Owen Meany - Chapter 3

If I were a book, I would be A Prayer for Owen Meany, by John Irving.

We're taking a chapter a week, posted on Sunday mornings. Click for the posts on Chapter One and Chapter Two.

(Take the Book Quiz yourself at the Blue Pyramid.)

I particularly enjoyed Owen's enjoyment of the panty situation in Chapter 3.

He's so small and unusual that you do feel protective toward him, and it's nice to see him best the cousins at their own kind of game. But that's not really what I found attractive about this part of the story. Owen is so able to take care of himself emotionally that the physical indignities he suffers don't matter that much, so while his "win" is nice, it's not the point.

I loved that part mainly because Owen was having fun. You don't see a lot of that in this book.

(Apologies to those of you who dislike the word "panties" - it wasn't me, it was John Irving.)

So that was my favorite part of this chapter. As you know, I'm hosting a quilt retreat at the moment, so for today I'll just give you a few quotes that I found particularly apt or expressive and leave the symbolism and analysis to you-all this week.

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As in many things, my mother could be extremely accomplished without being in the least original or even intuitive.

Notice that he doesn't say his mother was not creative.

I love this quote because, even though I consider myself both original and intuitive, this observation describes my view of translation.

I kind of liked the fact that, as a translator, my job was confined to restating what other people had said. I was often able to improve the text, so that the English translation was superior in quality to the Spanish original, but I never ever changed the content or, unless requested, even the mood of the information being communicated.

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My Aunt Martha--like many Americans--could become quite tyrannical in the defense of democracy.

No explanation necessary.

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Chaos disturbed her; mayhem was mayhem, even if people were having a good time; bad weather was bad weather, even if no one seemed to mind.

This statement does not describe me personally, but isn't it great? You just know the type.

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Mrs. Hoyt was the first person I remember who said that to criticize a specific American president was not anti-American; that to criticize a specific American policy was not antipatriotic; and that to disapprove of our involvement in a particular war against the communists was not the same as taking the communists' side.

Timely, huh?

This book was published in 1989. Twenty years later, people are still having to point this out.

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Canon Mackie says I worry about "mere words" too much. Mere words?

I love his incomprehension. Mere words.

Words are my best medium. They can be meaningless, and they can be misused, but here on the Internet, they're what we've got. Whole relationships can spring up and flourish around mere words.