The Literary Cupcake

Date: December 4, 2009

Time: 7:00pm

Host: Malinda Lane

Attendees: Meg, Lina, and Melissa – who was the newest member our group. She had not read the book, but joined us at the meeting!

Snack(s): Cheese (Blue and smoked gouda) and tangerines with a balsamic glaze. I think I am forgetting something!

When we met in December I had not finished reading the book, which is somewhere in the neighborhood of 600 pages! Malinda had not finished either, but she had previously read the book and therefore already knew the ending. Despite her negativity in an e-mail to the group in mid-November, Meg finished the book, reading something like 200 pages in 2 days, Amazing! Since I had not completed the book and fully intended to (because I was really enjoying it) the majority of the meeting involved Meg and Malinda talking in code so that they did not ruin anything for me. That must have been a quite challenge!

A Prayer For Owen Meany is a story of faith, friendship, and love. It is the story of a small boy with a strange voice, whose fate as an “instrument of God” is sealed when he kills his best friend’s mother. If you are not a believer in God, do not let that statement turn you off to this story! It goes beyond clear cut faith in God; you do not have to believe to love this story.

This book was a surprise for me. I was not sure in the first few pages that I was going to be all that interested in this story. However, by the end of the first chapter I was hooked I had to know what was going to happen next. Even with Irving’s extensive foreshadowing we all agreed that it somehow made us want to keep reading. He foreshadowed just about every major event without ever really giving anything away.

In the meeting, Meg and Malinda discussed the major theme of “armlessness” throughout the story. Having been introduced early in the book with the account of the Indian chief who had sold his land to the Wheelwright family, and continuing on through the armadillo, the dressmakers dummy, and Owen’s swaddling in the Christmas pagent, I had already been able to recognize this developing theme. What they alluded to, but did not ruin for me, was the continuation of this theme and the ultimate example of armlessness that was to come.

The question was raised about whether or not Johnny Wheelwright (the narrator) was gay. In the book he is referred to as a non-practicing homosexual. I think we were all agreed that Johnny loved Owen, but that we did not believe he was gay.

Finally, we discussed the nature of faith. Owen Meany believed that true faith left no room for doubt, that you had to believe fully even in the absence of proof. While the Reverend Lewis Merrill believed that his doubt was integral to his faith. Malinda asked which type of faith we all identified with. Meg raised the question, if Owen’s faith was so certain, why was he trying to change his dream by attempting to remove Johnny from it? Perhaps he and Rev. Merrill had more similarities then Owen would have liked or admitted.

Ultimately, the three of us really enjoyed this book. Meg and I, having never read John Irving before, are now fans.

Next Endeavor:

Because Meg and Malinda are both expecting new additions to their families at the end of December and the beginning of January, we decided to skip January and allow the Momma’s time to adjust to their new bundles!

The next book chosen for our is Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, by Barbara Kingsolver.

Lina (that’s me!) is the host for that meeting, on February 19, 2010 at 7pm.