A Prayer for Owen Meany

#72 (reviewed out of sequence)
Title: A Prayer for Owen Meany
Author: John Irving
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Year: 1989
Genre: Fiction
640 pages
I know that people love this, and I did find it moving at times. However, I also experienced it as reasonably clunky, with a strained plot and awkward prose. The point I thought was most compelling--How did the narrator become such a timid, rigid, doubting man?--was not answered by his developmental narrative. Perhaps the point is that even in the face of incontrovertable evidence, we still lack faith.
This novel has characters and plot elements that will be familiar; as an example, the gruff yet attractive female relative who inspires incestuous longings is easy to spot, as are many other Irving archetypes. I find this tedious; perhaps others find it enjoyably familiar.
Without spoiling the plot, I will say that most of the pleasure I derived from the book had to do with reading (and leaving) it in Vietnam.