Texas School board refuses to ban novel

Monitor – McAllen,TX reports The McAllen School Board voted unanimously Tuesday night to deny a parent’s request it remove author John Irving’s book, A Prayer for Owen Meany, from his son’s Advanced Placement senior English summer reading list.

September 14, 2005 by Uncategorized 3

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3 Responses

  1. GrumpyOldMan says:
    September 15, 2005 at 7:19 am

    Ohferfuxsake
    Just find another book for dear sonny boy to read.

    Besides, what exactly about this book is offensive? Please enlighten me, as many books place it in the Christian section. Is it not allowed here because it does not adhere to KJV? Please help.

    Reply
  2. Fang-Face says:
    September 15, 2005 at 5:40 pm

    Re:Ohferfuxsake
    Owen Meaney is a runt, albeit he is highly practical and competent. The book is the story of his life as told by his best friend. When he was ten years old, his parents told him that he was the product of immaculate conception; on the grounds that “we never did it”. They tried to tell the Catholic church this, but no priest ever believed them, and they told that to the boy as well. As a result, he was quite prejudiced against the church. Meaney grew to adulthood during the Viet Nam era and signed up through the ROTC program because a vindicative teacher screwed up his chances for a full scholarship. He felt he had to join the army to get to Viet Nam because he had a vision of his date of death and dreams about how he was going to die. It is not religious, but I wouldn’t exactly say it was irreligious either. It’s simply that religious issues and religion are recurring themes.

    The book deals with a lot of childhood crap and coming of age stuff. Too much to go into in such a short missive. You’ve really got to read it for yourself, it’s so convoluted and rich in living and dieing.

    Be warned that John Irving is a humour writer, and the book is supposed to be satire, but Prayer for Owen comes across as more satirical than Orwell’s Pig Farm and 1984 just slightly.

    The real problem with it is that it is true to life. It shows kids being kids while they are trying to learn how to be adults.

    Reply
  3. Anonymous Patron says:
    September 15, 2005 at 5:54 pm

    great book
    I love A Prayer for Owen Meaney and I find it a profoundly religious book. I have read it several times. But when I first read it as a high schooler (on my own, not for school) from a “conservative evangelical” background, I found the sexual references very disturbing and I felt very uncomfortable about reading it. I eventually drifted away from my parents’ religion, but after a bout of depression discovered a more open, liberal brand of Christianity. At this stage of my life, A Prayer for Owen Meaney took on great meaning for me.

    Reply

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