A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A Prayer for Owen Meany is the third novel by John Irving that I have read, after The Hotel New Hampshire and The World According to Garp, which I had read many years ago, before I joined Goodreads. Despite a very busy time at work, I stayed late at night reading Owen. I like the novel the most of the three.

To me, the central question that the author poses is whether everything in life is predestined or random; in other words, free will versus determinism. While Owen does not believe in coincidences, I—a mathematician, who often teaches probability theory—tend to be on the other side of the argument and embrace the concept of randomness as a powerful force affecting events.

The story is captivating, the reader gets a surprise ending, and—despite the rather serious tone of the novel—there are several hilarious passages, like the one about events at the Christmas Pageant. And let's not forget the armadillo... All this makes A Prayer for Owen Meany an excellent read. I don't particularly like the capitalization device that the author uses to distinguish Owen's voice, but I got accustomed to it after a while.

And one more thing... Owen Meany's initials happen to be the same as Oskar Matzerath's, the narrator of The Tin Drum. Some other similarities are obvious too. This time, I do not believe in coincidence. One more benefit of having read A Prayer is that I now have strong motivation to reread Günther Grass' masterpiece.


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