Beach Music is Pat Conroy's novel about Jack McCall, a South Carolina native who ran away from the South with his daughter Leah after his wife committed suicide. This novel explores the era of the Vietnam War, the Holocaust, and the coming of age in the 20th century. It was published in 1995.
Video Beach Music (novel)
Pengenalan plot
Jack McCall, an American living in Rome with his daughter, is trying to find peace after the recent trauma of his wife's suicide, but his search for solitude is disrupted when a family member's telegram calls Jack back to South Carolina to be with a sick mother. He begins to explore his past and all his demons, as well as a new mystery: His brother-in-law and two of his schoolmates invite Jack to help them track down other classmates who go underground as Vietnamese protesters and never reappear. When Jack embarked on a journey that encompassed past and present in Europe and South America, he also began a quest that would lead him to a surprising truth - and ultimately toward catharsis, acceptance and maturity.
Maps Beach Music (novel)
Write and publish
Conroy began writing Beach Music as a way of dealing with his own mother's death in 1984. 10 years later, he sent 2100 pages typed to Doubleday Nan Talese editor. With Conroy's approval and assistance, he trimmed it into a much shorter version. This book reached the top spot in the New York Times Best Sellers list. Paramount Pictures bought the rights to $ 5.1 million, but by 2015, it still has not made it into a movie. The manuscript was written (and rewritten several times), and Brad Pitt at one point offered the passage. Interviewed in 2009, Conroy said his movie plan "is still hanging out there."
Themes
Like The Prince of Tides , Conroy's previous novel, Beach Music is dealing with â € Å"choosing on live wounds with sharp intelligenceâ €.
Some other themes (potentially controversial) in the novel include:
- Suicide, as Jack deals with Shyla's suicide jump from the South Carolina bridge by fleeing to Rome to avoid a traumatic family drama
- War, from Holocaust terror discussed by Jewish characters and the effects of the Vietnam War on those left behind
- Mental illness, as Jack's younger brother, John Hardin, suffers from schizophrenia attacks
- Loss of innocence
- Self-awareness and self-acceptance and personal inheritance
- Find forgiveness from others and from ourselves
- Abuse of power
- Off
- Sadness
- South America South
- Southern Aristocracy
- Storytelling
Settings
Setting holds so important in Beach Music as the theme, or even the main character, Jack McCall. Pat Conroy admits in an interview that the perception that he is "a product of a single landscape is actually wrong". As a military boy, Conroy often moved and lived in Rome, Italy for three years before finding his long-lasting home in Beaufort, South Carolina. These two locales are very important to Jack McCall on Beach Music. He ran from tradition and his past in South Carolina's southern atmosphere, and sought refuge in the food and travel of Rome, Italy.
Charleston, South Carolina represents everything Jack wants to forget, his wife, Shyla, killing himself on Silas Pearman Bridge.
Rome, Italy symbolized the shield that Jack used to protect his daughter, Leah, from their tumultuous family past, and his own discomfort in dealing with the past.
Character
- Jack McCall - The main character in this novel, Jack, is facing the recent suicide of his wife Shyla. As a chef and travel writer, he escaped from Waterford to a peaceful life in Piazza Roma with his daughter Leah. He is the oldest of McCall's five brothers. Jack is a narrator, and to some extent his character is flawed and his passion makes him an unreliable narrator, though he is always honest.
- Leah McCall - Jack McCall's daughter and Shyla Fox. There was a bad custody showdown over Leah involving Jack and Shyla's parents (after her death), but the last letter that Shyla left for Jack proves her parental adequacy.
- Shyla Fox - Jack's wife, daughter of George and Ruth Fox. Committing suicide by jumping from Silas Pearlman Bridge.
- Dupree McCall - The second oldest child of the McCall brothers, Dupree is working in a state mental hospital. His work often carries the burden of his younger brother, John Hardin, who suffers from schizophrenia.
- Dallas McCall - The third oldest brother of the McCall brothers, he is a legal partner with "The Judge" in Waterford.
- Tee McCall - The fourth oldest child of the McCall brothers, Tee is a teacher for autistic children in Georgetown County.
- John Hardin McCall - The youngest of McCall's five brothers, John Hardin suffers from various psychological diseases and often spends time in a mental hospital in Columbia, SC. â € <â € <
- Martha Fox - Shyla's sister.
- Ruth Fox - Mother Shyla; Grandma Leah.
- Judge Johnson Hagood McCall - Jack's father and drunken drunkard, "The Judge" has been divorced from Jack's mother for years, but he keeps chasing after him.
- Lucy McCall - The mother of five McCall brothers. Suffering from leukemia, Lucy wants to spend her days left on the beach, surrounded by her family and endangered loggerhead turtles. It was his illness that called Jack and Leah out of Italy and returned to the United States.
- Silas McCall - "The Judge's" father; Grandpa Jack.
- Jordan Elliot - Jack's close friend, he moved to Waterford when both were in high school. A military boy with a tyrant's father, Jordan fought against authority in his youth. He is caught in a scandal that has motivated him to retreat in the priesthood in Italy, where he and Jack reconnect.
- Mike Hess - One of Jack's other high school friends, Mike is a Hollywood producer. He wants to tell their childhood story through mini-series that he hopes to produce. After remembering Mike as one of the nicest people of his youth, Jack admits (as did Mike, himself) that Hollywood has turned Mike into worse.
- Ledare Ansley - Capers Former Middleton wife, Ledare is one of Jack's childhood friends. Beautiful and charming, Ledare became increasingly important to Jack as the novel grew.
- Capers Middleton - Jack's other friend from high school. His father's legacy is known for their aristocracy and political prowess in South Carolina. Capers hopes to run for governor of South Carolina. After returning to stabbing Jack on campus, he tries to restore his friendship with him after Shyla's death.
- Max Russoff - Ruth's adoptive father; after Ruth went through the Holocaust, it was Max "The Great Jew" who saved him from Poland.
External links
- Beach Music quote
- Silas Pearlman Bridge Information
References
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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