Beach Music

Rating:
Summary: A Masterful tale of epic proportions
Review: Although Prince of Tides is still my favorite, Pat Conroy once again overwhelmed me with this touching saga. Conroy is a true master of the English language; his words are music to the soul and each page is another movement in his grand symphony. I lost myself in this book and when I reluctantly finished I just sat speechless in awe of such powerful beauty. Conroy creates magnificent characters that, though flawed, each reveal an aspect of the human spirit. Beach Music made me appreciate life: the beauty of nature, the importance of family, the virtue of loyalty, and the longing for home. A genius at storytelling, Conroy tells tales that make you laugh and cry and then all fall into place to show how human lives and experiences interconnect and touch each other in powerful ways. Those readers who are critical of the novel for the seemingly "over-ambitious" way the author weaves together so many historical events have obviously missed the point. History touches all our lives. It is impossible to take four generations of a family that have not been affected in some way by the events Conroy describes. He brings history to life through his characters in a poignant way, spinning a web of human pain and triumph accompanied by the strains of the beach music.

Rating:
Summary: Simply Amazing
Review: Beach Music is about Jack McCall, an American living in Rome with his young daughter, trying to make peace after the recent shock of his wife's suicide. But his loneliness is disturbed by the appearance of his sister-in-law, who begs him to return home to his dying mother, and of two school friends asking for his help in tracking down another classmate who went underground as a Vietnam protester and never resurfaced. These requests catapult Jack on a journey that takes in the past and the present in both Europe and the American South, and that leads him to shocking and eventual liberating facts.

(...) I would recommend this book to anyone who likes suspense and great storytelling. As a writer Conroy has the ability to make you hate the characters then totally reverse that thought and love them by the end of the book. He also captures the setting through detailed descriptions that truly make you feel like you are there and actually witnessing the story. The story is of love and hate and what a thin line they are. With twists and ethical dilemmas, Beach Music, is a great book for anyone to read.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent, but could have been three books
Review: For a book that curiously begins with an error in the first sentence (the "Silas Pearlman Bridge in Charleston" is really the Silas Pearman Bridge), this is a fine read. Perhaps the change in spelling is literary license. After 500 pages down and 300 to go, I was ready to drive to Charleston and throw the book over the bridge from which Shyla leapt. However, I'm afraid of heights and, since the book was heavy enough to kill a whale if it hit him on the head, I decided to just finish it. It was a richly rewarding experience.

Still, I was left with the feeling that I had read three different books rolled into one. The material relating to the holocaust could have been incorporated into one standalone book, the story of Jack and his friends would have made a great vacation read all by itself, and the story of Jack and his family would have been a wonderful third book. Beach Music is a good thing, but maybe too much of a good thing. Anyway, I loved the story but wished the descriptions of food, marshes, cities, sunsets, sunrises, so forth and so on could have been shorter. At 800 pages, even a masterpiece can be laborious. No doubt though, Conroy should never be speed-read, just as Mozart should never be fast-played.

Rating:
Summary: The most difficult of Conroy's novels
Review: Pat Conroy is my favorite author--I just wish he produced a new book every three months like John Grishom. There is absolutely nobody else who has the power of "description" and "Imagery" that he has.

I love Conroy's writing because it is always so contradictory. He makes you love and hate his characters at the same time. I started out by being completely annoyed with John Hardin in this novel, and then he ended up being my favorite character--he was so funny and outrageous. I felt the same about his mother--loved and hated her at the time time. I remember this was also true of his characters when I read "Prince of Tides." He has such an ability to play with the reader's emotions.

Beach Music was harder than his other novels because of so many subplots & characters, but instead of wishing it hadn't been so long and gone into so much, I found myself wishing it was longer, and he had developed the characters & subplots even more.

There is always a feeling of "letdown" when you finish one of Pat Conroy's novels because you don't want it to end. Nobody writes about "dysfunction" with his sense of humor.

Rating:
Summary: Music To My Ears
Review: Pat Conroy is, more or less, the best modern American writer. Word truly seem to flow from his "pen"; his characters are captivating and well-developed; his descriptions, whether he's describing a person, place or thing, are unbelievable; and his plots are such dramas, filled with scenes that will make you laugh, make you shrink back in horror, and make you cry.

Beach Music is probably the best, and longest, of Conroy's books. The melodrama begins when Jack McCall, an Southerner who moved to Italy to raise his young daughter after his wife committed suicide, is called back to his home town--Waterford, SC--because his mother is dying. The book describes Jack and his four younger brothers (including wonderfully written scenes with his youngest, and craziest brother John Hardin--who happens to be my favorite character) as they struggle with their family's past, their mother's dying, and the pitiful-excuse-of-a-human-being that is their father.

Secondly, this book describes Jack's attempt to understand why his wife killed herself, and his attempt to reconcile with her family. This part of the book, Jack's in-laws' stories, are probably the hardest emotionally to read. Both of his in-laws were survivors of concentration camps, and their stories are truly heart-wrenching.

Thirdly, this book tells the tale of Jack reuniting with his best guy and girl friends from his teenage years. This part tells how Jack fell in love, how he met his best friend, and what happened to each of their lives. For whatever reason, this section of the book reminded me of the Big Chill (probably because of the reuniting of old friends), but I found this part very enjoyable.

Overall, this book is about a man having to look back--not necessarily reminisce, but to re-examine--on his past to try to solve problems he has with himself, his family, and with raising his daughter without including any family help. This book is very good, very powerful, and, personally, is a book I would take if I were stranded on a desert island.