Finished Owen Meany

I finished Owen Meany this morning. I liked it -- again. It'll be interesting to hear everyone's comments. I wonder if others will see parallels to the Iraq war. I wonder what else they'll see and talk about.

How could I have forgotten? (spoiler)

Wow, how could I have forgotten? Owen cuts John's finger off!! I barely even remembered that Owen died so I guess it's not that astonishing. But what a detail to forget.

Anyway, I'm still very much enjoying the book. I'm curious how this thing with Owen's dream is going to turn out. Owen just said that John is in the dream. At first I thought that maybe Owen would die in Arizona, but it doesn't look like it. No palm trees, as Owen says.

It's interesting to read what John says about the Viet Nam war and compare that to the Iraq war now. I know some people don't want to draw those parallels but it's pretty hard not to.

At one point Owen says that without the draft no one would care about the Viet Nam war. But here we are without a draft and people do care. But it's true there aren't a bunch of young people leading protests the way they were in the sixties.

I'm enjoying A Prayer for Owen Meany. Some parts are so funny. I'd forgotten that. In one part where Dan Needham comes to the house and meets the family, I laughed out loud. It tells how the adults all go into the living room, which is full of antique furniture "which my grandmother was preserving, for historical reasons, sitting in them was not good for them....and so a guest, his or her knees already bending in the act of sitting down, would suddenly snap to attention as my grandmother shouted, 'Oh, for goodness sake, not there! You can't sit there!'" Dan Needham is tall and has a "sizeable bottom" so even fewer seats were available to him, plus the maid Lydia in a wheelchair blocks the way here and there. It says, "And so the living room was a scene of idiocy and confusion,..." I loved that "idiocy and confusion". It reminded me of some of Barbara Pym's remarks about her character's "wild" thoughts. And the scene where Owen is in the mother's bed and the grandmother comes in, all wet, and Owen screams. That's another one that makes me laugh out loud.

There's a LOT of foreshadowing in this book. If any English teacher ever wanted examples of foreshadowing for their students, they could find one on almost every other page.

I'm enjoying it and knew I had liked it last time I read it. So far I'm not sure why it would be considered something that changes your thoughts. But perhaps that is yet to come.

Been a while since I've blogged. We went on a vacation plus I had to order the next book and just received it.

I picked up one book that was on the "also ran" list from the club, The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards. It was pretty good but I don't know yet if it would make my personal significant books list. In the story a woman has twins, a boy and a girl, and the girl is born with Down's Syndrome. Her husband gives away their daughter and tells his wife that the baby died. It changes their relationship forever.

Anyway, our next book is A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving. I thought I owned it because I read it with my other book club, but I couldn't find it anywhere. I ordered it and just got it yesterday. I read the intro. John Irving talks about how much he likes the book's first line. I can't recall it just now and I'm feeling too lazy to get up and get the book. My favorite first line of a book is "Life is difficult", from The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck. That book would probably make my significant book list.

I don't know why I thought of this now but I remembered another book, Shantung Compound by Langdon Bilkey, that would probably make my list, too. That would make my mother happy. She recommended that book to all of us. In fact, I think she bought the book for us. It's been a long time since I've read it but I think I'll read it again soon.

Well, not much on our chosen book but I don't actually remember many details at all about A Prayer for Owen Meany. I just remember I liked it. I'm looking forward to reading it again.