Posted by Ritch on June 13, 2002, at 23:06:35
In reply to Re: What I found really interesting... » Ritch, posted by mair on June 13, 2002, at 16:59:52
> Mitch
>
> Where is that first precognition dream discussed? I thought he didn't get those until he takes the armless dress dummy home after Tabitha dies - or was it when he was over at their house and the dummy was in the same room where he was sleeping?
>
> I really appreciate your willingness to track some of this down. I just don't have the time to do much of anything right now, but talking with you about this book has been a wonderful distraction. I'm not a person who spots symbolism very well, so your take is great for me.
>
> Mair
Mair,Owen saw the "angel" hovering over Johnny's Mom (Tabitha) at the house on "80 Front Street" (Johnny's grandmother's), while she was still alive and sleeping. Owen says after seeing the angel the first time:
"THAT'S THE DUMMY, YOU IDIOT!..THE ANGEL WAS ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BED....I'M GOING TO STAY HERE..IN CASE IT COMES BACK...I DON'T KNOW WHAT KIND OF ANGEL IT WAS"."It made him furious when I suggested that *anything* was an "accident"-especially anything that had happened to him; on the subject of predestination, Owen Meany would accuse Calvin of bad faith. There were *no* accidents; there was a reason for that baseball-just as there was a reason for Owen being small, and a *reason* for his voice. In Owen's opinion, he had INTERRUPTED AN ANGEL, he had DISTURBED AN ANGEL AT WORK, he had UPSET THE SCHEME OF THINGS."
"I realize now that he never thought he saw a guardian angel; he was quite convinced, especialy after THAT FATED BASEBALL, that he had interrupted the Angel of Death. Although he did not(at the time) delineate the plot of this Divine Narrative to me, I know that's what he believed: he, Owen Meany, had interrupted the Angel of Death at her holy work; she had reassigned the task--she gave it to *him*. How could these fantasies become so monstrous, and so convincing to him?"Interesting.. that means that Owen *saved* Tabitha from an earlier death (by interrupting the Angel of Death) that she would have suffered otherwise. So, that means that Pastor Merrill's thinking that he had caused Tabitha's death by his thinking "I wish she would drop dead", was erroneous. He was just picking up the precognition of her death-not the *prime mover* of her death (cause of her death). Perhaps an illustration the author wants to show us is that the "doubter" only believes (has faith) whenever the doubter *appears* to have "proof" of omnipotent powers (is "playing God").
Mitch
poster:Ritch
thread:448
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/books/20020206/msgs/493.html