I think I read just about everything he wrote. The Winds of War and War and Remembrance are titanic.
Posted on 05/18/2019 5:52:07 AM PDT by Rummyfan
Herman Wouk, the versatile, Pulitzer Prize winning author of such million-selling novels as “The Caine Mutiny” and “The Winds of War” whose steady Jewish faith inspired his stories of religious values and secular success, died on Friday at 103.
Wouk was just 10 days shy of his 104th birthday and was working on a book until the end, said his literary agent Amy Rennert.
Rennert said Wouk died in his sleep at his home in Palm Springs, California, where he settled after spending many years in Washington, D.C.
Among the last of the major writers to emerge after World War II and first to bring Jewish stories to a general audience, he had a long, unpredictable career that included gag writing for radio star Fred Allen, historical fiction and a musical co-written with Jimmy Buffett. He won the Pulitzer in 1952 for “The Caine Mutiny,” the classic Navy drama that made the unstable Captain Queeg, with the metal balls he rolls in his hand and his talk of stolen strawberries, a symbol of authority gone mad. A film adaptation, starring Humphrey Bogart, came out in 1954 and Wouk turned the courtroom scene into the play “The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial.”
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...
I think I read just about everything he wrote. The Winds of War and War and Remembrance are titanic.
Nearly 104! Hope he also wrote a non-fiction book along the way about how to live that long . . .
Z”L
Always loved his insight expressed in the Caine Mutiny. “You respect the Captain because he is the Captain and you are not”. By respect he meant that you serve, support and perform to the best of your abilities even in difficult circumstances for the good of a just enterprise. Cain’s fellow veterans who read this inherently understood the concept. Today’s narcissistic, pampered millennial snowflakes have no comprehension of such sentiments. America has changed.
So true.
“This Is My God”
My father served on the USS Southard in early 1945. Wouk was the CO. My father said he was the best CO he had during his time at sea.
“The Navy is a master plan designed by geniuses for execution by idiots. If you are not an idiot, but find yourself in the Navy, you can only operate well by pretending to be one. All the shortcuts and economies and common-sense changes that your native intelligence suggests to you are mistakes. Learn to quash them. Constantly ask yourself, "How would I do this if I were a fool?" Throttle down your mind to a crawl. Then you will never go wrong.”
― Herman Wouk, The Caine Mutiny
Marjorie Morningstar
So many recent deaths and such longevity. Amazing! Must be all those pharmaceuticals advertised on TV. Wonder if I could get a federal grant keeping track of them all in an hours time...Would be an interesting project. Much more so than the homosexual tendencies of the seagulls at Catalina Island.
Did he use McCain for his inspiration for Captain Queeg or was it the other way around?
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