A Prayer for Owen Meany

1 use

She saw very old, infirm people with their mouths agape; although they were, at best, only partially alert, they gave their stuporous attention to images that my grandmother described as "too surpassing in banality to recall."†

2 uses

In the case of this particular production, Dan wasn't bothered by the local press; what troubled Dan was what Charles Dickens might have thought of Owen Meany.†

1 use

Even Larry Lish, when questioned, couldn't remember anything in Owen's remarks that could be construed as anti-Semitic; Larry, in fact, admitted that his mother had a habit of labeling everyone who treated her with less than complete reverence as an anti-Semite—as if, in Mrs. Lish's view, the only possible reason to dislike her was that she was Jewish.†

1 use

1 use

"We do not call American Literature 'Am Lit,' I see no reason to shrivel this country's most interesting literature to a derogatory abbreviation.†

3 uses

The rector appeared to consider whether the time was right for ecclesiastical debate; Barb Wiggin appeared to consider throttling Owen with my mother's scarf.†

1 use

She actually held the door open for him; she even managed a charming curtsy—inappropriately girlish, but Harriet Wheelwright was gifted with those essentially regal properties that make the inappropriate gesture work .... those being facetiousness and sarcasm.†

2 uses

I told my Grade 12 English class that they should reread what Hardy called the first "phase" of Tess of the d'Urbervilles, the part called "The Maiden"; although I had drawn their attention to Hardy's fondness for foreshadowing, the class was especially sleepyheaded at spotting these devices.†

2 uses

SOMETHING WE WERE WITHHOLDING MADE US WEAK UNTIL WE FOUND OUT THAT IT WAS OURSELVES WE WERE WITHHOLDING FROM OUR LAND OF LIVING, AND FORTHWITH FOUND SALVATION IN SURRENDER.†

1 use

You should have heard him on the subject of required athletics: "BORN OF A BROWN-SHIRT MENTALITY, A CONCEPT EMBRACED BY THE HITLER YOUTH!"†

1 use

We went to The Idaho for the usual fare at the Saturday matinee—a double feature: Treasure of the Golden Condor, wherein Cornel Wilde is a dashing eighteenth-century Frenchman seeking hidden Mayan riches in Guatemala; and Drum Beat, wherein Alan Ladd is a cowboy and Audrey Dalton is an Indian.†

1 use

That day at Hurd's, you could almost hear those boots creaking by the door, as if he expected the stolen baseball to loose itself from the culprit's pocket and roll across the dark crimson carpeting with incriminating authority For Chief Pike, the theft of the ball that killed my mother was an offense of a far graver character than a mere misdemeanor; at the very least, it was the work of a felon.†

1 use

Arthur Dowling was watching A Christmas Carol because his wife, the most officious member of the Town Library Board, was steering her humorless self through the chore of being the Ghost of Christmas Past.†

1 use

How did it make him feel to deliver all those copies of The Gravesend News-Letter, wherein Mr. Morrison's former role was described as "not only pivotal but principal"—and Owen Meany was showered with the kind of praise Mr. Morrison might have imagined for himself?†

1 use

Even my grandmother, who was ever alert for what she feared was her wayward daughter's proclivity to jump into things, was impatient with my mother to set a date for the wedding.†

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One of the faculty wives—one especially prolific with progeny, and one whose maternal girth was more substantial than well coordinated—slipped under the Volkswagen as it was being returned to its wheels; although she was not hurt, she was wedged quite securely under the stubborn automobile.†

2 uses

What about "reprehensible conduct with girls"?†

5 uses

Owen tried to prompt him, but Robert Frost could not hear The Voice—not all the way from Gravesend.†

2 uses

It was a deep gash, about three or four inches long—not serious; but he would require some stitches to close the wound, and a tetanus shot.†

1 use

Ronald Reagan is a vapid young drunk.†