Pat Conroy
Mass Market Paperback | Pages: 440 pages Rating: 4.14 | 29092 Users | 1225 Reviews
Specify Appertaining To Books The Great Santini
| Title | : | The Great Santini |
| Author | : | Pat Conroy |
| Book Format | : | Mass Market Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Deluxe Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 440 pages |
| Published | : | December 1st 1987 by Bantam (first published 1976) |
| Categories | : | Fiction. American. Southern |
Narrative During Books The Great Santini
Step into the powerhouse life of Bull Meecham. He's all Marine --- fighter pilot, king of the clouds, and absolute ruler of his family. Lillian is his wife -- beautiful, southern-bred, with a core of velvet steel. Without her cool head, her kids would be in real trouble. Ben is the oldest, a born athlete whose best never satisfies the big man. Ben's got to stand up, even fight back, against a father who doesn't give in -- not to his men, not to his wife, and certainly not to his son. Bull Meecham is undoubtedly Pat Conroy's most explosive character -- a man you should hate, but a man you will love.Details Books Toward The Great Santini
| Original Title: | The Great Santini |
| ISBN: | 0553268929 (ISBN13: 9780553268928) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Setting: | Atlanta, Georgia(United States) |
Rating Appertaining To Books The Great Santini
Ratings: 4.14 From 29092 Users | 1225 ReviewsWeigh Up Appertaining To Books The Great Santini
Lt Col Bull Meecham is a Marine fighter pilot No he is the GREATEST Marine Fighter Pilot. Just ask his family or any of the men serving under him. This novel gives us a glimpse of one Marines family. Lillian is the gentle, Southern-born wife who tempers her husbands erratic drive with a cool, steady demeanor. She is the buffer between Bull and their children. But as their first-born, Ben, moves toward high school graduation, he is increasingly at odds with his father. No matter how he excelsI enjoyed this unevenly crafted coming of age tale of growing up in the south in the 60's. On one level this is an examination of one family's struggle to love a "hard to love" father who never learned to show the love he so obviously had for his children. On another level, I think that this book is just Pat Conroy's way of making some money off the therapy work he so obviously needed. In the early chapters its made clear why this maverick fighter pilot is hated but as the story continues, and
Ill say upfront that The Great Santini holds the title for the best book Ive read this year and has a very good chance of retaining that title all year. Santini is the late Pat Conroy's first novel and he always claimed that it is largely autobiographical. In fact, in his penultimate book, The Death of Santini: The Story of a Father and His Son, Conroy describes his actual life with his family and his father, Marine fighter pilot Col. Don Conroy, the original Great Santini. This nickname even
Id never paid any attention to Pat Conroy until a few years ago when I read one of my favorite books of all time Gone with the Wind. Conroy wrote the beautiful introduction to that book. My rule with classics, not that I read them as often as I probably should, is to read the introduction after completing the book. Once I finished Gone with the Wind and then read Conroys introduction, I knew that this would be an author that I would like. In that introduction, he describes his mother reading him
This is the only Conroy book that I've ever read.It's been 25 years ago. I've not read it since. This thing broke my heart. It really did. It took me years to dispel the pain of these people. All these years later, I can't remember their names, but I still recall the pain. I've never read Pat Conroy since then. I'm probably doing myself a disservice, but I don't like being heartbroke. Once bitten, twice shy.
Re-read this with On the Southern Literary Trail. The difference from reading this as a young woman with family in the military, and then as an older woman after serving in the Navy as an officer and also being married to a Naval officer and raising kids both while on active duty for 12 years & as a "dependent" wife overseas gave me so many different perspectives. I went through training, I served with Marines, I went to chief's initiations, officer happy hours, Mess Dinners, Navy &
I saw the movie before I read the book, and it was the first time I saw my experiences as a military brat played out in a work of fiction. I recognized the shifting family dynamics and the insistence on appearances to the exclusion of all else. I experienced the warrior culture, the comradeship of a family in opposition to the world every time we transfered, too, and moves from one alien environment to another. My dad was no Bull Meecham, but he was a piece of work. Conroy helps me remember.
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