The Great Santini: A Novel by Pat Conroy
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Book Reviews of The Great Santini: A Novel
Book Review: More autobiographical than you will know...
Summary: 5 Stars
All of Pat Conroy's books have one foot in his childhood, and none is more autobiographical than The Great Santini. Colonel Bull Meecham is a legendary Marine fighter pilot whose military successes are almost as many as his personal excesses. Lillian Meecham is a Southern gentlewoman with a love of literature. After moving from base to base each year, the Meecham's finally settle down in fictional Ravenel, SC (Beaufort in real life).
The Colonel rules his fighter squadron and his family with an iron first. While this technique is successful in motivating his pilots, it has disastrous effects on his wife and children. His cruelty (both mental and physical) is enough to crush even the strongest soul. While he chides Ben for being a sissy, he suppresses Ben's attempts to act like a man. Yet, the Colonel can do endearing things, like when he gives Ben his original flight jacket on his 18th birthday. No wonder Ben has a love-hate relationship with his old man.
At a new school, Ben quickly establishes himself as a decent scholar and a talented basketball player. Several teachers and his principal see the potential in young Ben, and give him the love and mentoring he could never get from the Colonel. They teach him the importance of standing up for what he believes and to be his own man. When one of Ben's friends is threatened, Ben defies his dad and goes to his aid. In doing so, he becomes more of a man than his father will ever be.
The Great Santini is a fabulous story, and nobody writes with as much passion and beauty as Pat Conroy. Conroy takes us through the emotional gamut from belly laughs to tears and back again. Although some parts of the story are fiction, there is enough truth in that when Conroy's mom filed for divorce from the real Colonel after 33 years of marriage, she handed a copy of The Great Santini to the judge as evidence of the Colonel's violent nature. Conroy is a definitely success story and despite many scars, he was able to overcome his tumultuous upbringing to become the very successful writer he is. But perhaps without that childhood, we would not know the Conroy we know today. Even he admits that "one of the greatest gifts you can get as a writer is to be born into an unhappy family."
Book Review: Penetrating portrait of fathers and sons, and of America
Summary: 5 Stars
The Great Santini is Colonel Bull Meecham, husband to his lovely Southern enabling wife Lillian, father to Ben, Mary Anne, Matt, and Karen, Marine, fighter pilot, bully, creep, alcoholic, and all around jerk. Bull rules his family as he does the marines that serve under him. A bad drunk, Bull experiences violent mood swings, which send his family into chilling bouts of fear, hatred, and battles with the brute. Ben, most of all, the oldest, is most challenged by Bull, most humiliated, and most deeply touched, although his sister Mary Anne is a very close second. Ben is a very transparent stand-in for Conroy, although how much of this work is autobiographical is hard to know, but I suspect most of it is. Conroy could not write with such depth of feeling if he didn't experience this material firsthand. All I can say is that experiencing Bull Meecham is like experiencing brutality and hell in order to discover kindness, heaven, and love.
Clearly written, brilliant, scintillating, this work sharply etches an unhappy family and the inner life of a boy and his love/hate relationship with his father. It also presents life in the racist south of the early 1960s, its beauties, and its nightmares. I was deeply moved by this work in spite of the ugliness of Bull Meecham and the marines he loved. This is a genuine work, an American novel, and a major achievement.
Book Review: A Tale of Parental Abuse
Summary: 5 Stars
This is the third book written by Pat Conroy and his first novel. Like all his books the themes are semi-autobiographical. In this book the author's childhood suffering at the brutal hands of "The Great Santini," his father's nickname for himself, is described in sickening detail. But the reader is left with admiration for this boy who finally can fight back and is on his way to a new life at age 18.
I am married to a fighter pilot(who calls himself the world's greatest fighter pilot)and in all the years of his service I never saw or heard of the kind of drunken and obscene behavior by the Marine pilots that is depicted here. I can only assume that Santini himself was often the instigator of these events and proud of himself for arranging them.
As a new fan of Pat Conroy's work I intend to read all his books in chronological order. So you may see another review by me before long! In the meantime, why don't you join the club?
Book Review: I guess you could call this TOUGH LOVE
Summary: 5 Stars
I saw the movie many years ago, when I had never heard of Pat Conroy.. Robert Duvall played Bull and Jessica Lange played his smart southern wife, They were perfect playing the tough marine fighter pilot and his somewhat long suffering wife.
The book was written beautifully. You knew those characters well. That's how Conroy writes.
I wasn't sure if I would enjoy the book after going back in time and remembering the movie and my pure disgust for BULL/Duvall, being the awful bully he was to his family.
I was wrong. It was an excellent read and a truly compelling story of a Marine family that, of course, had relocated many times and how that was for the family. Being that this took place in the 50's, times in the south were so different although sometimes I think they are not so different at all...just more politically correct. In short, read it.. I would read it again.
Book Review: The Great Santini
Summary: 5 Stars
As with all of Pat Conroy's works, this is a very "heavy" novel. It is sometimes painful to read and in general I did not like Bull, the main character, but loved Ben, the son. Just when you are ready to give up on Bull, he does something so good and out of character, that you realize he does indeed have some redeeming qualities. This is not casual, light reading but a profound work that will remain with you long after the close the book.