Epic tales of everyday life

I just finished (and loved) this:

You're A Prayer for Owen Meany!
by John Irving

Despite humble and perhaps literally small beginnings, you inspire faith in almost everyone you know. You are an agent of higher powers, and you manifest this fact in mysterious and loud ways. A sense of destiny pervades your every waking moment, and you prepare with great detail for destiny fulfilled. When you speak, IT SOUNDS LIKE THIS!
Take the Book Quiz at the Blue Pyramid.

I could call it APFOM, if I liked awkward acronyms. And I do, so that's settled. APFOM was excellent. It's 600 pages long, but it reads like it's 200. It's a fictional memoir, told in the style of a series of stories after dinner. It bounces around a little, tells interesting background stories about all the characters and gently packs in an incredibly thick continuity. It's hilarious, touching, tragic, and ordinary. In short, it's the story of a life.

I've started to think about the books I like, the stories I like. I've realized a theme in stories like APFOM, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay and Skinny Legs and All. I called them "epic adventures of everyday life." I like the idea that every life is as beautiful and worthwhile as those of the much lauded "heroes" that we love to dote on. Even Siddhartha, which is certainly a story of an extraordinary man (the man who would become known as The Buddha), centers on the revalations gained from an uncommon perspective on a fairly common life. As much as I love The Lord of the Rings or Watchmen (and I do), saving the world is pretty obviously important and interesting. It's fun to get swept up in these stories, to daydream about saving the world and having monuments named after you. But it has always left me feeling very ordinary. What would my story be, without an evil ring to unmake or even an arch nemesis to battle! Call me Dude of the Woeful Countenance. But stories like A Prayer for Owen Meany give me comfort. I cried when my grandfather died, and later when my grandmother died, and they never saved the world... at least, not obviously. But if APFOM has told me anything, it confirmed the feeling I've always felt that if you live a good life then you really are saving the world. Loving life is as miraculous as anything the "great stories" have to offer.

I submit my life to you, the ages, for consideration. Today I got up, read a silly pulp comic book, read a blog my friend published, ate some cereal, text messaged a friend, and wrote a blog entry for myself. It's been beautiful so far, don't you see? And it's still the morning!

Life is a mess, and I love it.