the pencil reads

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A Prayer for Owen Meany

Wednesday, December 07, 2005

I bawled when I got to the end of this book. I had fallen in love with with the tiny, squeaky-voiced Owen Meany who SPEAKS IN A CAPITAL LETTERS, and it was heart-breaking to feel like you couldn't do anything to help or the change the way it was going to end.

What is it like to know the day that you would die? Is it how Christ felt like when he told his disciples, "They will kill me, and after three days I will rise"? What is it like to have the burden of having to suffer and die so that you could redeem the world, and no one, not even your closest friends, have any idea? I have never thought of it this way. No wonder Jesus cried in the Garden of Gethsemene.

Owen Meany is a Christ figure. Unlike Dostoevsky's The Idiot, Owen is not just the ideal Christian -- loving, submissive, and kind. Suprisingly, almost blasphemously, Owen is described to have the authority of Christ. The nativity scene in this novel brings new meaning to the last line of the Christmas carol Silent Night: "Jesus, Lord at thy birth". I don't think I can sing this line the same way again.

In many ways, this novel is an UNSPEAKABLE OUTRAGE, as Owen would put it, because it is blasphemous, seething with anger and a sense of impending doom. All of this is embodied in `Hester the Molester'. Yet, when Christ was born on earth, isn't that exactly how it is? An UNSPEAKABLE OUTRAGE?

Go read the book. At points it gets tedious, but it is worth it in the end. This book comes in number one spot with The Cider House Rules for me. The plot is less interesting, but Owen Meany, as a character, is riveting.

read more, only if you've read the book