Krishna
I always felt an attraction to John Irving’s books – or at least one that I have read before : The Cider House Rules. Not all his books are great, when I discovered after reading A Son of The Circus.
This book has a similar impression to Cider House Rules on me. It draws you in from the first page; the characters are well defined and varied. By the time you finish the book, you think you know all the characters and you don’t want to part with them. This is a hallmark of very good writing and John Irving takes you into the story like only a few other authors can.
John Wheeler is a big name in New Hampshire as his ancestors came by Mayflower and his ancestor owned a whole state/ city in those days. They were in the logging business. Owen Meany whose family owned the declining granite (quarry) business is small and is manhandled normally. Wheeler is Anglican now, and has moved away from his normal denomination.
Now, his mother Tabitha is sexy and beautiful and the whole town is in love with her. She had John through someone she met in Boston during her singing lessons and annoyingly refused to reveal who he is. When John is seven, she brings in another man, Dan Needham whom she subsequently married.
A maid, Lydia lost her leg in an accident and the family kept her on as one of the members – in a wheelchair. Another maid took her place and another maid was employed to look after Lydia – this is in John’s grandmother’s place.
The narrative powers of John Irving are spellbinding. You get swept along in the fluid prose and the tight narrative style. Let us continue to the pivotal event in the story.
In a baseball game, Owen hit the only shot of his life and the ball hit and killed Tabitha.
In the early times to which the story keeps reverting back, Dan is brought home by Tabby and introduced to her mother. He pranks Johnny by giving him a stuffed armadillo which scares him to death but which he gets as a present and keeps it for many years until it just disintegrated.
Also the explanation of his cousins Sally and Simon and the other cousin Hester, whom he is forced to kiss, are all well written. They all excel at everything (roughhousing, skiing, running) and gets him a bit on the wild side.
Owen Meany completely surprises them by appearing suddenly (like an elf lit up from inside)!
They play hide and seek.
After his mother died, Owen gives Johnny all his baseball cards (expecting him to return it, as Dan explained) and when Johnny gives him back that and in a similar gesture the armadillo, he gets it back minus the front claws, a symbolic statement of his feeling for having killed Johnny’s mom accidentally.
Owen also sees through the political bullshit and sees the Vietnam war for the quagmire it turned out to be, before anyone else.
There are some hilarious scenes where grandmother catches Owen in the same bed as Johnny’s mother – he was frightened and wanted to sleep next to her and how his screech, when found out, was heard all over the block.
The book goes backward and forward and more details about the funeral and mourning for Tabitha are captured in the book. The storytelling is nice and the language simply flows.
The changes that Owen makes to the Christmas pageant drama and the funny descriptions of the nativity scenes, both at the church and at Owen’s home, are totally hilarious.
Then Owen gets his parents angrily evicted when they, against his advice, come to see him one day. They seem to obey him instead of disciplining him. Owen also claims to see his own name in the tombstone in A Christmas Carol play (instead of Scrooge’s).
It is Grace who dies shortly thereafter.
I also learnt a lot of trivia about Canada that I did not know at all : Some birds get confused by early cold and go on a migration early, only to be caught in the cold at their destination and do a ‘reverse migration’ back to Canada – apparently this happens every year. Also I learnt that turkey falcons (whatever they are, as I had never heard of them either) tend to throw up when frightened or attacked and so covered their rescuers (who were trying to save them from freezing to death) with their puke. Canadiana, anyone?
When they finish Gravesend, Owen applies to Ivy League schools while Johnny, with his marks, can only apply to local colleges. Owen is angry that he is not even trying. One day, they go to Boston and discover (mainly through Owen’s initiative) that the shop where his mother bought the ‘red dress’ is still there, and was not destroyed in a fire as his mother claimed – in fact the original owner (old now) claims there has never been a fire. But prompted by the photograph, he remembers the mother as The Lady in Red, who was a minor celebrity singing at a local pub one day a week.
They go and find the music teacher that Johnny’s mom was learning from and he says that she had mediocre talent and was singing in the club. He does not remember who she may have had a relationship with. He realizes that the boys are searching for Johnny’s dad and advises them that ‘if the dad had wanted to see him, he would have contacted Johnny already’.
The story is full of venom against Ronald Reagan and his duplicity. Now, with the later Presidents outdoing the Gipper a hundredfold, I wonder what he would write in his next book!
There is that scene where Owen, incensed at being belittled by an old actress mother of a colleague, actually propositioned her, causing a sensation and enquiry. But perhaps the funniest part of the book is where Owen, incensed that Dodder, a teacher, had parked his volkswagon in a spot stopping him from parking his father’s truck, manages to get some sports students to lift it physically and park it in the auditorium where the students congregate. The headmaster, incensed and trying desperately to be the object of student’s derision, tries to take it back, but since the faculty is not experienced or robust, manages to wreck the car, injure a staff member and the wife of a faculty and ends up making the situation totally worse.
The headmaster has it in for Owen and when he is faced with Owen issuing fake draft cards to help underage students drink, he not only expels Owen but ensures that all the ivy league schools reject him. He gets evicted by the faculty and insulted by his students but the damage to Owen is done. Owen joins the air force and gets into New Hampshire University on the military quota.
Owen is quite keen on joining the army because he thinks his destiny is to sacrifice his life in Vietnam to save a large number of Vietnamese children.
Owen joins the army but is posted in Virginia, where he has the body bag companion job, much to his disappointment. He is trying to impress the aide de camp and hope for a transfer to combat duty in Vietnam.
The plan he devises to keep John out of the army and the draft is truly astounding and creepy at the same time.
Hester later becomes a famous musician known by the stage name of Hester the Molester – the same name Simon jokingly conferred on her in their childhood.
Owen is dead and Hester refused to attend his funeral. John remains a virgin and a bachelor into his old age and refuses to relocate full time from Toronto back to USA.
Owen had carved the headstone for his own death with the correct date of death – but a few month’s before his last trip to USA from Vietnam.
Johnny finds who his true father is – also with some posthumous help from Owen.
The description of Owen’s funeral is touching – Hester swore that she will not attend it when Owen told her of his ‘impending’ death and kept her promise. Though she became a hot rock star later, she had no permanent relationships.
One surprise comes near the end. Owen always thought he knew the date and the place of his death but was very puzzled when the date was approaching but he was nowhere near the place of his expected death. He had no way of even reaching it.
What happens then is fascinating. And moving. The whole story stays with you a long time after you finish the book.
I found it to be a great read.
9/10
– – Krishna