Many years ago a psychiatric nurse friend gave me a copy of Pat Conroy‘s Prince of Tides, “because you need to confront some issues in your life.”
I read it, reluctantly, saw what she meant, and dealt with those issues. Thanks, MaryLynn.
But I can’t tell you what Prince of Tides is about per se, because I read it only once. All I know is there was this lion . . .
The lion’s dramatic scene hit me hard, even as it helped. I stuffed the story away and didn’t think about it again until one day at the San Francisco zoo.
Another friend said, “If you’re going to the zoo, make sure you’re in the lion house at three. That’s when they feed the lions and it’s very dramatic.”
Our sons were young, under eight, and we enjoyed the zoo back in 1988. At two-fifty in the afternoon, we entered the lion house–an enclosed old adobe building then, with cages on three sides where the big cats lounged while awaiting their meal.
We’d been warned it was fresh meat.
These cats knew the time and at three o’clock began demanding their food loudly when the haunches and legs appeared.
The thunderous roaring rang through the enclosure, echoing off the walls with an almost physical sound wave.
The boys were delighted. My husband grinned.
I flashbacked to Prince of Tides, that lion scene. My heart raced, “flee,” screamed my brain, and pure panic threatened. “I’ve got to get out of here,” I shouted over the growling, snarling, salivating roars.
My husband shrugged, “Sure.”
I ran.
Wracked with sobs and terror I didn’t even know I possesed, I flung myself onto a bench outside–the roars now dulled to a manageable, TV volume–and shook until I calmed down.
Something I had read and barely remembered was provoked by an experience and became too much to handle.
How’s that for confronting my demons, MaryLynn?
I remembered those emotions last Saturday when my husband, two Chinese foreign exchange students, and I visited Civil War Days at Duncan Mills, California. It was a lovely day and we entered the large acreage eagerly. I was there to do research, the boys to experience American culture, and my husband to humor me.
We started in the sutler’s camp where Civil War-related items were for sale. We walked past the wooden replica of a nineteenth century building serving food (hot dogs). Beyond that we came to the parade grounds and there they were: a lineup of Union soldiers.
My husband laughed, the boys surged ahead, and I freaked out.
I’m writing a novel from the Confederate side–my hero is a cavalry Brigadier General fighting against the men in blue.
Who would have guessed I’d have trouble just seeing Union Army re-enactors?
And would it be worse when the shooting began?
I’ve read so much on this subject, visited the cemeteries and the battlefields, seen the movies, why was this so difficult?
Perhaps it was sitting in bleachers on a warm day, hearing the roar of real period cannon (firing blanks or nothing at all), seeing the smoke, hearing the jingle of the harness as horses galloped into battle?
Maybe it was experiencing it in three dimensions through all my senses, rather than only reading it on a page and allowing my mind to invent the images?
Experts tell us one of the differences between reading a scary book to a child and allowing a child to watch a frightening movie is when you read something, you bring to that book your own life experiences and imagination.
Thus, you can only “picture” the story using something in your experience.
When you watch it on television, you are seeing what someone else–usually someone with a different set of life experiences from you–envisions the scene.
Thus, what is terrifying to a small child being read to, is something concrete: they understand Heidi’s fear when she can’t find her grandfather in the fog. Isn’t that what a child fears most? Not being able to find a parent when they are frightened?
But what if a child watches a film that exposes them to a terror “owned” by the director–an adult who has lived longer? Wouldn’t that scary scene be harder for a child to assimilate, and thus more terrifying?
I took 30 years of life into Prince of Tides, and that lion scene (whatever it was) forced me to confront demons from my past in a way I didn’t see coming. And while I dealt with the issues after that, some of them were still sleeping when I went to the lion house on a hungry afternoon.
Seeing that book image in three-dimensional roaring, snarling, white-toothed reality, triggered a primieval fear. I took a priveval course of action and ran: to a bench where I could then regain my emotions and my mind and deal, yet again, with my fears.
It was not dramatic like that at Civil War Days. I got over my horror at confronting the men in blue. But I had to take long deep breaths and remind myself, “this is all in fun.”
And it was fun.
Even when we had to stick our fingers in our ears and open our mouths against the roaring cannon concussions.
My hero has demons to deal with and so do I, yet. Hopefully, my writing the pages of his story will allow some of those fears to be confronted in a positive way.
You know, to take into real life?
Have you seen literature do this? Any book in particular?
Nice writing. That is what I loved the most about “Prince of Tides.” Conroy is wonderfully articulate, and so are you.
Thanks you.
Wow, this is really great! I love the juxtaposition of fiction and life, history and the present — provides much food for thought. I can’t wait to see what you discover about yourself as you continue this book journey. I firmly believe there was a reason this unlikely project came to be; so interesting to watch it unfold.
Funny that you mentioned Heidi: I remember decorating the Christmas tree one cold night when Susan was about five. She’d watched her Disney videos a million times, so I scanned the classic movie channels on cable tv for something I thought she’d like — and found the classic Shirley Temple version of Heidi. Great, I thought, she’ll love it…I was puttering away while she watched it, entranced. Until she started sobbing, gasping for air; it was the scene where Heidi’s taken away from Grandfather and is distraught. She still remembers that to this day, 23 or so years later, and shudders. I know she’d have been sad at reading the story, but that visceral black-and-white movie scene was just too much to bear.