Herman Wouk wrote this guidebook to explain Judaism about 40 years ago:
Posted on 05/17/2019 9:47:02 AM PDT by Borges
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Herman Wouk has died. Wouk was famous for his sprawling World War II novels, including The Winds of War and War and Remembrance, and for his portrayal of Jewish-Americans in the novel Marjorie Morningstar. He died in his sleep today at his home in Palm Springs, Calif.
Many people might remember Wouk for a certain incident in involving strawberries in The Caine Mutiny, which became a film in 1954. After having a breakdown at sea, the tyrannical Captain Queeg accuses his crew of stealing a quart of strawberries and becomes obsessed with finding the culprit.
Humphrey Bogart played Queeg in the film, but he wasn't exactly what Wouk had in mind when he wrote the character. In the book, Wouk described the captain as "a small man" with "strands of sandy hair across an almost bald head." In 2004, the author told NPR, "Now Captain Queeg is Humphrey Bogart. There's nothing you can do about it, and I'm perfectly content with [it.] That was one of the great performances, I think, of his career."
The Caine Mutiny was Wouk's most celebrated book, but he had a substantial career both before and after it. He got his start in writing years earlier, in comedy. For five years starting in 1936, Wouk wrote jokes and sketches for the popular radio host Fred Allen. But after Pearl Harbor, the 26-year-old enlisted in the Navy and served in the Pacific. In his off hours, Wouk began to write Aurora Dawn, a novel that got mixed reviews. His second book, City Boy, did worse. But The Caine Mutiny put him on the map. It won a Pulitzer Prize, it was a bestseller and it became a play and a movie.
Wouk told NPR, "When I finished The Caine Mutiny, I wrote in my work journal ... 'Unless I'm mistaken, this is a good book. But it's not yet the war novel I mean to write.' "
In fact, it was the first in a run of ambitious books that included The Winds of War and War and Remembrance, each about a thousand pages long. And war wasn't Wouk's only subject. He wrote about the publishing world, a fictional Caribbean island and the founding of Israel. And in Marjorie Morningstar, he tapped into his own heritage as a New York-born child of Jewish immigrants to tell the story of a young girl trying to break into show business.
He really was the Jackie Robinson of Jewish-American fiction.
Jonathan Karp, president and publisher of Simon & Schuster
"He really was the Jackie Robinson of Jewish-American fiction," says Jonathan Karp, president and publisher of Simon & Schuster and editor of Wouk's last book, Sailor and Fiddler. "He was on the cover of Time magazine for Marjorie Morningstar, and he popularized a lot of themes that other writers — like [Saul] Bellow and [Philip] Roth and [Bernard] Malamud — would deal with in their novels."
Karp says that one of the reasons Wouk appealed to readers for so many years was the variety in his novels. "He really did not want to write the same novel twice. The writers he admired were the greats — they were the Victorian novelists, they were writers like [Thomas] Hardy. He wanted to write big novels about complicated lives and the cultures in which they took place."
Herman Wouk Says He's A 'Happy Gent' At 100 AUTHOR INTERVIEWS Herman Wouk Says He's A 'Happy Gent' At 100 Despite his popularity with readers, Wouk didn't always get a good critical response. The New York Times called The Winds of War long and "mildly interesting" with an "indifference to quality" and a "reliance on clichés."
According to Karp, many of the critics missed the point. "One of the reasons why he didn't get the kind of stellar reviews that writers like Saul Bellow got was because he was accessible." And Wouk did express serious ideas in his fiction. In one section of War and Remembrance, he reflects on the Holocaust:
"The accounts I have heard of what the Germans are doing in camps like [Auschwitz] exceed all human experience. Words break down as a means of describing them. ... The Thucydides who will tell this story so that the world can picture, believe, and remember may not be born for centuries. Or if he lives now, I am not he."
But Karp says Wouk was the writer to tell these stories. "I think he aimed high and had large ambitions for reaching a lot of readers — and he entertained millions of them." And with all of his major works still in print, chances are, in the years to come, Herman Wouk will entertain millions more.
One of the giants. RIP.
I always thought The Caine Mutiny was a very good book. I don’t think I ever saw the movie.
103 is a good run...
And he surely left his positive mark in the world.
RIP.
These are great books IMHO. Kind of long-1200 pages or so each, but great. FYI "Winds of War" is the lead-up to war and more or less ends at Pearl Harbor. "War and Remembrance" is about the war itself and the Holocaust.
I recall being in the Library passing by a few shelves full of his books. Most Herman Wouk books were physically HUGE! The book spines would measure 3.5 inches across on some.
Too much of a challenge for me to even begin.
I had a big enough battle plowing through War & Peace.
Somehow I'm thinking of the SNL Cowbell skit where Christopher Walken (aka Bruce Dickinson -- yes: the Bruce Dickinson) says, "You're all going to wearing solid gold diapers!"
And someone says, "What does that even mean??"
The film was brilliant. Jose Ferrer did a stellar job, one of his best.
He sure was. I read “The Winds of War” and “War and Remembrance” last year, they left such a mark on me. I watched the mini series of both afterward, War and Remembrance was actually filmed in Auschwitz. Read “The Caine Mutiny” in high school, the movie was very good as well.
I had the great honor of hearing him a few years ago at the LA Times Festival of Books at UCLA. One of the few authors worth a damn that show up for that far left affair. I have rarely felt more honored than to be in the presence of someone. He was a GIANT, and amazing national treasure. Ive read many of his books and plan to read them all.
‘I don’t think I ever saw the movie.’
great movie, with the exception of Robert Francis as Ensign Keith; that said, the portrayal (by the great Fred McMurray)of the slimy Kiefer, oily and unctious and utterly despicable, was one for the ages...
Herman Wouk wrote this guidebook to explain Judaism about 40 years ago:
And I. M. Pei at 102.
Difficult to last past 100.
Best line. “You respect the Captain because he is the Captain and you are not.” Respect means support and service to the best of your abilities despite difficult circumstances. The veterans who read Caine Mutiny inherently understood the concept and its value. Today narcissistic millennials and most Americans find such insights incomprehensible.
‘Jose Ferrer did a stellar job, one of his best.’
‘right now, you all stand a very good chance of being hanged...’
Rest in peace, Chaim ben Avraham. Thanks for your incredible books, and your attempts to keep this a moral nation. Sincere condolences to your family.
War and Remembrance is the best min-series ever, and it has the toughest Holocaust scenes.
I am jealous that you got to meet him, but that incident is (from everything I’ve ever heard about him) very typical of Wouk. He was, above all else, a mensch.
I’ve read all his books except the most recent. He and Michener are both great WWII writers. No more like that today.
One of the great ones. I don’t know his equal among the current crop.
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