Customer Reviews

The Prince of Tides

5 star:		(170)
4 star:		(50)
3 star:		(17)
2 star:		(13)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

In Pat Conroy's masterpiece, The Prince of Tides, not much is going right in Tom Wingo's life. He drinks too much, has lost his teaching/coaching job, and his marriage is on the rocks. He grew up with an abusive father whose violent behavior left physical and emotional scars on all the Wingo children. His mother was more supportive, but was powerless to protect her children from her husband's wrath. She also put her social ambitions before anything else in her life. The only that has gone right in Tom's life is that he lived his entire life in the low country of Charleston, SC--one of the most beautiful and nurturing places on this earth.

Things come to a head when Tom learns that his beautiful and talented twin, Savannah, has tried to commit suicide again. As she lays comatose in a New York City mental hospital, Savannah's psychiatrist, Susan Lowenstein, urges Tom to travel to New York. Doctor Lowenstein realizes that the only thing that can help save Savannah is to unlock the secrets of her terrible childhood (something that all the Wingo children have long suppressed and refuse to talk about). Tom flies to New York reluctantly, and at first, presents Dr. Lowenstein with a façade made up of humor, sarcasm and even rudeness. But Dr. Lowenstein eventually is able to break down Tom's protective shell to discover the horrors that took place during the Wingo's childhood. She also realizes that in trying to save Savannah, that this might also be Tom's last chance to save himself. But it turns out that Lowenstein has erected her own protective mask to hide her own unhappiness. With a remote husband and a spoiled son, Tom is able to turn the tables and help the good doctor in promoting a little self-healing as well.

The Prince of Tides is my favorite of all fiction books, and one of the most moving and emotional novels I have read. I think Conroy is one of our best living authors, and his words seem more like music than the written word. For those that know Conroy's background (including his own abusive father), it is disturbing to realize that much of this story is autobiographical in nature. I watched the movie after reading the book, and while the movie was quite good (especially the actors including Barbra Streisand, Nick Nolte and Blythe Danner), the movie can't hold a candle to the novel. Major storylines had to be left out and the plot greatly simplified.

If you can only read one Conroy, make The Prince of Tides your choice.

I reserve my five star rating for books that stand out as the best of the best. This is on the list of my top ten books, so I don't hesitate to put it as a five star book. Unlike some of Conroy's other books, this story line flows very easily, the plot seems reasonable, and it is as if you could have been there in South Carolina with the characters. This is a book for people who love to read-- it seems like Conroy is writing a long and beautiful poem, rather than a novel. But, don't get me wrong, the writing is not heavy or Faulkner-like that you can't get through it. It is a beautiful story of Tom Wingo as he deals with his sister's mental illnesses, his marital problems, and his childhood. As a person from the south, the book seemed very relevant in the way that family dynamics play out and the way childhoods are remembered. I would recommend the book for anyone who wants a captivating story, eloquent writing, and a taste of southern life. There is also some very good humor, too, which I appreciated!

I read The Prince of Tides in 1984 and have read it many more times since then. It is my number one favorite book, and I have been reading for 45 years. Conroy spins a tale of a family and southern town in a prose that is poetic. The Wingos are a tragic family, yet paradoxically have golden memories, interspersed with some of the most humorous imbroglios imaginable. Tom Wingo's recollections of growing up in the low country marshes are the heart of the story, and telling them to Dr. Lowenstein is the avenue to healing himself and a form for the author to promote this dialog. All along the way every chapter is a story unto itself. Many vivid characters are introduced, in such astounding fashion! Who could dream up a Mr. Fruit, or Tolitha's coffin shopping expedition? So many adventures, and yet with such underlying sorrow. Conroy's gift is his ability to intersperse his books with humor and immaculate prose. I have copied down some of his phrases as treasures to quote. Reading some of the the one, two and three star reviews made my heart sink, for these reviewers just don't seem to recognize one of the greatest books of the last quarter century. I do agree with anyone who thought the movie made by Streisand focused predominately on the love affair, and in effect may have quenched a savvy reader's desire to read the novel. Please read this book and recommend it to others!

Somewhere underneath the over ripe language and rambling three generational family saga is an incrediable story that manages to grip the reader through the excess. Despite its flaws, I must admit I found it impossible to put this one down. The writing somehow manages a seemingly impossible combination of being both boring and aborbing at the same time. I agree whole-heartedly with previous reviewers who stated that a competent editor and a little streamlining of the inumerable plot threads would have helped this book immensely. Conroy seems to suffer from same illness that afflicted the makers of "Forrest Gump", an overwhelming desire to hit upon all social issues of the twentieth century in the course of his extremely lengthy read. His intentions are good, but the end results border on the ridiculous. During Luke's multi-page impassioned anti-nuke speech, my frustration had hit an all time high and I was tempted to hurl the book across room. I mean, its sweet that Pat tries to squeeze a little social commentary into his work, but this particular plot is insane. Not to mention, after being emotionally wiped out from discovering the big family secret, this twist in events surrounding Luke's death were a little too much. Also, I found much of the dialouge to be totally unconvincing...even the most intellectual and pompous arent this contrived. For example, on almost every other page, "simple southern boy" Tom is passionately spewing forth his political values, calling himself a liberal, a feminist, an ecologist...the list goes on. Personally, I agree with most of his viewpoints, but Id gladly give anyone the right to smack me repeatedly if I was this self important. Admist all these bleeding heart sentiments, the bare bones of the story struggle to break out. Additionally, the countless subplots and lack subtely severely hamper the impact of the novel. I found myself swept up in the story but not convinced enough to be genuinely moved.

THE PRINCE OF TIDES changed my life. I read it first when I was sixteen, back in 1992, and I didn't even know then how much the experiences and feelings developed in this magnificent story would eventually resemble my own. I read it every year and still sincerely cry because of pure identification. There is a bit of Tom Wingo in all of us, we all share that ambiguity of feelings about our family, land and life itself. Each character has their own complexity, their own ambiguity, which make them close and human more than anything else. As a reader, I can't love more a book than I love this one; it taught me things I needed to know and also things I may not have wanted to know at an age when I thought life would be easier. For these and more other reasons, I consider THE PRINCE OF TIDES as my personal guide book. Other Pat Conroy novels such us THE WATER IS WIDE, THE GREAT SANTINI, BEACH MUSIC, and, above all, THE LORDS OF DISCIPLINE are also life-changing experiences in themselves. My e-mail adress is open to all those who want to share their views on this and other literary subjects. I'd love to learn so much more!

Has anyone out there read many and many books over the years to the point where the books you read as of late don't interest you or excite you as much as they used to? Well, I'm one of those people. Not a lot of books these days fail to grab my attention with such surreal realism and heart and emotion as Pat Conroy's The Prince of Tides did. When I picked up this book last August, I had no idea what a ride I was in for. I read the first 200 pages with keen interest but had to put the book down due to starting a new semester at college. Now five months later and with finals and a wacky semester down the drain, I finally had the time to read the rest of the four hundred plus pages. The minute I picked up the book again after five long months all the details I had read and long forgotten came back to me like shooting stars. The magic of being able to envision the charectors and the scenes of the best and worst moments of their lives had returned to me after years of diminsihing like a candle. Prince of Tides is an extraordinary epic based on the Wingo family and their trials and tribulations throughout their lives. Conroy sketches out every detail of his characters with naturalness rarely read. He also managed to speak on a great many deals of horros that plague people like me every day of our lives, such as, mental illness, child and spousal abuse, rape, psychotherepy, the Vietnam War, racism in the South and betrayal. But I think that the greatest gift that Conroy offeres in this novel is the gift of love. He writes Susan and Tom's story of love and understanding with major depth. He doesn't simply make it a happy ending but one of lost fates; if only they had met early on in life. It's a wonderful novel that all people on all walks of life can relate to, especially the ones who weep a fate lost. The reader is able to close his or her eyes and to place themselves into the mind of Tom Wingo to live out his life just as it was written. And for that I am greatful because it's been a long time since any novel has made me do that.

As a haunting story of a South Carolina based family Wingo, Pat Conroy's "Prince of Tides", made famous by Barbra Streisand and her movie of the same title, is a novel worth reading.

The emotionally charged story starts when Tom Wingo, a married father of three beautiful girls, a football coach and an English teacher in South Carolina (who recently decided not to coach, at least for a while) learns from his estranged mother, that his twin sister, a poet Savannah Wingo, living in the New York City, tried to commit suicide. Her psychiatrist requested a meeting with a family member in order to gather information about Savannah's past, which could be crucial to her recovery. Tom decides to go and face his darkest memories to help his sister...

When Tom arrives in New York and installs himself in Savannah's flat, helped by her friendly, gay neighbor Eddie, he has to begin the sessions with Dr. Susan Lowenstein, Savannah's psychiatrist. Soon Tom discovers, that uncovering Savannah's past is equal to uncovering his own. Why does he hate his violent shrimper father Henry as much as his social climber mother Lila? Why does he admire and constantly compare himself to his dead brother Luke? Is really the dysfunctional family, blamed by Tom, the source of the siblings' problems in adult life? What does mysterious word "Callanwolde", uttered by Savannah just before she slipped into a coma, mean? Can Tom deal with his past and straighten his own life while helping his sister?

Certainly, Dr. Lowenstein, a Jewish, city-bred MD, married to a fabulously famous violinist, can help Tom with that - but her life, despite being ideal, when watched superficially, is far from being happy. Can she solve her problems while being instrumental in the reparations of Tom's and Savannah's lives?

Dealing with one's own demons and the subconscious past is a great theme in "Prince of Tides", and Pat Conroy leads the reader through these difficult matters gracefully. The novel is meaty, written in tasty, vivid, colorful language. I like Conroy's style very much and I think he epitomizes the contemporary American South in popular literature. The trick with telling stories to a psychoanalyst has been exploited in literature and film (see "Portnoy's Complaint", or Woody Allen), allowing for the inclusion of monologue, numerous retrospectives and jumps back and forward in time, and here it is also successfully employed. There are many changes in the film and, despite it is very good and praised, it does not give full credit to the novel, so it is worth reading "Prince of Tides" even after watching the film.

I, as one reviewer put it, will be one of the "fools" who calls this a great book. I read this book for the first time when I was 15 years old, then again in my early twenties. I am now 33 and the images of this book still remain on my mind. I do not know how I would react to the book's take on psychoanlysis at this point in my life but what I am confident of is that Mr. Conroy's language would still both comfort and confront me. I can almost hear Tom Wingo's voice still to this day. The idea of a man at a cross-roads, trying to heal the past, trying to save another sibling from destruction only to find out he is the one who needs saving. But in the end, The Prince of Tides has always been, for me, about forgiving, others and yourself. The plot may be heightened soap opera, (then again wouldn't a lot of Greek tragedies and even Shakespeare sound a lot like modern soap opera if they were viewed by an analysis of their plot instead of looking at their themes?) but the message continues to sound in my head, like a warm deep Southern voice telling me I can survive the wounds of my past. For me, that's a great book. But then again, I'm one of the fools who doesn't appreciate good literature. Or am I?

Pat Conroy is my favorite author and this is by far my favorite of his works.

As someone who has been working on "The Great American Novel" most of my adult life, I took to heart when I read somewhere that John Grisham once said, "The best thing that happened me was when I tried to quit writing like Pat Conroy." I know exactly what Mr. Grisham means.

I am getting in the game late on reviewing this book and I cannot add much to the other five star offerings but since I did not read all of them, I would like to mention that the movie was a poor relection of this story. I think Jimmy Buffett's song "The Prince of Tides" did a better job than Babs.

This is the first ever book I read from Conroy. His used of words is like Shakespeare (I think he really had a good time playing with what words to use)--he seems to have a large stock of vocabulary that even my AP English teacher had to look into the dictionary on tons of words.
Tom Wingo is a boy with a frightening, yet adventurous past that I myself want to have experienced (except for the frightening part). He grew up in an island in the town called Colleton, where he face the constant struggle of a very unstable family. His father who was converted to Catholicism, though his actions do not show signs of a Catholic, was abusive and had a short-temper--he was very unpredictable and is very closed-minded; he seems inexorable to reasons; not even the beautiful Lila (the mother) could bend his heart as the book would put it "My father had a black belt degree in turning a deaf ear to my mother." He displayed this throughout the book e.g. he did not listen to Lila that his businesses would fail, which really did fail. Her mother, a very mysterious woman as described in the prologue (though the prologue seemed a very misleading about the mother) "We children sat transfixed before that moon our mother called forth from the waters," but throughout the book was a socially-anxious being. His brother Luke was the tough guy in the family--an overprotective brother to both his younger siblings and his mother from the ill-tempered father. The twins Savannah and Tom. Tom is the narrator and Savannah her sister was a psychotic feminist/poet. Her insanity can be traced from her childhood experiences--and it is the scar left from what she endured while growing up. She is ambitious and wants to escape from the South and go to New York. Tom Wingo explains all of his life's story and escapades he shared with mostly his brother and sister. The siblings were very close to each other mainly because they had nothing in the world except themselves to look out for and to protect one another. It made me realized the beauty of being a sentimentalist and it enforced my belief that having too much sentimentality is a good thing. Pat Conroy did a really amazing job in writing and I thank him for bringing comforting memories from my past out of the shell they were hidden...

--I love the book very much and hope readers that are planning to read it will love it too.