书名：A Prayer for Owen Meany为欧文米尼祈祷
难度：Lexile蓝思阅读指数990L
作者：John Irving
出版社名称：Harper
出版时间：2012
语种：英文
ISBN：9780062204226
商品尺寸：10.6 x 3.3 x 17.1 cm
包装：简装
页数：640
欧文是一个很难定性的作家，即便看了他很多本小说，也无法归纳出这个作家的特点，他不会循规蹈矩地讲故事，但是却还是会在不同的小说里使用很多让你觉得眼熟的要素，这些特殊的要素会让人一眼就认出这就是欧文的小说，但结局总是出人意料，你永远都猜不到下一步会如何发展。

对欧文的溢美之词不用多说，作为美国主流文学的代表人物，欧文创作了大批杰出而且经典的作品。像村上春树、张大春等国内外的小说名家都是他的粉丝。他以各种方式继承狄更斯的叙事传统，同时又与时俱进，在小说的构造中增减很多时兴的东西，他精心地着力于故事的布局，在人物的塑造和情节的推动上也有精巧的设计，给人与众不同的感觉。更何况，欧文的小说读起来并没有太大的困难，因为语言诙谐、情节生动，多部作品已经被改编成为电影，热映银幕的同时也不难看出小说的精彩。

本书A Prayer for Owen Meany《为欧文·米尼祈祷》是欧文的又一部佳作，故事情节激励人心，被评为“20世纪百大受欢迎的小说”之一，后被改编为同名电影，受到读者和观众的喜爱。

媒体评论：
就我个人的领会，欧文是位本质上非常单纯的作家。但由于太过单纯，以致和这个不单纯的世界产生了龃龉，反倒令人觉得他的现代性更加明显。这种独特感真是不得了！如此的独特与激进，希望有更多人能够理解。——村上春树

一本出色的小说……作者对人生精微处的细腻观察与描写，尤其扣人心弦。——《纽约时报》

A PBS Great American Read Top 100 Pick
I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice—not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mothers death, but because he is the reason I believe in God; I am a Christian because of Owen Meany.
In the summer of 1953, two eleven-year-old boys—best friends—are playing in a Little League baseball game in Gravesend, New Hampshire. One of the boys hits a foul ball that kills the other boys mother. The boy who hits the ball doesnt believe in accidents; Owen Meany believes he is Gods instrument. What happens to Owen after that 1953 foul ball is extraordinary.
欧文·米尼先天不足，出奇矮小，身高不满150公分，却资质过人。人小志气高的他，满腔打抱不平的热忱与理想，自认“在命运的安排下”负有济弱扶倾的重大责任，注定须执行上帝“托梦”指派他的救人使命。

他很好的朋友约翰是镇上富人家的私生子，可是在少棒联盟赛中他却打死了约翰的母亲。

他们俩一个是侏儒，一个是私生子，在传统保守的小镇上互相扶持，共同度过了欢笑与泪水交织的岁月，成为生死之交。

信仰坚定的欧文在经历了一连串极不寻常、惊悚离奇的事件之后，以勇气和行动证明了奇迹的存在，也让约翰重拾对信仰的坚持，祈祷上帝让欧文回来。
约翰·欧文（John Irving），被美国文坛泰斗冯内古特喻为“美国重要的幽默作家”，是当代知名的小说家之一，他作品中所呈现的高超的说故事技巧与优美的文学性，使人们常将他与狄更斯和J.D.塞林格等小说家相提并论。他的小说不仅赢得书评界的一致推崇，而且叫好又叫座，是西方畅销的小说家之一。

John Irving has been nominated for a National Book Award three times—winning in 1980 for the novel The World According to Garp. In 1992, Irving was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Stillwater, Oklahoma. He won the 2000 Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for The Cider House Rules. In 2001, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Irvings most recent novel is In One Person (2012).

1 The Foul Ball
2 The Armadillo
3 The Angel
4 The Little Lord Jesus
5 The Ghost of the Future
6 The Voice
7 The Dream
8 The Finger
9 The Shot

I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice - not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother’s death, but because he is the reason I believe in God; I am a Christian because of Owen Meany. I make no claims to have a life in Christ, or with Christ - and certainly not for Christ, which I’ve heard some zealots claim I’m not very sophisticated in my knowledge of the Old Testament, and I’ve not read the New Testament since my Sunday school days, except for those passages that I hear read aloud to me when I go to church. I’m somewhat more familiar with the passages from the Bible that appear in The Book of Common Prayer; I read my prayer book often, and my Bible only on holy days - the prayer book is so much more orderly.
I’ve always been a pretty regular churchgoer. I used to be a Congregationalist - I was baptized in the Congregational Church, and after some years of fraternity with Episcopalians (I was confirmed in the Episcopal Church, too), I became rather vague in my religion: in my teens I attended a ‘non- denominational’ church. Then I became an Anglican; the Anglican Church of Canada has been my church - ever since I left the United States, about twenty years ago. Being an Anglican is a lot like being an Episcopalian - so much so that being an Anglican occasionally impresses upon me the suspicion that I have simply become an Episcopalian again. Anyway, I left the Congregationalists and the Episcopalians - and my country once and for all.
When I die, I shall attempt to be buried in New Hampshire - alongside my mother - but the Anglican Church will perform the necessary service before my body suffers the indignity of trying to be sneaked through U.S Customs. My selections from the Order for the Burial of the Dead are entirely conventional and can be found, in the order that I shall have them read – not sung – in the Book of Common Prayer.