Herman Wouk Dies at Age 103: Author of Masterful World War II Fiction

[+ WilliamM]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/herman-wouk-pulitzer-prize-winning-master-of-sweeping-historical-fiction-dies-a-103/2019/05/17/3eefd034-78be-11e9-b3f5-5673edf2d127_story.html?utm_term=.ba2c3768a1d8

 

 

Obituaries

Herman Wouk, Pulitzer Prize-winning master of sweeping historical fiction, dies at 103

 

 

 

 

By Becky Krystal

 

May 17 at 12:28 PM

 

Herman Wouk, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the Navy drama “The Caine Mutiny” whose sweeping novels about World War II, the Holocaust and the creation of Israel made him one of the most popular writers of his generation and helped revitalize the genre of historical fiction, died May 17 at his home in Palm Springs, Calif. He was 103.

 

His literary agent, Amy Rennert, confirmed the death but did not provide a cause.

 

Mr. Wouk (his last name is pronounced “Woke”) penned a dozen novels, a handful of plays and several nonfiction books over the course of his nearly 60-year career. A meticulous researcher, he specialized in stories of personal conflict set against the backdrop of compelling historical events, including “The Caine Mutiny” (1951), “The Winds of War” (1971) and “War and Remembrance” (1978). The latter two became ABC miniseries in the 1980s starring Robert Mitchum that averaged tens of millions of viewers over the course of their broadcast and were the highest-rated miniseries after Alex Haley’s “Roots.”

 

 

 

In a form that the author would echo in other novels, “The Winds of War” and its sequel, “War and Remembrance,” trace World War II through the experiences of one family. “The Winds of War” follows Navy officer Victor “Pug” Henry and his relatives from the German invasion of Poland to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, where its sequel begins and then proceeds to the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan.

 

The pair of books established Mr. Wouk’s legacy as a master of historical fiction, in which he blended the narrative power of fiction with great understanding and empathy for the human motivations behind wars and other historical events. The Economist magazine called “The Winds of War” “as serious a contribution to the literature of our time as ‘War and Peace’ was to that of the nineteenth century.”

 

Librarian of Congress James H. Billington said Mr. Wouk helped enliven history in ways that many academic tomes never could and prompted readers to examine the past through engaging fictional characters. “I think he’s been a seminal figure because he’s recrafted the historical novel for a modern audience and not for some niche market,” Billington, who died last year, told The Washington Post in an interview for this obituary.

 

Mr. Wouk, who said he was never a “high stylist,” attracted a mass audience with books that espoused such values as gallantry and leadership under pressure. Leading critics sniffed at his books, which they often said broke no ground in writing style or character development.

 

The literary essayist Leslie Fiedler once explained Mr. Wouk’s critical reputation by comparing him with Nobel laureate Saul Bellow. “Bellow, like most writers critics take seriously, attacked the basic values of middle-class Americans: easy piety, marriage, life in the suburbs,” Fiedler said. “Wouk challenges nothing.”

 

Mr. Wouk said he found noncomformity for its own sake an all-too predictable theme in modern literature and had no interest in experimental or temporarily trendy prose styles. “I write a traditional novel, which is rather unfashionable, and I’ve taken a lot of kicking for it,” he once told The Post. “But the strength of my work comes from this intense grounding in the 18th- and 19th-century novelists.”

 

His very significance, wrote Time magazine in a 1955 cover story, was that “he spearheads a mutiny against the literary stereotypes of rebellion — against three decades of U.S. fiction dominated by skeptical criticism, sexual emancipation, social protest and psychoanalytic sermonizing.”

 

Mr. Wouk began his professional career as a gag writer in the 1930s before moving to the staff of the popular radio comedian Fred Allen. He got that job in part for his notoriety at Columbia University, where his Class of 1934 yearbook named him the wittiest student. He later joked, “It was not a very sparkling class.”

 

Enlisting in the Navy during World War II proved a transformative experience in his development as a writer.

“My life was broken at the time, as it was for all of our generation, by the coming of the war, and the winds of war swept a Bronx boy halfway around the world, below the equator, and he landed on an old destroyer minesweeper called the USS Zane,” Mr. Wouk told a National Press Club audience. “And that, I think, is where my adult education really began, because there, the hard shell of a New York wise guy cracked and fell off. The shallow conceit of a successful gag man faded away. . . . When I came back, there no longer was a question of a gag writing. I wanted to write novels.”

 

“The Caine Mutiny: A Novel of World War II” in 1951 brought Mr. Wouk his first critical and popular success, including the Pulitzer. The book centers on a power struggle aboard the destroyer-minesweeper Caine, culminating in a young lieutenant seizing control of the vessel from the paranoid Capt. Queeg after the crew thinks it faces imminent danger.

 

The action culminates in a court-martial for the lieutenant. Although the novel raised questions of authority and duty vs. personal freedom, the naval community embraced it. Queeg also became one of the most memorable characters of the day, a man who relieved his stress by obsessively rolling steel bearings in the palm of his hand.

 

Time magazine called “The Caine Mutiny,” which sold more than 5 million copies worldwide and was translated into 17 languages, the “biggest U.S. bestseller since ‘Gone With the Wind.’ ” A 1954 film adaptation of the novel,

, became a popular hit, earning Bogart an Academy Award nomination.

Comment: I stopped reading Wouk after The Caine Muntiny," although I did try "Marjorie Morningstar."

Edited May 17, 2019 by WilliamM

[TruthBTold]

Notice that he died while residing in Palm Springs, California. I do not think that he attended the 2019 Palm Springs Weekend, although I do not think so.

[+ WilliamM]

Many celebrities die in Palm Springs.

 

It was discussed here when @Kenny and his husband bought a house in Rancho Mirage.

[TruthBTold]

Many celebrities die in Palm Springs.

It was discussed here when @Kenny and his husband bought a house in Rancho Mirage.

 

Thanks. That's good to know. I am going to pack my bags. Maybe I can become a celebrity once I am there.

[+ WilliamM]

Thanks. That's good to know. I am going to pack my bags. Maybe I can become a celebrity once I am there.

 

Before members go door to door in Rancho Mirage to find @Kenny, I believe he is employed somewhere else

[+ Charlie]

Wouk has lived very quietly in PS for decades, because PS is a place where it is easy for an elderly man to go unnoticed.

[+ FreshFluff]

RIP. I enjoyed War and Remembrance a great deal..

 

Charlie, interesting that he's was living in PS. Would anyone know who he was even in LA?

[+ FreshFluff]

RIP. I enjoyed War and Remembrance a great deal..

 

Charlie, interesting that he's was living in PS. Would anyone know who he was even in LA?

[+ WilliamM]

Charlie, interesting that he's was living in PS. Would anyone know who he was even in LA?

 

Probably not because he's been out of the news for about three or four decades.

[+ WilliamM]

Charlie, interesting that he's was living in PS. Would anyone know who he was even in LA?

 

Probably not because he's been out of the news for about three or four decades.

[RealAvalon]

Thanks. That's good to know. I am going to pack my bags. Maybe I can become a celebrity once I am there.

Um … you know there's a difference between famous and infamous … right?