MovieChat Forums > The Prince of Tides (1991) Discussion > I just finished the book... (spoilers)

I just finished the book... (spoilers)

posted 19 years ago by Stars_88_
6 replies | jump to latest

...and it brough me to tears. I've never in my life read something so beautiful and so sad. The poor Wingo siblings had practically gone through hell and when Luke died I just, Christ, I cried and cried and cried until my god damn eyes hurt. It wasn't fair, he was on his way to give up, he just wanted to say goodbye to the old house he called home and *pang* somebody shoots him. Through the book I got more and more "attached" to him, I've always wanted a big brother and somehow I pictured him as a long lost brother. He was strong, protective, wise, mysterious. Jesus, I just lost it when he died...sorry for being so dramatic but I just needed to pour my heart out to somebody and since no one I know have read the book I went for the internet.
I have a questions for those who have read the book, does anybody wonder why Luke never had a girlfriend? Savannah mentioned it in the book but they never really gave an answer to it. Had it something to do with their screwed up mother?

[–] 19 years ago

[deleted]

[–] riana_martin2000 19 years ago

I always thought that maybe Luke was either gay and closeted, or developing schizophrenia (which I personally think was what Savannah had) or a combination of the two. I just felt he didn't have a girlfriend because he couldn't trust people. Whether that was due to his upbringing or what happened to his family. . .I don't know.

[–] Strausszek 19 years ago

Luke is a bit enigmatic, but I feel the story of him and the uprooting of Colleton is a part of the novel that actually works better than the center of the plot, the parts that are to do with Dr Lowenstein and Svannah's mental syndromes (I've posted a bit about that in other threads). But the chapters about Luke as a grown man stand up on their own.

I feel Conroy wouldn't want to pursue him too far, because he gets into military life, goes to Vietnam etc, and Pat's earlier novels had dealt heavily with the Navy: The Great Santini and The Lords of Discipline, so a close-up prtrait of Luke would have repeated stuff he'd already been through, and the book was a fat one already. In some way he's a contrast to the sixties kids (represented in the book by Savannah, though we don't really see much of what happened to the Wingo kids between 1963 and about 1970) who went to the big cities and to Woodstock, smoked pot, started rock bands or hitch-hiked across America. I can imagine Tom or Savannah tripping on LSD, but not Luke.
He's somehow too rooted in the local South to act like that, and therefore he becomes a victim (a little like The Deer Hunter)

[–] MovieQuoteGal 18 years ago

I've never in my life read something so beautiful and so sad.

I totally agree. At the end I was sobbing so much. A book has never made me cried. It was both beautiful and terribly sad. Wonderfully written.

Lorelai:The government will close that day.Barbra Streisand will give her final concert... again.

[–] Ekir75 18 years ago

I have a questions for those who have read the book, does anybody wonder why Luke never had a girlfriend? Savannah mentioned it in the book but they never really gave an answer to it. Had it something to do with their screwed up mother?

Hmm. That's an interesting question that never occurred to me. A girlfriend would have screwed things up. I just got the feeling he was a loner and was, perhaps, developing mental illness like his sister.

[–] Lowenstein1992 18 years ago

The Prince of Tides is, too, my all-time favorite books, and it brings me to tears so many times every time I read it. The ending is, particularly, one of the most brilliant and touching pieces of literature ever.

Regarding Luke, I used to wonder the same thing myself, and I just concluded that he was a lonely soul, unable to be attached to anybody in his unique vision of the world. I don't believe in the mental illness theory, though, but his experiences in early life in such a household have, in my opinion, a lot to do with his detachment from people.