Quote Porn
The Prince of Tides
"There is such a thing as too much beauty in a woman and it is often a burden as crippling as homeliness and far more dangerous. It takes much luck and integrity to survive the gift of perfect beauty, and its impermanence is its most cunning betrayal."
"My body had not felt like an instrument of love or passion for such a long time; it had been a winter of deadening seriousness, when all the illusions and bright dreams of my early twenties had withered and died. I did not yet have the interior resources to dream new dreams; I was far too busy mourning the death of the old ones and wondering how I was to survive without them. I was sure I could replace them somehow, but was not sure I could restore their brassy luster or dazzling impress."
The New York Trilogy
"Stories happen only to those who are able to tell them, someone once said. In the same way, perhaps, experiences present themselves only to those who are able to have them."
"Nothing is that simple. There are no odds to beat, no rules to set a limit on bad luck, and at each moment we begin again, as ripe for a low blow as we were a moment before."
A Few Thoughts
I won't pummel in the vicinity of the proverbial brier; the lexicon administered by Pat Conroy is superfluously complex and decidedly anti-sesquipedalian.
Blech.
In other, less unnecessary words: there's no such thing as a simple page in The Prince of Tides. Conroy uses big words whenever possible, often when much simpler words would suffice. This style appeals to me because I loves me a bit of flair in my prose, but I can see how it would be a turnoff.
That said, I don't know that The Prince of Tides would be quite the same achievement in writing that it is without Conroy's monstrous and aggressive vocabulary. Other books I've read about the southern US never drew me in with their setting whatsoever. However, I posit that Conroy's description of the marshlands, the customs, and the interactions of the townsfolk on Melrose Island was compelling precisely because of how it was written.
I'd also liken Tom Wingo to the song New World Man by Rush: Odds are, if you like the media, you think yourself like the character. While I don't share any of the many deep traumas or ridiculous upbringing of Tom, his outlook on his adult life and his interactions with it often feel like my own. In this way, he was all the more relatable and pitiable and his story drew me in.
And it's a story that will surprise with all the entertaining elements: a pet tiger, a domestic terrorist older brother, a fanatical grandfather... folks who've only seen the movie don't have any idea what they missed. The book pulls a number of sideswiping plot developments (they're not really twists) that are sometimes funny and sometimes tragic and, perhaps most importantly, are more than just a vehicle used for the creation of a love story.
More advantages of the book: no Nick Nolte, no Barbara Streisand...
Anyway.
The New York Trilogy barely meets my conditions for inclusion in this tournament, being a collection of three "separate" short stories. However, the common themes and characters from them (including Paul Auster himself, postmodernmetasayswhat) marry them in a gestalt-y way that insists they be read together.
Auster's stories all appear austere at first blush, but quickly become convoluted in their own way. City of Glass has a great unlikely-gumshoe start that quickly devolves into mental illness. Ghosts, my favorite of the three, is kind of like The Crying of Lot 49 in that it's intriguingly hard to tell the difference between conspiracy and paranoia. The Locked Room sees the deteriorating sanity angle again, with returning characters and more great moments of tension.
Tension is the word that was at the core of The New York Trilogy for me. Auster's style is solid, his settings are solid, his endings aren't really for me but are definitely staples of noir and of the meta-fiction that he's created... but it's all about the tension. Wondering who's really pulling the strings in the color-driven Ghosts or where on Earth Fanshawe has disappeared in The Locked Room creates an intense apprehension that got me through the whole thing in a weekend.
Blech.
In other, less unnecessary words: there's no such thing as a simple page in The Prince of Tides. Conroy uses big words whenever possible, often when much simpler words would suffice. This style appeals to me because I loves me a bit of flair in my prose, but I can see how it would be a turnoff.
That said, I don't know that The Prince of Tides would be quite the same achievement in writing that it is without Conroy's monstrous and aggressive vocabulary. Other books I've read about the southern US never drew me in with their setting whatsoever. However, I posit that Conroy's description of the marshlands, the customs, and the interactions of the townsfolk on Melrose Island was compelling precisely because of how it was written.
I'd also liken Tom Wingo to the song New World Man by Rush: Odds are, if you like the media, you think yourself like the character. While I don't share any of the many deep traumas or ridiculous upbringing of Tom, his outlook on his adult life and his interactions with it often feel like my own. In this way, he was all the more relatable and pitiable and his story drew me in.
And it's a story that will surprise with all the entertaining elements: a pet tiger, a domestic terrorist older brother, a fanatical grandfather... folks who've only seen the movie don't have any idea what they missed. The book pulls a number of sideswiping plot developments (they're not really twists) that are sometimes funny and sometimes tragic and, perhaps most importantly, are more than just a vehicle used for the creation of a love story.
More advantages of the book: no Nick Nolte, no Barbara Streisand...
Anyway.
The New York Trilogy barely meets my conditions for inclusion in this tournament, being a collection of three "separate" short stories. However, the common themes and characters from them (including Paul Auster himself, postmodernmetasayswhat) marry them in a gestalt-y way that insists they be read together.
Auster's stories all appear austere at first blush, but quickly become convoluted in their own way. City of Glass has a great unlikely-gumshoe start that quickly devolves into mental illness. Ghosts, my favorite of the three, is kind of like The Crying of Lot 49 in that it's intriguingly hard to tell the difference between conspiracy and paranoia. The Locked Room sees the deteriorating sanity angle again, with returning characters and more great moments of tension.
Tension is the word that was at the core of The New York Trilogy for me. Auster's style is solid, his settings are solid, his endings aren't really for me but are definitely staples of noir and of the meta-fiction that he's created... but it's all about the tension. Wondering who's really pulling the strings in the color-driven Ghosts or where on Earth Fanshawe has disappeared in The Locked Room creates an intense apprehension that got me through the whole thing in a weekend.
Head-to-Head
Characters: Auster's characters serve their purpose, but so much verbose detail is given to the Wingo family and to Dr. Lowenstein.
Advantage: The Prince of Tides.
Plot: The Prince of Tides wears on seemingly forever, but is always interesting. The New York trilogy is short and intense. Both are great in their own right, but I liked one better.
Advantage: The Prince of Tides.
Ending: I didn't love the maddening endings to any of Auster's trilogy. Conversely, it was a moment of half-love, half-hate when I met the surprise ending of The Prince of Tides only to discover that it explained an early Simpsons reference I'd never really understood.
Advantage: But Marge, her name is Zweig! The Prince of Tides.
Language/Writing: Conroy's style is absolutely love or hate, and my tastes find me in the former category.
Advantage: The Prince of Tides.
Philosophy: Neither of these books really gave me much food for thought outside of their covers. The Prince of Tides focuses its massive breadth to develop intricate characters and settings rather than Didacticism, and The New York Trilogy, while arguably about the nature of authorship, was all for the story to me.
Advantage: Push.
Winner Winner Turkey Supper
I keep shutting out books I enjoyed by scores of 4-0 because they're against books I enjoyed way more. In this case especially, the two books would appeal wildly differently to different people, and Auster's trilogy is a staple in the noir genre for a reason.
The Prince of Tides breezes to round 2 regardless.
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