Reviews

• 誰か翻訳してくれませんか

  ２０年以上も前にジョン・ボイト主演で映画化された作品ですが、残念ながら日本ではきちんと紹介された形跡がありません。黒人生徒たちに学ぶ楽しさを教えようと孤軍奮闘して、既存の体制の前にあえなく敗退していった白人教師の物語です。黒人に対する露骨な差別がまだまだ存在していた南部のある島でのお話ですが、著者の体験記であるという事実の重さがなかなか読ませます。 学ぶってことの大切さが、こうした極限状況の中にいる生徒と教師の姿を通して読む者に迫ってくる気がします。 パット・コンロイの小説自体はいくつか翻訳されているのに、この作品が日本語になっていないのはとても惜しい気がします。

• The water is wide, great title!

  After having read the Beach Song, I have to read all Conroy's books and started with this one. Excellent book, well written. I laughed aloud, cried and got angry.Must get on with all the others now.

• Unterricht mal anders!

  Conroy berichtet von seiner Zeit als Lehrer an einer gottverlassenen Inselschule. Mit viel Gefühl, allerhand listigen Tricks sowie Unterstützung einiger Kollegen vom "Land" mischt er die bestehende Struktur gewaltig auf und verschafft seinen Schülern einzigartige Erlebnisse. Wunderbare Sprache.

• Great story! My first Pat Conroy book, but not my last.

  This is my first Pat Conroy book. All of his books have great reviews on Amazon, so I wasn't sure which one to start with; I just picked this one. I think I made a very good choice by reading 'The Water Is Wide' first. It's an early book, and I got a lot of insight into who Pat Conroy is, his humor, his goodwill, the kinds of people he surrounds himself with, etc. I just started reading 'Beach Music' and I really feel an affinity for this author after reading 'The Water is Wide.' I appreciate his ability to write and articulate ideas. 'The Water is Wide' is about the time period in the south in which many people grew up with racial prejudices as a way of life. As children, it's "just the way it is" and they don't know any better. As Mr. Conroy became a man, more educated and involved in the very things he had been taught to dislike as a child, he underwent a huge personal change and touched so many people along the way. I like his kick-*** attitude and how candidly he wrote about everything. This story moved me on many different levels. This is a book about a man helping others, inspiring others, and overcoming the false beliefs about race that stemmed from his upbringing and culture. It's also about someone who was courageous enough to stand up to authority. It's a wonderful story. If it were fiction, it would be a good story. But the fact that it is based on the author's experience just makes it even better. Can't wait to read the rest of his books! I looked up Daufuskie (aka Yamacraw) Island on Google and it seems to be a big resort island with golf courses and hotels now; probably nothing like the Yamacraw Mr. Conroy experienced many years ago. Must visit some day anyway. I searched for the movie 'Conrack' on Amazon, but they seem to only have VHS version sold by a different seller, but not available on DVD. Conrack wasn't on Netflix either. Let's hope it gets re-released on DVD.

• 1950s Classroom management 101

  I want to read this book again. It's one of my all-time favourites, but my kindle has marked it 'read' and I can't access it any more. Is it true you can only read a book once if you've bought it for kindle? This was a great story, fast paced, interesting and so true to life with no washing over touchy topics. I would have bought hard copy if I had realized it would be locked up and I could not reread it.

• Descriptive, illuminating, funny - and unfortunately still relevant

  I had not read anything by Pat Conroy before so I came to this book uninitiated in his genre. The book is a fictionalized account of his time spent as a young teacher in the late 1960s on a small island off the Carolinas. Born and raised in the US south, he admits to many of the prejudices of the region when it came to black people. (He admits to 'watermeloning' when he was in high school - a pack of white kids driving along in a car throwing watermelons at blacks walking along the road.) But he begins to overcome these prejudices and champions the young black kids he has been sent to teach. His accounts of his battles with school boards, with the black female principal of the school, with some of the other residents of the island (black and white) and even with the weather are descriptive, illuminating and often funny. I would describe the story as merely historical if it weren't for current events - which makes this 50 year old tale unfortunately still relevant.

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