Still reading A Prayer for Owen Meany
October 22, 2001 (12:00 AM) ( link )

Slowly progressing through A Prayer for Owen Meany—I'm about one-eighth of the way through at this point. Irving's meandering style is really beginning to annoy me. And today's reading contained some particularly pretentious bits, including a contrived set of parallels (between the armadillo, an Indian wise man, and a dead woman) as well as a thinly disguised rant on America's foreign policy in Vietnam. But there was also at least one bit from today that made me laugh out loud (for those who've read it, it's the episode where Owen thinks he's seen an angel). I guess my problem with the book so far is that the meandering style really takes away any sense of urgency in the narrative, and the narrator talks about himself so little that he's really nothing more than a tool for the author (although he does keep mentioning some major spiritual transformation that I guess is coming up pretty soon). Even the character of Owen Meany is, so far, nothing more than a collection of character quirks and plot contrivances (for instance, he serves as a mouthpiece for the author during the critique of Vietnam bit that I mentioned earlier). About the only character who is getting interesting at this point is the narrator's mother. But even she hasn't yet gelled in my mind. At this point I'm far enough through the book that I'll be sticking with it to the bitter end, but it seems a shame for a novel that so many people esteem to be only fitfully amusing (a phrase I've already used many times) for me.