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Summary: EMOTIONAL BEACH MUSIC
Review: BEACH MUSIC is one of the best books I've ever read. Pat Conroy's writing style immediately identifies him as a master at his craft. This is an emotional work and it is for the person who enjoys feeling the full range of emotions (joy, anger, helplessnes, etc.) while reading a book. This book covers life in the McCall family, where the father is an embarrasing alcoholic, a brother has volatile, and sometimes comical instances of mental instability, and the mother is regal, despite all. BEACH MUSIC also goes outside of the family where there is parental abuse, accidental death, protection of a friend, and betrayal by another friend. There are many little subplots going on throughout the book, which all come together to form a marred, but realistic portrayal of family, friends and love. The main characters are extremely well-developed, particularly that of the mother, whose history I found to be the most heartwrenching. The majority of BEACH MUSIC takes place in costal South Carolina, but some action occurs in Rome, Italy. In both of these places, the scenes are so vividly described that it feels like the reader is actually there. If you like to feel your emotions raging, this is THE book for you. Pat Controy may prove to be one of the best writers of our time.
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Summary: How sweet it is....
Review: This book was just wonderful. I stayed up all night reading it. Mr. Conroy has a great grasp on Southern characters - with their joy, sorrow, humor and anger. This book is a page turner and before you know what has happened you have finished it. I was left wanting more.
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Summary: Wonderfullly complex novel.
Review: After reading several Nora Roberts novels, I was delighted to return to actual literature. Beach Music is a rich and complex novel that draws you in to the lives of the characters. Mr. Conroy develops an incredible sense of place both in Italy and in South Carolina. I thoroughly enjoyed it and feel inspired to start reading books of quality again. A wondrous book!
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Summary: like most peoples lives this story spans generations .......
Review: this book spans not only generations but ethnic boundries. Somehow southerners, jews, nuns, priests, soldiers, & everyone else flow together and become intertwinned. honestly i hate to face to the horrors of the Holocaust, buts its painfuly brought to light, and two pages later your on a beach in the south wrapped up in a totaly differt kind of pain. even the end is bittersweet. i love reading from a mans point of view, of the love for all the women in his life. beach music will be one of those books you always remeber because it touches so many nerves. i loved it.
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Summary: This book's plot is fatally flawed.
Review: I found "Beach Music" terribly disappointing. It came highly recommended and I stuck with it to the bitter end. When I finally finished it, I felt cheated, and actually quite angry with the author. Conroy certainly has the writing gift and, while most of his characters are "larger than life," he describes them vividly and with a full palette. Where he really stumbles is with his disjointed plot. When a novel spans six or seven decades and the writer chooses to romp back and forth through time, revealing bits and pieces of the story to be fit together by the reader like a jig-saw puzzle, he has an obligation to make sure all the puzzle pieces are in the box. This he simply does not do in "Beach Music." Just a few glaring examples: Shyla's sister, Martha Fox, plays an extremely important role in the opening chapters of the book, only to disappear and never be heard from again once the scene shifts to South Carolina. A huge chunk of the saga of Jordan Elliott (clearly the book's most interesting and important character) is totally missing. We haven't a clue regarding Jordan's life from the time Jack and Shyla drop him off on the Canadian frontier until he shows up in Rome hearing the confessions of English-speaking tourists a decade and a half later. How did Jack and Jordan reconnect in Rome? And when and how did the knowledge that he was alive get passed on to Jordan's mother, and ultimately to General Elliott, Mike Hess and Capers Middleton? Remember, only Jack and Shyla, in the entire world, knew that he hadn't killed himself in a speedboat the night that he blew up the DC-3 at the Marine Air Base. The only clues Conroy offers to this mystery are flimsy at best: The account of a Waterford English teacher who claimed to have recognized his voice in a Roman confessional, and the CNN footage of the terrorist attack in the Rome airport which apparently caught Jordan (in priest's garb) giving aid to the wounded Jack McCall. But even if his friends and family suspected that Jordan might still be alive, how did they connect him to the death of the couple that perished in the DC-3 explosion? Conroy goes to great lengths to make clear that the investigating authorities and everyone else accepted this incident as a lovers' suicide pact. Again, only Jack, Shyla, and, in this case, Celestine, were aware that Jordan had anything to do with it. Which one of them spilled the beans? General Elliott's fanatic obsession with the cause of bringing his son to justice for the murder of two innocent persons is a major, if not the dominant, theme of the entire book. In the eyes of this reader, the fact that the narrative provides no credible reason for the general to even know of Jordan's connection with these deaths is a fatal flaw in the plot of an otherwise passable book.
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Summary: Save the trees!
Review: Save the trees! This is obviously a novel that stirs passions, some positive, and some negative. One just has to go check out the comments, and see how few three-star scores this book has received, and how many fives and ones. I already know i am going to get lots of negative votes, not because my review is not helpful, but because lots of readers are going to disagree with me. As my Spanish grandpa used to say, "En el Libro de los Justos, Cada Cual Tiene su Gusto" ("In the Book of the Fair, Each One Has His Own Taste"). Well, here we go: This book was a terrible waste of my time, for the following reasons: 1: There are way too many plots, connected to each other by feeble suspensions of disbelief. The end result looks like a 60's afghan, made with mismatched neon colors. I enjoy the straying away from the main road that many authors have mastered (John Irving comes to mind). At times, the most interesting, colorful, fascinating characters and situations are the secondary ones. In this case, none of that happens. Pat Conroy could have created at least 4 books from this one, rather than compressing all these story lines into an 800-page monstrosity. 2: The vast majority of the characters are, in my opinion, too melodramatic, way off line, and as a result, totally unbelievable. The most offensive of all is the schizophrenic brother. What a horrible disservice is Conroy doing to schizophrenics of this world and their families by portraying the disease the way he does. He ends up looking like an eccentric uncle. If Conroy had described other diseases in the book the same way he treats schizophrenia, the mother would have dealt with her cancer with Tylenol and plenty of napping. 3: More on characters: i have never read a book where everyone was so gorgeous. Maybe if the novel had taken place in Southern California.... 4: Conroy's writing is incredibly uneven. There are times when his descriptions work, and he does a fine job explaining and elaborating on a story. Other times, his writing is a collection of regurgitated clichés. It looks like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde co-authoring a novel. 5: More on (un)willing suspensions of disbelief: killing yourself because parental grief is too much of a burden. The wife killed herself because she could not deal with HERSELF. She had problems no matter what had happened to her parents, no matter what her heritage was. Why make it look like she could not handle her parents' history? This was an artificial move on Conroy's part, which totally disgraces the novel (and happens too early on to forgive). I understand that Pat Conroy has produced some other fine books, and certainly many people think Beach Music is terrific. I cannot recommend this book to anyone looking for a serious read. I hope my comments have been helpful, and i am sorry i cannot agree with Conroy's fans on this one.
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Summary: heartfelt
Review: This book sinks it's teeth into the characters. You get to know them and begin to feel for them like they were part of your life. I was very upset when it was over. I would recommend this book to anyone who has a heart.
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Summary: Conroy's eloquence
Review: Conroy is my favorite author and Beach Music does not disappoint. He touches the essence of each character and uses imagery to paint the landscape. No other author creates characters as deep and compelling. Read all of his novels- but start at the beginning!
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Summary: Unbelievable!
Review: Without a doubt, Beach Music is by far, bar none, THE BEST book I've ever read and I'm not even finished! I never want it to end but I can't wait to read the rest! My mother has cancer...and I'm finding it very easy to bond with his mother and his brothers. Amazing.
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Summary: Not Impressed!!
Review: Perhaps I had to high of hopes for "Beach Music". After all, I found "The Prince of Tides" to be exceptional. I could hardly wait for this book to be published. I wanted more of what I had in previous efforts by this author. I have to think the well was running dry on this one. This was just okay.
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