The Reader Travels

Happy birthday to Lori and Maggie and Ana, my lovely December birthday ladies. We’re all glad you weren’t the products of virgin births. Because that just wouldn’t have been any fun for your parents. And it would be a helluva thing for you to live up to.

I mean, think about how rough that would be, all the speculation about who the father really was. Because you know you can’t believe a word she says if she’s telling you she ain’t never had the sex before. Okay, so maybe she’s really a hermaphrodite, and she impregnated herself. Yeah, so now she’s a real freak, right? And so is the kid. Forget about the reindeer games, buddy, you might as well go live on the Island of Misfit Toys. (Don’t you love a good mixed metaphor?)

The idea of virgin births makes me think of dear, little Owen Meany. I actually watched Simon Birch last year, just interested to find out what Hollywood did with John Irving’s A Prayer for Owen Meany. It had nowhere near the poignance of the book; the character was Simon, not Owen; and the story was not really Owen’s either. I guess that’s why Mr. Irving couldn’t let them keep the name.

So different from everyone else, his life is not easy. But Owen is a miracle, and he is destined for greatness.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 20th, 2006 at 4:59 pm and is filed under losing my religion, meanderings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.