The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy
I don't know why I've never read any Pat Conroy. He's the kind of writer right up my alley. I listened to The Prince of Tides on a CD in my car. His prose is rich and lyrical, full and blossoming at each turn of the page or in my case, each new track.
Some of this story seemed familiar to me, but a lot of it wasn't. I must have seen the movie starring Nick Nolte and Barbra Streisand. In fact it's their faces I imagined as the characters, Tom Wingo and Susan Lowenstein. And there are just two memorable scenes that I clearly remembered. The first is when Tom's mother serves up a canned dog food casserole as dinner to his irritable and irrational father. The second is when Tom holds Lowenstein's husband's Stradivarius over the balcony from the fortieth floor of their New York City apartment.
Both of those are quite memorable parts of the novel as well. But the novel includes so much more pure and raw emotion. The story of the Wingo family unfolds when Tom leaves his home and family in Charleston, rushing to the bedside of his twin sister, Savannah who has yet again made an attempt to commit suicide. Her psychiatrist, Lowenstein, seeks clues into Savannah's troubled past through Tom. He tells the story of his family with precise detail and ends up healing not only Savannah, but himself. Believe me, everyone in this story needed a boatload of healing, so that was nothing short of miraculous.
When I tell you that The Prince of Tides is a gorgeous read, I mean that it is able to tap into every emotion a reader can have. I often laughed out loud and other times, I was totally sickened by the action of the characters. Sometimes I could anticipate what might happen next and other times, I gasped at an event so unexpected it took my breath away. These kind of feelings can only happen when the characters are fully developed, allowing the reader to envision them as a best friend or hated bully and the setting is described as lush garden completely natural to letting the events of a troubled life unfold.
The Prince of Tides is long, but don't let that scare you away. It's a masterpiece worth every single minute of the time you invest in it.
I don't know why I've never read any Pat Conroy. He's the kind of writer right up my alley. I listened to The Prince of Tides on a CD in my car. His prose is rich and lyrical, full and blossoming at each turn of the page or in my case, each new track.
Some of this story seemed familiar to me, but a lot of it wasn't. I must have seen the movie starring Nick Nolte and Barbra Streisand. In fact it's their faces I imagined as the characters, Tom Wingo and Susan Lowenstein. And there are just two memorable scenes that I clearly remembered. The first is when Tom's mother serves up a canned dog food casserole as dinner to his irritable and irrational father. The second is when Tom holds Lowenstein's husband's Stradivarius over the balcony from the fortieth floor of their New York City apartment.
Both of those are quite memorable parts of the novel as well. But the novel includes so much more pure and raw emotion. The story of the Wingo family unfolds when Tom leaves his home and family in Charleston, rushing to the bedside of his twin sister, Savannah who has yet again made an attempt to commit suicide. Her psychiatrist, Lowenstein, seeks clues into Savannah's troubled past through Tom. He tells the story of his family with precise detail and ends up healing not only Savannah, but himself. Believe me, everyone in this story needed a boatload of healing, so that was nothing short of miraculous.
When I tell you that The Prince of Tides is a gorgeous read, I mean that it is able to tap into every emotion a reader can have. I often laughed out loud and other times, I was totally sickened by the action of the characters. Sometimes I could anticipate what might happen next and other times, I gasped at an event so unexpected it took my breath away. These kind of feelings can only happen when the characters are fully developed, allowing the reader to envision them as a best friend or hated bully and the setting is described as lush garden completely natural to letting the events of a troubled life unfold.
The Prince of Tides is long, but don't let that scare you away. It's a masterpiece worth every single minute of the time you invest in it.
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