The Prince of Tides: A Novel by Pat Conroy Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Prince of Tides: A Novel
Book Review: Didn't childhood mess us all up?
Summary: 5 Stars
So beautiful. I just watched the movie for the first time, so I had to go and read the book and thank God I did. The prose and story are remarkable and made this a wonderful read without sacraficing depth. I recommend this for anyone who has been in a family and is still trying to understand the dynamics.Book Review: Disappointing
Summary: 2 Stars
This book promises much but delivers precious little. The first 250 pages or so are really great. The story is engrossing, the characters are vivid, the plot is intricate and beautifully crafted. Then, the novel suddenly transforms into a collection of loosely connected short stories that could have been excised from the book without damaging the plot in the least. Each new episode is more saccharine than the previous one. The language grows more and more pompous with every episode. These weird short stories have endings that are entirely fantastic and completely unconvincing.
Without giving anything away, I can say that the ending of the novel is wildly incongruous with the rest of the work. It feels like everything we have learned about the characters in the 600+ pages has to be thrown out in order to comprehend and accept this extremely disappointing finale. The closing scenes of the book are narrated in a language that is unparalleled as an exercise in pomposity and syrupy sentimentality. What could have been a great book ends up being a cheesy melodrama.
Book Review: Great Book
Summary: 5 Stars
I, as one reviewer put it, will be one of the "fools" who calls this a great book. I read this book for the first time when I was 15 years old, then again in my early twenties. I am now 33 and the images of this book still remain on my mind. I do not know how I would react to the book's take on psychoanlysis at this point in my life but what I am confident of is that Mr. Conroy's language would still both comfort and confront me. I can almost hear Tom Wingo's voice still to this day. The idea of a man at a cross-roads, trying to heal the past, trying to save another sibling from destruction only to find out he is the one who needs saving. But in the end, The Prince of Tides has always been, for me, about forgiving, others and yourself. The plot may be heightened soap opera, (then again wouldn't a lot of Greek tragedies and even Shakespeare sound a lot like modern soap opera if they were viewed by an analysis of their plot instead of looking at their themes?) but the message continues to sound in my head, like a warm deep Southern voice telling me I can survive the wounds of my past. For me, that's a great book. But then again, I'm one of the fools who doesn't appreciate good literature. Or am I?Book Review: Great Book, Awful Kindle Conversion
Summary: 2 Stars
The Kindle conversion of this masterpiece is almost unreadable. Paragraphs stream together, dialog gets confusing about who's speaking.Book Review: Great and moving book
Summary: 5 Stars
I think Prince Of Tides was the third Pat Conroy novel I read after The Great Santini and Lords Of Discipline, and along with Beach Music, is my favorite. The timelines are a bit skewed, as in the Wingo kids, Tom, Savannah, & Luke going on a rescue mission to Miami, encounter an Orca named Dreadnought, but chronologically, it's a couple of years before Ted Griffin captured the first Orca, Namu. Hey, it was the 60's, baby boomers are excused some faded memories.
Prince Of Tides is funny, tragic, and I became so involved with the characters that I was immediately castin a movie version in my mind. Unfortunately, the actual movie was a disappointment, chiefly due to Barbra Streisand's domination of it. Saying that, it was a good movie, despite Streisand(who I love as an actress, normally).
One thing I loved was the Wingo family dog, Joop, or rather, I loved it when some company named a men's cologne after him Joop! Jump By Joop! For Men. Eau De Toilette Spray 3.4 oz . Cool, a cologne named after a flatulent & lazy hound!