I never read the Christmas pageant, or anything by King. A prayer for Owen is the only Irving I read twice. And one of the few book I read more than once. Dont you think you disliked it because you found trace of other books in it? It happen to me all the time. As soon as a tiny detail evoke another former book, I hate this one and find a lot of reason to hate it. I hate the Alchemist by Coehlo because it's a tedious rewriting of a very short and beautiful story by Jorge Luis Borges (a Tale of 2 Dreamers). The reality being, I moderately enjoyed The Alchemist before reading the Borges's Short story. On A prayer. I would not recommend to someone not already liking Irving. The message is heavy handed, and the end is so much cheesy it hurt. But the journey to get there is cool. A best entrance into Irving, must be "World according to Garp", funny, complex character, and a nice page (251 in my edition) you can alert people about. Here, The whole book shift gear (pun intended, if you read the book) A Prayer for Owen, is more like a power fantasy. Let say a romance story for men. A super powerful , likable guy , we all want to identify with. Yeah, that's not a book to recommend. More a book you enjoy alone , cry and laugh with, and you feel a bit shameful with all those heavy feeling you experienced..
I didn't like it because it was long. Very long. Very long and full of characters that don't do anything. Very long and full of characters whose destinies are writ in stone. I don't like it because nothing happens, and then when it does, it's completely unearned. One semi-spoilerific example: Lives are saved in this book. Which lives? Why? To what end? Do they matter? Does that matter? NOT THE POINT - the fact of the matter is, our access character's entire life revolves around the ultimate point in this book, and he doesn't give a fuck. Here's this ultimate angel, this reviser of futures, this "miracle" and why is he the way he is? Because he's miraculous. Okay. But what miracle is he performing? He's saving lives. Okay. Why those lives? Why then? Why there? Why that way? WHY? See, that's a mystery that neither the access character nor the author care about. And what part, in this ultimate miracle, requires him to strike a baseball with such force? The other locus of the book - the one at the beginning that sets events in motion - is completely irrelevant to all that follows. We're dragged through 600 pages to end up at our destination but the fundamentally life-changing event that launches us in that direction? Never plays. Is never relevant. Serves no goal whatsoever. In It a fundamental tension is put in place that changes the protagonists forever. In order to complete their hero's journey they must solve that fundamental tension. In Owen Meany it comes about as an "oh by the way" moment. Finding traces of other books isn't a big deal - good artists borrow, great artists steal. It's when the traces that are borrowed are so much better than the material they end up in that I hate it.
The end is bad. It does not make the whole stuff bad. Plus everything is clearly set up from the get go. No surprise. Owen had a dream he knew was a prophecy. He just ensured the prophecy went as he wanted it because he is nice. That the story of a man living to fulfill a cheesy dream where he is the hero. But that not the good part, that's the pretext. A book is only long when it bore you. If I remember, it seems you dont like Proust. I admit he is boring sometime. But he wrote some of the most funny scene ever. And Irving wrote some of the most lukewarm, cheesy scene ever in those 600 page Yeah, it clearly not about revealing something. It's just 600 pages of cheesy emotion about growing up and stuff. Chick Lit for boy. You dont read it for the plot. You read it to cry and be happy. You have to admit SPEAKING IN ALL CAPS IS KIND OF A NEAT GIMMICK. (I know the gospel did it before Irving, but that make the gimmick even more cool)
See, at least the end had a purpose. My beef is that the story did not set up the end. The story in general was likeable, but overlong and full of people who were boring. I mean, the protagonist is capital-B Boring. The girl is a shrill stereotype. Everyone else is a stock character out of central casting. And they muddle along doing nothing for hundreds and hundreds of pages. It bored me. That's probably why it took me a year and a half to read it, during which time I read four books on kindle and twenty two books on audible. SPEAKING IN ALL CAPS WAS EXCRUCIATING.