAVE
A GENERATION OF PEOPLE WHO ARE ANGRY TO LOOK FORWARD TO,” Owen
said. “AND MAYBE TWO GENERATIONS OF PEOPLE WHO DON’T GIVE A
SHIT,” he added.
I'll give
that one an amen.
[For
more Friday's Forgotten Books check the links on Patti
Abbott's unforgettable blog]
