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Book review A giant novel about a midget By SUTHERLAND John Irving seventh book A Prayer for Owen Meany Lester and Orpen 560 pages is a giant novel about a midget Actually Owen Meany is not a midget merely a tiny person five feet on tiptoe who even manages to enter the S Army and thus fulfil an heroic and dained martyrdom s hagiographer is his best friend John Wheelwright who grew up with him in the ominously named Gravesend New Hamp shire but who disgusted with America moral collapse has ex iled himself to Canada There he teaches girls in Toronto Bishop Strachan School and attends Anglican services at Grace Churchon Meany is the reason tells us in his first sentence that he believes in God This then is a novel about pro vidence From the time of his sup posedly miraculous birth Meany is convinced that he must accede to a divine plan accepting as in even the most calamitous events of his life The most dramatic of these occurs in a little league baseball game when the tiny boy improbably nits a foul ball that strikes dead s adored mother Alert readers will quickly recall another ball fraught with grotes and providential repercussions the seemingly errant snowball in Robertson Davies novel Fifth Business that stuns Mary Demp ster and precipitates the premature birth of the boy who becomes the great magician Magnus But uncanny as he often seems Meany is no magician and in this novel at least Irving is no Absent from this novel is hurtling pace and theatrical bravura Instead Irving suffers from an acute case of ANDS Novelist s Discursive Syndrome Irving obviously has grand ambitions he wants to wnte like the 19thcentury English and Russian masters big big novels in which themes characters and locales are bound into a huge in unity To some extent he has the gifts to do it a thorough command of dialogue and description a tor s ability to manipulate a teem cast of characters a stage designer s talent for decor tainly A Prayer for Owen Meany has many full blooded satisfac tions One chapter deserves a per manent place in any anthology of how Christmas pageants can go disastrously wrong the depiction of summer at a Georgian Bay cot tage is masterful the vagaries of domestic servants are wonderfully rendered Yet the overall design is obscured in Irving s obsessively conscientious detail and the message silenced by his narrators runaway voice sure symptoms of for which the only cure may be immersion in the collected works of Graham Greene Irving s narrative elephantiasis is abetted by his choice of a first person storyteller John is a Fastens For The Young At Heart 115 MAM ST S GEORGETOWN Across From Knox Church 873 Professional Make Up Wedding BY APPOINTMENT ONLY CONSULTATION GROUP RATES CAROLINE great one for giving the exhaustive context for any incident the full background treatment a relatively short example It was in a room on the third floor that Owen discovered the pro phylactics everyone called them rubbers but in Gravesend New Hampshire we called them beetleskins The of that word is not known to me technically a was a used condom and even more specifically one found in a parking lot or washed up on a beach or floating in the unnal at the dnvem movie I believe that only those were authentic old and very much used condoms that popped out at you in public places But taken apart from Wheelwnght s gross or engrossing or merely odd revelations his voice is not particularly engaging nor are his predicaments altogether persuasive To evade the Vietnam draft he permits Owen to slice off a finger with a diamond saw yet ends up fleeing to Canada anyway something he could have done in the first place He evidences a hearty interest in the opposite sex yet is practically a eunuch Wheelwnght s quest to discover the identity of his father is less than absorb ex you my be ha lacs a pa Gaorgalown C not or Or op at The He a id by that sty pastes C Sua S own on no Nan weak features Brightly Wrapped I Occasion Gift Baskets Romantic Evening Baskets Specialty Baskets on Request RrthTvsteHAaes Wcker Catalogue House BrthdaysaHAges Tea Mother Day gifts WEES lasers Baby Showers Rattan Furniture and Accessories basket Salk 20 Mill St E ACTON 85 TO ADVERTISE IN THIS SPACE CALL DISPLAY ADVERTISING 8772201 ALL PEOPLES CHURCH DELIVERANCE CENTRE 41 Boulevard SW corner FlnchgatefHwy 7 Bible Study Worship Deliverance Sunday1030am Wednesday 8 pm We Provide Children Church Nursery Serv English toItalian translation Pastor George A Leffoy 2176 THE HERALD OUTLOOK Saturday April 29 188 Page PENCIL US IN ON YOUR NEXT TRIPj For Office- Supplies Arlene Doug Staff Drop In To Office Magic And Meet Us Heres Just Some Of Our Services FAX SERVICE HI SPEED PHOTOCOPIES WEDDING INVITATIONS HALLMARK CDS RUBBER STAMPS BUSINESS CARDS OFFICE SUPPLIES COMPUTOR SUPPLIES FAX NUMBER 8731911 OPEN 6 DAYS A WEEK TO SERVE YOU OFFICE MAGIC 136 Guelph St Unite 8772300 Georgetown Across from Dominion Seed House