Another Sunday has come around and sees me sitting at the desk again. The weekend so far has been quiet. Went to see Star Trek Into Darkness yesterday, which was absolutely brilliant. Today has, for a change not been a reading day but a cryptic crossword day. I decided to take a break from them as my brain seems only to be ale to manage to figure out two clues an hour and that does not seem very productive to me. Writing this blog however, far more productive, far easier to do!
Went to the British Library last weekend and saw the exhibition Murder in the Library. It was all about crime fiction throughout the ages. Very, very interesting and it has given me lots of ideas on what books I can buy next. I did promise myself that going to London and an exhibition about books that if the urge to buy overtook me that I could buy a book or two. The one stipulation that I made for myself was that they would have to be second hand. Did I stick to that???? Well, really.. do you have to ask?!?! About five minutes after the words were uttered I was the proud owner of two new Oliver Sacks books. Fair enough, they were on sale but they were not second hand. They were on the mental list of "books to look into to get" but that does not really matter does it? Anyway... two more books to declare.
Books bought: 2
Books to be read: 153
To even out the scores a bit I am going to do a bit of work on the outstanding reviews now. It may not decrease the count a lot but it will make me feel like I am making some kind of headway.... maybe I should listen to my friends and go and find that phone number for bookaholics anonymous after all?
#### SPOILER ALERT ####
A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
I finished this one a fair few weeks ago now and I am not completely sure if I like Owen any better than I did when I just finished it.
For most of the book I found Owen an annoying little, snivelling, arrogant, know it all, self centred, weirdly unbalanced character. Oh, and Irving made him really small as well. I do not know if I found it more annoying that Irving gave him a high pitched freakish voice in the fictional reality of the book or that he insisted on having everything that Owen said printed in capital letters in the text of the book? Both grated on me. Both the fictional and the real. I guess that is the point. Irving found a way to make Owen equally annoying in the fictional and the real life. He made Owen a real character for me. Someone I could imagine hearing in the real world.... and find annoying! What Irving seems to have also done really well is to give you a "hero" that is not really a hero until the end. He has made Owen annoying (at least to me) but in the end you kind of feel for him and you are moved by his story. To say that Owen is a bit of a weird kid is an understatement. Irving has made him almost into a freak. Yet the freak does okay in the end.
Owen's story is told in flashbacks by his best friend Johnny Wheelwright (who is now trying his best at being a Canadian, and failing miserably). For someone who says he does not care about America any more he seems to spend a lot of time not getting annoyed at American politics. He gets upset by the things the American government does and has to ban himself from reading news from the USA to stay on an even keel. He never really seems to enjoy what he has around him and seems a bit bitter and even angry. He says he believes in God and goes to church regularly but something tells me that he is still angry with God for taking away his mum and then his best friend.
Johnny is of founding father stock and has deep and powerful links into the community through his family. The family has a powerful matriarch at the head of it in Grandma Harriet Wheelwright. She rules the roost with an iron fist. She seems an impatient woman but yet she has taken in her former maidservant and given her a home for life. One of the first surprises if the book is that you find out that Johnny is the product of an affair his mum had (you will never guess in a million years who she had the affair with! I never saw it coming). The next surprise is that Johnny's mum is not long for this world when we meet her and that Owen actually kills Johnny's mum.. not intentionally! It is a case of a ball game gone bad. The one time Owen swings for a ball and tragedy strikes. In a strange way it also cements Owen and Johnny's friendship. They do not really talk about what happened but in some weird way Owen does try to make things easier and better for Johnny.
To be kind to Owen... he is a very special one of a kind kid. The size, the voice and the fact that he always seems to know something no-one else does or no-one else understands just yet. He seems to have a kind of instinct about things and a way of finding out things that is slightly eerie. Then there are the weird things he does. Why does he keep the mannequin that Johnny's mum had, dressed up in his favourite dress of hers and has it standing by his bed side? Is he a prophet or just some weirdo? With Owen there are always a lot of questions. You ask yourself why he is so convinced that he will die and so eager to get out to Vietnam? Why does he let Hester beat him up? Why do both Johnny's mum and grandmother want to do their best for him and help him along with his education. Why does Owen bother to keep at Johnny to study harder, be better? So many things do not make a lot of sense in the book and Owen is a bit of a riddle and does not seem to have a great fondness for helping you to understand what he does and why.. His actions seem to be random but I have a feeling that because he senses (maybe not even really knows for sure) that he is doing exactly what needs to be done to help those he loves along their life paths the best he can. Perhaps more so as he knows his life path may not be very long. He saves Johnny from the army, he helps him find out who his mum really was, he also helps him find his father. He is a great friend to Johnny in his own special way and I think this is what Johnny's mother and grandmother see in him. Sure Owen may be weird and unpredictable, not come from founding father stock and from a peculiar family but he is important to them all at one point.
I feel that Owen really comes in to his own at Gravesend Academy. I like him more there than as a smaller kid. He is an excellent student and also a very critical student. He is not prepared to just accept what he is told. His voice becomes the VOICE. He clashes with students, teachers and the headmaster (who is a total idiot!). His time at the academy comes to a bit of a tumultuous end but he seems to have picked up the essentials anyway. He has been educated by his teachers, by the criticism he was allowed to vent and by those who wanted to stop him from venting it.
It is not really a surprise that Owen ends up in the army. He has always been interested in politics and the war during the academy days and as his visions of his future seem to involve war the decision to join is kind of made for him. It is kind of surprising that he becomes the person who accompanies the caskets of dead soldiers home. Seems that for all his protesting, radical ideas and weird childhood Owen Meany is one of the most compassionate men the army have to offer grieving families. I will not give away the ending of the book but Owen does die and it is not pretty but the way he dies is somehow fitting. It explains a lot about his life and about the choices he has made.
Weirdest moment in he book: The Nativity scene preparations and the actual performance. Surreal... weird and frightening come to mind. The way that Owen chastises his parents is scary and unexpected for a kid his age.
Best moment in the book: involves a car, a stage and a number of basketball players and the teachers having a bit of a tough time getting it back out of the building. This bit cracked me up!! Owen should have been a lawyer as technicalities are his speciality.
Saddest moments in the book: Owen dying and also when you find out why Owen was who he was. Such loopy parents, the kid never had a chance
Title: A Prayer for Owen Meany
Author: John Irving
637 pages
Black Swan
ISBN # 0-552-99369-7
Books to be read: 152
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