Irving airborne amid the inanities

Press, 21 October 1989, Page 27

Irving airborne amid the inanities

A Prayer for Owen Meany, by John Irving. Bloomsbury, 1989. 543 pp. $39. (Reviewed by Alan Conway) More than a decade ago John Irving wrote “The World According to Garp” which was extraordinarily successful and was probably read by most literate people in the Western world. Since then, other works have appeared such as “The Hotel New Hampshire” and “The Cider House Rules” neither of which have come anywhere near to matching the black humour of Garp. In this novel, after about a hundred pages of aimless meandering by Irving into such droll inanities as an ancestor of John Wheelwright (the narrator) having played football with Oliver Cromwell, the reader would be justified in consigning it to the junk heap. But then, mirabile dictu, it becomes airborne although still annoyingly cluttered up by irrelevant detail. (A good editor would have ruthlessly reduced this book to about 400 pages and, thereby, improved it immensely.) Owen Meany is a pint-sized, featherweight boy with a weird, falsetto voice who swings desperately at a ball in a Little League baseball game and, unbelievably, succeeds in killing the mother of his best friend, John Wheelwright, as she walked past third

base. Owen sees this as no accident but as proof that God is using him as His instrument for some unknown purpose. Subsequently, in a dream, he sees the date and manner of his own death which he takes as a further sign of God’s will. The boys grow up as firm friends through the 1960 s and into the Vietnam war years, although occasionally Irving takes a backward look from the vantage point of 1987. In this way the novel serves as a vehicle for the author to express his distaste for the acquiescence of Americans in the amoral, political shenanigans which characterised Vietnam and the administrations of Nixon and Reagan or in Owen’s words, “The only way you can get Americans to notice anything is to tax them or draft them or kill them.” He is obviously incensed at senators and congressmen reading the riot act to Oliver North while “not having the bails to say this to their blessed commander-in-chief.” There are also, however, some truly hilarious chapters which are as good as anything from the pen of Tom Sharpe. One such is a local amateur Nativity Play with Owen in the manger wrapped in swaddling clothes which, to the horror of the local actors, fail to hide the fact that this particular Christ-child is struggling to hide an embarrassing erection. Another highly amusing account is that of a morning assembly at Gravesend Academy which has echoes of “Porterhouse Blues.” At other times, Irving exhibits real savagery in his writing as when, for instance, he characterises Liberace,

the darling of the blue-rinse brigade, as “an androgynous pioneer preparing society for freaks like Elton John and Boy George.”

Towards the end, the author demonstrates remarkable sensitivity and much sadness which he encapsulates in the child’s prayer taken from “Jude the Obscure,” “Teach me to live, that I may dread, The grave as little as my bed. Teach me to die.” This is a clever and well-crafted story which may explain why it is on the New Zealand “best-seller” list. Irving would be wise, nevertheless, to consult a literary dietitian.