Owen Meany by John Irving

Caitie writes:
So far in my novel Owen Meany by John Irving I have met the main characters which are Owen Meany and the narrator John Wheelwright. The boys are starting to grow up and you follow them through their private preparatory high school. Owen still has not grown and looks very out of place with all the high school boys. Even though he is very small Owen is still famous in town. Especially for his performance in “A Christmas Carol” as the ghost of Christmas past, even though it is a non-speaking role Owen still puts on a very memorable performance. He is so frightening in the role that he actually causes one young audience member to wet her pants. Owen then makes himself known in the Gravesend High by becoming “The Voice”. Owen writes a column for the school newspaper and is always criticizing the school and its staff much to joy of his peers. He is always first on the case when there is a new issue in the school. Owen even has a role in who is picked for the next headmaster. He interviews each candidate and picks the one he likes the best and totally trashes the other people going for the job. Owen is almost viewed as an adult even though he has the least physical resemblance of all the students at Gravesend high. This novel may not seem very gripping just by the plot but the way Irving writes and creates the characters really makes the story. The character of Owen Meany is one of my favorite characters of all time. He is a very complex but I have already become attached to him. His story isn’t a great one but it is very original he is the smallest kid on the baseball team who kills his best friend’s mother when he gets his first hit. He never even apologizes to Johnny for killing his only parent he just flees the scene. Ms. Wheelwright was like a mother to Owen too, so it upset him to he just never acknowledged that he was responsible for her death. The way this character interacts with the world around him is spectacular he is so confident and everyone knows it. All Owen’s dialogue is in ALL CAPS which I really like. It may seem strange but it is just one more thing that draws the reader to the character. It made me pay attention to every word he says, it totally completes the character. Owen believes that he is God’s instrument. At first this seems absurd but as the character of Owen Meany develops you see how religious he is and how he relates everything back to the bible. This makes his claim somewhat more believable; the reader actually says to themselves “is this boy really doing God’s work?” I really like this concept and found myself starting to believe that God was walking among humans through this boy. I am almost done with this book and I intend to read many more novels by John Irving I really like his writing style and look forward to the other characters and worlds he has created.