the prince of tides

Review: The Death of Santini by Pat Conroy

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Only Pat Conroy can write such terrible things so beautifully. Only he can turn a phrase in such a way that he makes his point succinctly and eloquently at the same time. Conroy’s inner conflicts imbue this autobiographical work with the love and hate he has for his father, and to a lesser degree, his mother and siblings. 

I think Conroy is a master wordsmith. I appreciate the beauty and flow of his writing in all the Pat Conroy books I’ve read. But I struggle with The Death of Santini because it’s almost like hearing a child whine. I can read a spectacular passage, and then be disrupted by Conroy’s complaints and persuasion, trying to convince me that his childhood really did happen the way he says it did, that it was as bad as can be, that he is indeed telling the truth.  

I believe him. I don’t need to be convinced. I think his father needed to be convinced. I think his siblings and his extended family need to be convinced. I think Conroy is whining to the wrong crowd. 

Unless. Unless this book isn’t meant for me or you or anyone EXCEPT his family… and Conroy himself. And I think it is. 

That doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate it. I just don’t feel like in the intended audience. I do think that if Santini admitted his transgressions while Conroy was a child, the psychological damage would have been minimized, and The Death of Santini would not have had to be written. 

The Death of Santini offers a window into the moments of Conroy’s early life that inspired his best-selling novels, and moments of Santini’s later life that inspired Conroy’s love and forgiveness for his father. 

-calliope

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Review: The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy

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princeNever been both, so happy to see a book end and sad at to finish the last page as I have with TPoT. This is one of the types of books I love the most…so beautiful that you ache with each word you read…yet at the same time your gut is clinched in knots that are painful and your heart is pounding out of your chest because of the horrors you are witnessing. yes, I said witnessing. I did not simply *read* this book….I was there. I experienced it. I witnessed it. I felt it….There were parts I laughed so hard that I almost had tears rolling out of my eyes…there were times where I felt so much pride that I wanted to cry…there were times I felt such righteous anger that I had tears of anger blurring my vision….there were times I felt so lost and hopeless that I could only cry….and there were times that this book actually brought chills upon my skin….Finally, there were times that I had no choice except to put the book down for a while and walk away and try to distance myself from it. At times it was simply too much for me to bear….

The grandparents reminded me of characters from a Fannie Flagg novel. So eccentric, outrageous and lovely that you hate your childhood, just because you didn’t have them in it. There is no way you could not feel pure enjoyment at some of the happenings in the town. At other times, I was so mad I could taste bitter bile in my mouth….so angry, I felt my pulse pounding. But most of what I felt was a sorrow that stayed with me, even after I laid the book down and tried to forget.

I grew up in the South. Besides the ending (which was the only objection I had to this entire book, I felt the ending was just too much….too contrived to be believable), I felt that this novel was not a work of fiction. It was a life that could be found in many many a Southern town. I bet I knew some of these people. I bet some of me can be found in these pages. I felt fierce pride at so many moments in this book. Pride for perhaps the first time at being a Southerner. At other times, I knew for a certainty why I no longer live there. This…Book….Was…..Very….Real to me….

It would be so easy to point the finger at any of the characters in this book and tell them why they were wrong. It would be just as easy to understand why they were as broken as they were.

What one can not so easily explain is how they are still beautiful and how you have no choice but to love each and every one of them. What is so hard to accept about your own self is that you feel sorrow for them. That despite the horrible things that they did, you understand that they are all good people. That they all have a fierce love for family. That they did so much wrong, but that in the end, they honestly did the best that they could in that moment in time.

I like to think we are all above how we were raised. That every bad rotten thing we experienced or witnessed has made us into a better person. I like to think that we all have the power within us to *always* do the right thing. Life however has taught us all otherwise. Can any one of us not think of a single time where we have had wrongs done to us and wish we had behaved differently? No, most of us have not done atrocities to those we love….nor have we had atrocities done to us….but can any one of us look back and not see one instance where we wish we had chosen a different way? A better way. Reacted differently? In the end, they are just people who did what they did and wished that they had behaved differently. They suffered for the choices that they made, because they had to live with those choices. They did not simply act and move on….

We should all take away from this book that the choices we make not only effect other people, they also effect us. There is no running away from the past. The past is a part of you that you always carry with you….No matter how much you deny it or reject it…it is still a part of you. Good or bad, it helps to shape you into the person you are today. No, we do not have to constantly live in the past….but let us all hope that we have learned from our own personal history. It’s never to late to change your life…I sincerely hope that it’s never to late to make amends and try to make it right….

~Urania

Buy it now The Prince of Tides: A Novel