Comments on the Prince of Tides

I'm currently reading The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy and hating it. Then again, I've only read the first 100 pages detailing endless descriptions of how depressing his family is. I truly don't see the point of using a page to document the fact that a woman is sitting silently in a mental hospital and what that possibly might mean.

"My sister did not move. Her spirit had been subtracted out of her flesh. There was a mineral stillness to her repose, an immaculate divinity to the black ensemble of her catatonia... There is integrity in the vow of silence and something sacred in the renounciation of movement. It is the quietest human drama of the soul undone, the solemn dress rehearsal for death itself. I had not seen my sister not move before...blah blah blah... And, she had added, she could not hurt herself when she was not moving"... and only a page more of the description of the fact that his sister was silent and not moving.

I hate pointless reiterations, especially in the type of language he uses.

Why?

1) Is he showing off the fact he can string together stuff like "an immaculate divinity to the black ensemble of the catatonia"? Not only is this a gross exaggeration of the simple point he wanted to convey in the first place, it becomes meaningless junk after the 2nd page of this stuff.

2) Why does he need to even talk about this pointless scene for a whole page? He could have easily said:

"She was huddled into the corner of the white-washed walls of the hospital. Silent and unmoving, her blank expression stirred in my mind the impression of the dead."... or something to that effect.

3) Though his flowery language is nice to read once in a while, it detracts from the possible influence it could have had, had it been used sparingly and at a point that deserved such a description.

In addition, I especially hate the unrealistic nature of his characters. Take this for example:

Tom (the main character) has just been informed by his wife that she is cheating on him.

This is his reply: "May I please know who it is?"

And this is coming from a person who's self-admittedly cynical and tremendously contemptuous of others due to the fact that his sister is a suicidal maniac and his father is in jail for murder. Not only is he often disrespectful to others, his ego is impossible to deal with. Soaked in self-pity, he believes that his miserable life deserves much more attention than what others are giving him.

This is his thought process (I made it up) --> "Oh my god! Our family was so dysfunctional that my sister had to move to New York, the most detestable city in the world! You can just see how bad my family was to push her to such a drastic action!"

I can't handle Conroy's meaningless babble anymore. The only interesting parts are when he's (Tom) recounting the story of his childhood to a psychiatrist and using a lot less adjectives. Had the characters been alive and real, I'd fully understand why his sister would go mad in this family - the narrator is simply too much to listen to.

- Keep in mind, however, I've only read 100 of the 650 pages, and he hasn't even begin explaining why his whole family is in this outrageously depressive and homicidal mood.