John Irving
1989
Around 640 pages
Usually when we reach the end of a well-known author's works on the List, I do a little ranking. I guess I would put The World According to Garp in bottom place, but I simply cannot pick between this novel and Cider House Rules. They are both too good, dammit.
Owen Meany is a character like no other, although if I had to compare him to a literary character, the obvious choice is Oskar Matzerath. Both characters have dwarfism, and I'm sure the similarities are intentional, as they share the same initials. John Wheelwright and his best friend Owen Meany grow up together in a small New Hampshire town during the 1950s and 1960s. Irving always include so many strange twists and turns in his plot that I don't want to give away too much. Suffice to say, things are going to get weird.
I will never forget some of these set pieces. The manger scene, the baseball game, the mannequin...so many moments in this novel are unforgettable. I've tried to recreate my best estimation of what I think Owen Meany's distinctive voice sounds like, but I think I just sound like Voldemort. And I might have scared my partner a little bit when I was practicing.
An absolute masterpiece with a brilliant ending. I'm really going to miss Irving.
RATING: *****
Interesting Facts:
The 1998 feature-length film Simon Birch, was loosely based on the novel and starred Ian Michael Smith, Joseph Mazzello, Ashley Judd, Oliver Platt and Jim Carrey.
The movie does not share the same title as the book or the character names at Irving's request; he felt that it would "mislead the novel's readers to see a film of that same title which was so different from the book."
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1 comment:
This is one of my favorite books from one of my favorite writers. The characters John Irving has created in this novel, stay with a person (me) for a very long time. This was an incredible, magical story.
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