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Pat Conroy's thinly disguised autobiographical tale featuring Bull Meecham a hardcore Marine fighter pilot as the domineering and abusive husband and father of an oft relocating military family. The story is told by eldest son Ben, a teenager in the 1950's who is never quite able to appease his father and is often called on to defend his mother Lillian a gentile southern woman who tries to offer up some balance in harsh times. The book is hard to read at times, though Conroy was a master storyte...
I’ll say upfront that The Great Santini holds the title for the best book I’ve read this year and has a very good chance of retaining that title all year. Santini is the late Pat Conroy's first novel and he always claimed that it is largely autobiographical. In fact, in his penultimate book, The Death of Santini: The Story of a Father and His Son, Conroy describes his actual life with his family and his father, Marine fighter pilot Col. Don Conroy, the original Great Santini. This nickname even
Pat Conroy (1945-2016) was one of America's most acclaimed and widely read authors and the New York Times-bestselling writer of eleven novels and memoirs. Although a fictional novel, Pat Conroy's writing was heavily influenced by his personal life experiences. THE GREAT SANTINI depicts a Marine Corps pilot who is a domineering father often physically and emotionally abusive to his children. This is an intense, dramatic, passionate and sometimes humorous read. It was made into a major film. 4 sta...
Bull Meecham is undoubtedly Pat Conroy’s most explosive character—a man you should hate, but a man you will love. -cover summaryI did not love him, there was only hate in my heart.
Lt Col Bull Meecham is a Marine fighter pilot – No – he is the GREATEST Marine Fighter Pilot. Just ask his family or any of the men serving under him. This novel gives us a glimpse of one Marine’s family. Lillian is the gentle, Southern-born wife who tempers her husband’s erratic drive with a cool, steady demeanor. She is the buffer between Bull and their children. But as their first-born, Ben, moves toward high school graduation, he is increasingly at odds with his father. No matter how he exce...
I enjoyed this unevenly crafted coming of age tale of growing up in the south in the 60's. On one level this is an examination of one family's struggle to love a "hard to love" father who never learned to show the love he so obviously had for his children. On another level, I think that this book is just Pat Conroy's way of making some money off the therapy work he so obviously needed. In the early chapters its made clear why this maverick fighter pilot is hated but as the story continues, and d...
"They love their families with their hearts and souls and they wage war against them to prove it."Marines - and specifically Bull Meechum, "... the greatest marine fighter pilot to ever crap between two shoes!" - are fierce and loyal, difficult and unpredictable; they rule by fear, demand respect, and inspire admiration. It's not easy to be a marine family, but it is especially difficult to be the family of Bull Meechum, the self-proclaimed Great Santini. This is really the coming-of-age story o...
Description: Step into the powerhouse life of Bull Meecham. He’s all Marine—fighter pilot, king of the clouds, and absolute ruler of his family. Lillian is his wife—beautiful, southern-bred, with a core of velvet steel. Without her cool head, her kids would be in real trouble. Ben is the oldest, a born athlete whose best never satisfies the big man. Ben’s got to stand up, even fight back, against a father who doesn’t give in—not to his men, not to his wife, and certainly not to his son. Bull Mee...
The Great Santini is perhaps Pat Conroy’s second most famous novel after Prince of Tides.This is a well written but disturbing book due to the mental and physical cruelty inflicted by the Great Santini. It is also nuanced in a genuine way with occasional love mixed with the hate. Not so different in that regard from millions of American families. The Great Santini, as Pat Conroy admits, is largely drawn from his own father who was a Marine colonel and highly decorated aviator in WWII and Vietnam...
Re-read this with On the Southern Literary Trail. The difference from reading this as a young woman with family in the military, and then as an older woman after serving in the Navy as an officer and also being married to a Naval officer and raising kids both while on active duty for 12 years & as a "dependent" wife overseas gave me so many different perspectives. I went through training, I served with Marines, I went to chief's initiations, officer happy hours, Mess Dinners, Navy & Marine Corps...
I’d never paid any attention to Pat Conroy until a few years ago when I read one of my favorite books of all time Gone with the Wind. Conroy wrote the beautiful introduction to that book. My rule with classics, not that I read them as often as I probably should, is to read the introduction after completing the book. Once I finished “Gone with the Wind” and then read Conroy’s introduction, I knew that this would be an author that I would like. In that introduction, he describes his mother reading...
First let me say I am a big Pat Conroy fan, and have read 90% of his works. Secondly, this is my second time reading the Great Santini. (I read my favorite books again and again.) Thirdly, it is generally known that this story is about Conroy’s father and his abusive nature. That being said, this is a coming of age novel of Ben Meechum and his senior year in high school in Ravenel, SC. Ravenel is a small southern coastal town near Charleston, S.C. Throughout his life Ben was under the influence
I saw the movie before I read the book. Pat Conroy is the master of the low country when it comes to fiction. Like his character in this book, he moved there as a Marine Corps brat and his father was stationed at Marine Air Station Beaufort. I lived on Hilton Head, on the Intracoastal for several years and the ferry to Dafuskie Island passed by every day and I could see the island to the south along the water. Conroy taught on Dafuskie (The Water Is Wide) and people there still remember him as a...
THE GREAT SANTINI was my first Conroy book, and I enjoyed it immensely. He was a fine writer.
The story of Bull Meecham, a Marine pilot, and his complex relationships with family and The Corps.Pat Conroy is an amazing writer. The Houston Chronicle is quoted on the back of my book as saying "Reading Pat Conroy is like watching Michelangelo paint the Sistine Chapel," and I don't think I could articulate the experience any better. I laughed until tears ran down my face and in the same chapter I cried for the sheer pain the characters experienced. The Great Santini is Bull Meecham. And throu...
Of all the Conroys I've read so far, this is my least favorite. The book jacket describes Bull Meacham as someone you should hate but will wind up loving, anyway - but that was not my experience. I found very little loveable about"The Great Santini". The thing that amazed me was how brave his family was on those occasions when they stood up to him. While I don't doubt he loved his family, and maybe was even proud of them in a way, he was domineering and controlling and sometimes downright cruel
Another semi-autobiographical book,by Pat Conroy. "The Great Santini" is Marine fighter pilot,"Bull Meecham". He is modeled on Pat Conroy's own,hard to please father. Meecham's son,Ben,constantly struggles to win his father's approval and never succeeds.The book doesn't start off too well. The dialogue is pretty coarse,and vulgar. There is relatively little by way of a story,for hundreds of pages. A military family moves to a new posting.As a family,they are pretty dysfunctional.The long sufferi...
Pat Conroy is one of those writers who can write only one story (John Irving and Amy Tan come to mind, as well). Conroy seems obsessed with the idea of a Southern family trying to navigate the high school experiences of a sensitive son and a smartass daughter. Again there is the angry, abusive father and the rather ineffective mother who is mostly concerned about what the neighbors think. Again there are themes of forgiveness and redemption and racial tension. Again someone gets raped. Again the...
This semi-fictional story is Pat Conroy's time growing up in Beaufort, South Carolina. I say "semi-fictional" because he transposed much of his life during that time (as a teenager) into the story's main character, Ben Meechum. It is a story of frustration, abuse, confusion, loyalty, and the hard road of growing up in a dysfunctional family. I enjoyed this book over the Prince of Tides, but not as much as The Lords of Discipline!
I cannot remember ever bailing on a book after putting in 265 pages and making 56%. I would have certainly stopped sooner had it not been Pat Conroy and a group read. I regret to say, this book is garbage. I kept waiting for the good writing and meaningful story to kick in, but it did not.I have loved Conroy. The Prince of Tides, The Water is Wide and Beach Music were all fine reads for me; I am totally happy I did not start with Santini, or I would never have gotten to those. This book is meant...