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Summary: Stunning portrayal of the ties that bind friends together
Review: Beautifully written, Pat Conroy manages to make his readers laugh, cry, wail, shout and screech with alternating emotions of joy and despair. The book centres around 4 friends at a military academy near Charleston and details the events that make them closer than brothers and provide the ultimate test in brotherhood.
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Summary: You won't put it down
Review: With heart-wrenching reality, this book opens eyes to military life and all of it's faults. Twists and turns, romance, intrigue, and corruption,
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Summary: Years later, I still love this book
Review: I loved this book when I first read it, for all of the many reasons that others have listed below, and I still love and remember it now (some five years later). This is a book that will stick with you and alter the way you think about the military and the very notion of loyalty. A must read for anyone who wants to find out how an author can make you laugh one moment and cry the next.
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Summary: Unforgetable!
Review: I stayed up through the night reading this book, and after I read it I cried mysel to sleep. The plot was well organized, and the book was an enriching literary experience. I almost wish this book could go on forever, even though it ended at the right place. The reader wants more, but is left with a powerful aftertaste. Read it!!!! It is definately a must read.
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Summary: "A very good book. I love Conroys characters"
Review: "This was a great book. I truly belive it is Conroys Best book. It is my personal all time favorite. Conroy starts with a boy entering a military school. The South Carolina Military Institute, under pressure from the goverment, has accepted it's first black student. To ensure goverment funding, this student must pass all the way through the school. However, most upperclassmen try to run students out of the school. But there is one boy with a good heart who does not participate in this stupid activity. He is named by the Colonel to protect the black student. After his first year, the Colonel belives, he will be able to stand up for himself. This leads the hero through an adventure trying to save the boy and punish the tormenters. When he gets into trouble himself, his freinds and him devise a plan that may work and help both of them pull through. A excellent book.
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Summary: As good as Beach Music and the Great Santini
Review: I "read" the book by listening to it on tape from Books on Tape. I also "read" Beach Music that way. I would encourage anyone to listen to the reading of these two books because the reader, who is superb, reads with a very subtle Southern accent, and reads each character differently. He even reads the female characters in such a way that each one comes across as a distinct personality.Since I am not from the South, and could not internally produce those sounds from my Northern ear were I actually reading the book, I truly appreciated hearing the book read with a Southern accent. It greatly deepened my appreciation of both Beach Music and the Lords of Discipline. Both books became more lyrical and more embedded in my psyche. I literally read The Great Santini and it simply didn't have the impact on me that hearing Beach Music and The Lords of Discipline had having heard them read to me.
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Summary: Outstanding Military School Potboiler
Review: The Lords of Discipline is a marvelous book with an intriguing plot, fun characters, and an enjoyable mystery. It is also a critical appraisal of military colleges (the Citadel, VMI) that condemns them for their faults but honors them for their strengths. The book has weaknesses. The plot has more unlikely twists than a Danielle Steele novel, and a number of them seem quite forced. The first person protagonist Will McLean is well developed, but many of the characters in the book came straight from central casting -- two of Will's roommates seem essentially interchangeable except that one's poor and the other's Italian. Not all are cardboard; a few supporting characters like the Bear and the hapless Commerce St.Croix (keeper of the journals) stand out admirably. Conroy's writing is flowery and laced with many adjectives -- sometimes he crosses over into the realm of purple prose. This is not necessarily a criticism, just a warning that Conroy's writing has more to do with Fitzgerald than Hemingway. Despite these weaknesses, the book works. The pages flew by and I was definitely hooked. I read during my lunch break and got so involved that I spent the next two hours with my office door closed so I could finish the book. Will's climactic confrontation with the head of the Institute was a stand-up-and-cheer moment, and his earlier battle with the Ten had me holding my breath. I have more difficulty speaking to the book's analysis of military colleges. I've never experienced that kind of situation, and I can only take Conroy's word for it. From what I've heard from others, the current situation might be quite a bit different from the days when Conroy was at the Citadel. Despite some flaws, it's a great book and a great read. Rush out and get it.
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Summary: I never wanted the book to end.
Review: After leaving Will Mcleans world,my own military education and career seems drab. Pat Conruy masterfully spins you into a web of young love,feirce loyalty and ultimate batrayal. You will experience every emotion: love,fear,anger and sadness.This book shows you the true nature of honor,and how it can be manipulated and muddied, but also beautiful and pure. This is a must read for anyone that aspires to be a military officer or public leader. Loyality to an Institution should never come before loyality to humanity.
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Summary: semi-true yet very interesting
Review: I live and go to school less than a mile or two away from the Citadel which the authour describes in this book. He describes the Citadel and Charleston fairly accurately although Charleston is actually a very pleasant city. I have never heard of the TEN but who knows. I recommend reading this book for enjoyment and to give you a new perspective on something that goes on in Charleston, SC that you might not know about. A word of advice, remeber poetic licensce.
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Summary: This is a wrenching, compelling novel--unforgettable.
Review: I read this book at the New Jersey shore, but Conroy's vivid descriptions made Charleston, its rivers, ocean, marshes, mansions and prison-like Institute more real than the coastal environment around me. Conroy's story, at times tender, at others unbearably tense, of Will McLean's coming of age in a military college is a harrowing fictionalization of what Dan Kindlon and Michael Thompson call in "Raising Cain" the "culture of cruelty" to which all boys in our culture are exposed. Even more powerfully, he shows the consequences of placing one's faith in institutions rather than in persons. Mammas, don't let your children grow up to be soldiers.
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