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The Great Santini (Paperback)
by Pat Conroy
| Category:
Fiction |
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| MSL Pointer Review:
A wonderful author who brings his characters to life with a grace, humanity and humor rarely seen in modern literature. |
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Author: Pat Conroy
Publisher: Bantam; Reissue edition
Pub. in: December, 1987
ISBN: 0553268929
Pages: 448
Measurements: 6.9 x 4.3 x 1.0 inches
Origin of product: USA
Order code: BA00471
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- MSL Picks -
All of Pat Conroy's books have one foot in his childhood, and none is more autobiographical than The Great Santini. Colonel Bull Meecham is a legendary Marine fighter pilot whose military successes are almost as many as his personal excesses. Lillian Meecham is a Southern gentlewoman with a love of literature. After moving from base to base each year, the Meecham's finally settle down in fictional Ravenel, SC (Beaufort in real life).
The Colonel rules his fighter squadron and his family with an iron first. While this technique is successful in motivating his pilots, it has disastrous effects on his wife and children. His cruelty (both mental and physical) is enough to crush even the strongest soul. While he chides Ben for being a sissy, he suppresses Ben's attempts to act like a man. Yet, the Colonel can do endearing things, like when he gives Ben his original flight jacket on his 18th birthday. No wonder Ben has a love-hate relationship with his old man.
At a new school, Ben quickly establishes himself as a decent scholar and a talented basketball player. Several teachers and his principal see the potential in young Ben, and give him the love and mentoring he could never get from the Colonel. They teach him the importance of standing up for what he believes and to be his own man. When one of Ben's friends is threatened, Ben defies his dad and goes to his aid. In doing so, he becomes more of a man than his father will ever be.
The Great Santini is a fabulous story, and nobody writes with as much passion and beauty as Pat Conroy. Conroy takes us through the emotional gamut from belly laughs to tears and back again. Although some parts of the story are fiction, there is enough truth in that when Conroy's mom filed for divorce from the real Colonel after 33 years of marriage, she handed a copy of The Great Santini to the judge as evidence of the Colonel's violent nature. Conroy is a definitely success story and despite many scars, he was able to overcome his tumultuous upbringing to become the very successful writer he is. But perhaps without that childhood, we would not know the Conroy we know today. Even he admits that "one of the greatest gifts you can get as a writer is to be born into an unhappy family."
Apart from the characters, the author’s mastery of English language is awesome. Conroy's scenery alone is enough to buy this book! No one else can paint a picture of the American South like Pat Conroy!
(From quoting Cynthia Robertson, USA)
Target readers:
General readers
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- Better with -
Better with
Beach Music
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From the Publisher:
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 Meecham is undoubtedly Pat Conroy's most explosive character - a man you should hate, but a man you will love.
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Chapter One
In the Cordova Hotel, near the docks of Barcelona, fourteen Marine Corps fighter pilots from the aircraft carrier Forrestal were throwing an obstreperously spirited going away party for Lieutenant Colonel Bull Meecham, the executive officer of their carrier based squadron. The pilots had been drinking most of the day and the party was taking a swift descent toward mayhem. It was a sign to Bull Meecham that he was about to have a fine and memorable turbulent time.
The commanding officer of the squadron, Ty Mullinax, had passed out in the early part of the afternoon and was resting in a beatific position on the table in the center of the room, his hands folded across his chest and a bouquet of lilies carefully placed in his zipper, rising out of his groin.
The noise from the party had risen in geometrically spiraling quantities in irregular intervals since the affair had begun shortly after noon. In the beginning it had been a sensible, often moving affair, a coming together of soldiers and gentlemen to toast and praise a warrior departing their ranks. But slowly, the alcohol established its primacy over the last half of the party and as darkness approached and the outline of warships along the harbor became accented with light, the maitre d' of the Cordova Hotel walked into the room to put an end to the going away party that had begun to have the sound effects of a small war.
He would like to have had the Marines thrown out by calling the Guardia Civil but too much of his business depended on the American officers who had made his hotel and restaurant their headquarters whenever the fleet came to Barcelona. The guests in his restaurant had begun to complain vigorously about the noise and obscenity coming from the room that was directly off the restaurant. Even the music of a flamenco band did not overpower or even cancel out the clamor and tumult that spilled out of the room. The maitre d' was waiting for Captain Weber, a naval captain who commanded a cruiser attached to the fleet, to bring his lady in for dinner, but his reservation was not until 9 o'clock. He took a deep breath, opened the door, and walked toward the man who looked as if he was in charge.
"Hey, Pedro, what can I do for you?" Bull Meecham asked.
The maitre d' was a small, elegant man who looked up toward a massive, red-faced man who stood six feet four inches tall and weighed over two hundred and twenty pounds.
Before the maitre d' could speak he noticed the prone body of Colonel Mullinax lying on the long dining table in the center of the room.
"What is wrong with this man?" the maitre d' demanded.
"He's dead, Pedro," Bull answered.
"You joke with me, no."
"No, Pedro."
"He still breathe."
"Muscle spasms. Involuntary," Bull said as the other pilots whooped and laughed behind him. "He's dead all right and we got to leave him here, Pedro. The fleet's pulling out any time now and we won't have time for a funeral. But we'll be back to pick him up in about six months. And that's a promise. I just don't want you to move him from this table."
"No, senor," the maitre d' said, staring with rising discomfort at the unconscious aviator, "you joke with me. I no mind the joke. I come to ask you to keep down the noise and please not break up any more furniture or throw your glasses. Some naval officers have complained very much."
"Oh, dearie me," said Bull. "You mean the naval officers don't like to hear us throwing glasses?"
"No, senor."
Bull turned toward the far wall and, giving a signal to the other pilots in the room, all thirteen of them hurled their glasses into the fireplace already littered with bright shards of glass.
"It will be charged to your bill, senor," the maitre d' said.
"Beat it, Pedro," Bull said. "When I want a tortilla I'll give you a call."
"But, senor, I have other guests. Many of the officers in the Navy and their ladies. They ask me what the noise is. What am I to do?"
"I'll handle them, Pedro," Bull said. "You run along now and chew on a couple of tacos while the boys and I finish up here. We should be done partying about a week from now."
"No, senor. Please, senor. My other guests."
When the maitre d' closed the door behind him, Bull walked over and made himself another drink. The other pilots crowded around him and did likewise.
With a strong Texas accent, Major Sammy Funderburk said, "I did a little recon job early this here morning here. And I saw me some strange and willing nookie walking around the lobby of this here hotel here."
"You know me better than that," Bull said. "I'm saving my body for my wife."
"Since when, Colonel?" one of the young lieutenants shouted over the laughter.
"Since very early this morning," Bull replied.
"This here squadron here is the toughest bunch of Marine aviators ever assembled on this here God's green earth here," Sammy bellowed.
"Hear ye! Hear ye!" the others agreed.
"I'd like to offer a toast," Bull shouted above the din, and the room quieted. "I'd like to toast the greatest Marine fighter pilot that ever shit between two shoes." He lifted his drink high in the air and continued his toast as the other pilots elevated their glasses. "This man has lived without fear, has done things with an airplane that other men have never done, has spit in death's eye a thousand times, and despite all this has managed to retain his Christ-like humility. Gentlemen, I ask you to lift your glasses and join me in toasting Colonel Bull Meecham."
Amid the hisses and jeers that followed this toast, Captain Ronald Bookout whispered to Bull, "Sir, I think we might get into a little trouble if we don't hold it down a little. I just peeked out toward the restaurant and there are a lot of Navy types in there. I'd hate for you to get in trouble on your last night in Europe."
"Captain," Bull said loudly so the other Marines would hear his reply, "there's something you don't understand about the Navy. The Navy expects us to be wild. That's so they can feel superior to us. They think we're something out of the ice age and it is entirely fittin' that we maintain this image. They expect us to be primitive, son, and it is a sin, a mortal sin, for a Marine ever to let a goddam squid think we are related to them in any way. Hell, if I found out that Naval Academy grads liked to screw women, I'd give serious consideration to becoming a pansy. As a Marine, and especially as a Marine fighter pilot, you've got to constantly keep 'em on their toes. I can see them out there now mincing around like they've got icicles stuck up their butts. They think the Corps is some kind of anal fungus they got to put up with."
"Hell, I'd rather go to war against the Navy than the Russians," Ace Norbett declared.
"Ace, that's always been one of my dreams that the Navy and the Marine Corps go to war. I figure it would take at least fifteen minutes for Marine aviators to make Navy aviators an extinct form of animal life," Bull said.
"They'd have supremacy on the sea, though," Captain Bookout said.
"Let 'em have it. The thing I want to see is those swabbies storming a beach. I bet three Marines could secure a beach against the whole U.S. Navy. Hell, I could hold off half the Navy with just a slingshot and six pissed-off, well-trained oysters on the half shell."
A long whoop and clamor with whistling and foot-stomping arose in the room. It took an extended moment for the room to fall silent when the maitre d' appeared in the doorway accompanied by an aroused Navy captain. The maitre d' smiled triumphantly as he watched the captain stare with majestic disapproval at the assembled Marines, some of whom had snapped to attention as soon as the Navy captain had materialized in the doorway. The power of rank to silence military men survived even into the pixilated frontiers and distant boundaries of drunkenness.
"Who is the senior officer in this group?" the captain snapped.
"He is, sir," Lieutenant Colonel Meecham said, pointing to Ty Mullinax.
"Identify yourself, Colonel."
"Lieutenant Colonel W.P. Meecham, sir," Bull answered.
"What's wrong with that man, Colonel?" the captain said, pointing to Colonel Mullinax.
"He's had the flu, sir. It's weakened him."
"Don't be smart with me, Colonel, unless you wish to subsist on major's pay the rest of your time in the military. Now I was trying to have a pleasant dinner tonight with my wife who flew over from Villa France to join me. There are at least ten other naval officers dining with their ladies and we would appreciate your cooperation in clearing out of this hotel and taking your ungentlemanly conduct elsewhere."
"Sir, this is a going away party for me, sir," Bull explained.
"Your departure should improve the image of the fleet considerably, Colonel. Now I strongly suggest you drink up and get back to the ship."
"Could we take one last drink at the bar, Captain? If we promise to behave like gentlemen?"
"One. And then I don't want to see you anywhere near the area," the captain said as he left the room.
The maitre d' lingered after the captain departed. "Do you wish to have the bill now, senor?" he said to Bull. "It will include the broken glasses and damaged furniture."
"Sure, Pedro," Bull answered. "Better add a doctor bill that you'll have when I punch your taco-lovin' eyes out."
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Houston Chronicle (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-08 00:00>
Reading PAT CONROY is like watching Michelangelo paint the Sistine Chapel. |
Booklist (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-08 00:00>
Tender, raucous, often hilarious. |
Jeffrey Palmatier (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-08 00:00>
From what Pat Conroy has said in numerous interviews, it is obvious that his novel The Great Santini is a thinly disguised autobiographical account of his own childhood as a Marine brat. High school senior Ben Meecham, Pat Conroy's fictional counterpart, is the son of a volatile Marine fighter pilot 'Bull' Meecham, whose nom de guerre is The Great Santini, which, by the way, was also Pat Conroy dad's nom de guerre in real life. Pat Conroy once said that his dad was Zeus and his mom was Hera, and that his first memory was of his dad laughing and hitting his mother in face while she tried to stab him with a knife. Boy, oh boy, if this novel is an accurate representation of what went on in the Conroy household, then he is right about the true identity of his parents! The Great Santini acts, according to his wife Lillian, like a living, breathing Marine recruitment poster. Santini is a man of contradictions, a man who loves his wife and his children more than anything else in the world, but you wouldn't know it from the brutal manner by which he occasionally treats them. By the way, if you saw the wonderful film adaptation of Conroy's novel, you were probably left with the impression that Santini is the only parent in this household that is screwed up. Unlike the movie version, in the novel Santini's wife Lillian, who means well, is in her own way just as screwed up as her husband. Like Santini, Lillian also loves her children more than anything in the world, but she often acts like a demented Scarlett O'Hara. (Indeed, part of the tension between Santini and his wife comes from the fact that she is a Southern Belle who loves her cultural roots, while Santini is a purposely uncouth Yankee from Chicago who despises everything Southern.) Lillian is especially dysfunctional when it comes to teaching gender roles to her daughters. Just as Santini is one extreme with his sons Ben and Matt, wanting them to grow up to be stoic, hard marines who can unmercifully kill America's enemies, Lillian Meecham puts her oldest daughter Mary Anne through hell basically because Mary Anne is a Plain Jane nonconformist who won't conform to her mother's dictum that a woman is like a flower, pretty but silent and modest, while Mary Anne's pretty younger sister Karen does accept her mother's vision of womanhood. Lillian's ideal vision of how a woman should act is ironic because under her soft Southern Belle persona, Santini's wife is woman of steel whose temper is often as fiery and violent as her husband's.
A lot happens action wise in this novel, some of it horrifying, some of it hilarious, but The Great Santini doesn't have an overly obvious narrative drive per se. Instead, the questions that drive the plot of this amazing novel are more subtle: Will Santini be successful in his first command at the Marine base in Ravenel? Will Ben and Mary Anne be successful in their bid to fit in at their new high school? (Like Conroy's The Lords of Discipline, the action of TGS takes place within the space of a school year.) Now that the Great Santini has come home from his year living overseas without his family, will the Meecham family have a better year together this time, or will their family situation become abusive again like in the past? I guess you could argue that The Great Santini is more character-driven than plot-driven, although it's not necessarily easy to make a distinction between the two since action often reveals character. The Great Santini is a fascinating portrayal of how even an extremely dysfunctional family can still love each other, and how a child can love a parent who occasionally causes them great pain. Five stars. |
Stephen Skubinna (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-08 00:00>
Nobody has wrung more novels from a dysfunctional family than Pat Conroy. In The Great Santinti he opens a window which may give a new and unexpected view to many Americans, into the family life of a career military man. For those who have never lived within the military, this book may seem bizarre and contrived. For those of us who did, it hits a nerve - even for those of us whose father was not an abusive borderline alcoholic fighter pilot.
The sense of rootlessness, of being disconnected from the rest of society is here. Military families live in a strange semisubmerged culture invisible to the mainstream, and with the ending of the draft we have a generation of Americans who have never served and thus the gap has widened. The only friendships we form are with other military people, for civilians, even in the towns outside the main gate, are partially alien and can never be part of the community. Conroy captures this, and superimposes upon it the additional strains imposed by the father's domineering, macho, iron willed personality. Face it, he's not Gerald McRaney from Major Dad. No trying to understand the fears and dreams of his family, we do it by the book, my way or no way, sir, yes sir!!! There is stress between Colonel Santini and his neurotic southern belle wife, who wants to ensure her children grow up with a gentle appreciation for life, with his son who wants desperately to please his father but to do it by following his own path, and with his intelligent but socially awkward daughter who being a mere girl is not qualified for the warrior life and thus doesn't count. The military life is hard enough, throwing in these problems on top of it makes you wonder at the limits we accept in everyday life.
Hard edged, disorienting, sometimes ugly, this book is for all veterans of the Cold War, active duty or dependents, who lived with the possibility that the head of the family might be called upon to go off and die in someplace most of us couldn't locate on a globe (as an aside I find that former military brats are much better at geography than most others - for one thing we got letters from all those exotic locales)... Admiral Hyman Rickover once said military officers should be like a caste of warrior priests... this novel is about that caste and the acolytes who also served. Pat Conroy once wrote elsewhere to the effect that his father's job was to be a fighter pilot, and his family's job was to provide that fighter pilot whenever the govenrment called for him.
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