Rating: 
Summary: The Great Santini
Review: Those of you who have grown up with a military parent, or forthose who are in the military, this book will have special meaning foryou. One aspect of this book is its realism, some where in America there is some family being raised by a military parent that is dealing with the same issues this book deals with. This is a story about real life, which is why I liked it so much. Having military in my family I was able to have a special connection with the characters in the story.
Rating: 
Summary: "Santini" not great, but certainly good enough.
Review: Though this is Pat Conroy's first novel, he certainly has promise as an author. His descriptions of locations and appearances are vivid and engaging. Unfortunately, one cannot say the same for his characters.
Ben Meecham, a high-school senior, is coping with the physical and mental abuse of his Marine pilot father, Bull. His mother, a Southern Belle named Lilian, is sweet and kind, but not without faults of her own. The daughter, Mary Anne, only one year younger than Ben, is ugly and quite cynical. Yet they live together, in an uncertain harmony, with younger children Matt and Karen. The problem with these characters is not Mr. Conroy's ability to create them as living, breathing beings. It is, rather, the lack of depth he has given them. After reading the novel, one does not really care about what happens to the central characters, and that is a definate problem. Likewise, the events that surround them seem to be self-serving and only present to cause the desired outcome. Being in a military family, the Meechams are used to moving throughout the South at a moment's notice, leaving friends and family behind. Mr. Conroy introduces a rape, without ever resolving the cause or effect on the community, purely with the purpose of creating an ironic twist in the plot: Ben's best friend leaves him instead of the other way around. Bull Meecham's eventual death, likewise, seems to serve no purpose but to justify Ben's ascent to manhood. The effect on the rest of the family is rattled off with a mere few pages, most of which describe funeral arrangements. Nonetheless, Mr. Conroy's ability to create a living, breathing world that certainly engages the reader is more than enough to warrant reading this novel. Despite its obvious faults, it is quite enjoyable.
Rating: 
Summary: The Great Santini
Review: With "The Great Santini", Conroy has somehow made Bull Meecham, a most abusive and tyrranical father, almost lovable by the end of the family's chronicle. Focusing mainly on Bull's stressing relationship with his eldest son, Ben, who will never be good enough, the story is funny, crude, but most of all,authentic.
Rating:
Summary: A look at America's past
Review: Years ago I read PRINCE OF TIDES and have always rated it as one of my favorite books. But I never got around to reading another Pat Conroy work until my son, who is in the Marines, gave me a copy of THE GREAT SANTINI.
Written in 1976 but set in the American South on the early 1960's it describes a hard drinking brutal side of the Marine Corp air division, that is hopefully a thing of the past. With current pilots limited on their consumption of alcohol prior to flying and an entirely different attitude about drinking in the contemporary world, the descriptios of the binge drinking by Bull Meechum and his pilots was alarming and often disgusting. The brutality among the Marines and the crude insults and language among them were not comical to me, but I'm judging them from a 21st century female perspective.
The descriptions of the spousal and child abuse by Bull were hopefully a thing of the past, along with the horrible racial sterotypes and racial abuse. We can only hope and pray that that generation of Americans no longer exist.
If Ben Meechum were a real person, he would be in his early 60's as would his sister Mary Ann. Did Ben go in to the Marine Corp? One wonders what happened to Lillian Meechum after Bull's death and Karen and Matt. Was Lillian ever able to regain her own self respect and identity. Throughout the book I wondered how she ever stayed with this abusive and crude man who abused her and her children, but considered in the context of the time, maybe she did not have a choice.
The Meechums were a totally disfunctional family. One would like to speculate on how this effected the Meechum children and their children.
It's a good read, but hopefully a part of America that no longer exist.
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