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.
What’s amazing is that the actor(who recently died) was jewish.
Thank you for passing that along.
The character I remember most from War and Remembrance is Berel Jastrow, exhuming the mass graves of Jews shot by the Einsatzgruppen and praying over each and every one he lifted from the ground.
And the scene where the German soldier was doing his business on the corpses. He paid for that later, though.
BTW, anyone here read Marjorie Morningstar? I always thought it was autobiographical about a girl he fell for when he was a young writer.
I’ve been using “The Caine Mutiny” (54 movie) in my teaching for over 20 years. The later HBO film, “The Caine Mutiny Court Martial (1988) gives reinforces the earlier work, but with a slightly different perception and spin. Both films are just portions of the entire novel, which holds a few surprises for those who’ve seen the films but haven’t read the book.
Ditto and Amen, to that.
Just watched The Caine Mutiny a couple of weeks ago.
I've read them more times than I can count in the near half century since publication and each and every time I find something new to enlighten the experience of Wolk's wonderful writing. Now to the television mini-series, while both were excellent productions in both detail and production values, the casting and acting were, IMHO, below par as noted below:
Robert Mitchum played Victor "Pug" Henry and while Bob Mitchum is without doubt one of the best film actors of all time, he was 65-years old when "Winds" was filmed and pushing 70 when "Remembrance" went before the cameras. Mitchum, I am sorry to say, was just too old for the part and while he did not phone it in, his acting was not up to the standards of his past work. PLUS he was too damn tall as will be explained in the following.
Polly Bergen played Rhoda Henry and she drove the nail in perfectly for an acting role that required tremendous skills to give balance Rhoda 'the Good Wife' as opposed to Rhoda 'the Bitch' as she goes from one to the other. As to her downfall, it was the novelty of looking up for a kiss from Fred Kirby that sealed the deal.
While I detest Ed Asner's liberal politics, he would have been the perfect "Pug" Henry in both stature, age (54 when filming began) and, giving the devil his due, acting chops.
Ali MacGraw played Natalie Jastrow in "Winds" and to my mind, did the part justice as the character was written yet she was replaced by Jane Seymour in "Remembrance." Jane was just too pretty for the part and did not have that touch of ethnic Jewish look that Ali brought to the role.
Jan-Michael Vincent played Byron "Briny" Henry in "Winds" and while he looked the part, his wooden acting did not fill the bill. Hart Bochner replaced him as Byron Henry in "Remembrance" but was yet neither were the "Briny" Wolk created in the novels.
Ben Murphy played Warren Henry in "Winds" and Michael Woods as Warren Henry in "Remembrance" as here was the sin of the mini-series. Warren was the hero's hero in the whole damn plot of the novels but was relayed to a minor character in the teleplays. Both actors did what they could with the material given.
Okay, I'll get off my I know better sthick and say that every year or so, I re-watch the mini-series as even with my bitching above, they are most enjoyable entertainment.
"The play was first presented by Paul Gregory in the Granada Theatre, Santa Barbara, California, on October 12, 1953 and then went on tour across the United States before being given its first performance on Broadway at the Plymouth Theatre on 20 January 1954 in a production directed by Charles Laughton and produced by Paul Gregory. The play starred Henry Fonda as Barney Greenwald, the accused mutineer's defense attorney, and John Hodiak as the accused, Steve Maryk; Lloyd Nolan played Queeg. Herbert Anderson (later Dennis the Menace's father on TV) played Dr. Bird. James Garner appeared in a non speaking role as a court martial panelist. It ran for 415 performances.
"It was revived in 1983 at the Stamford Center for the Arts, Stamford, Connecticut and then at the Circle in the Square Theatre in a production directed by Arthur Sherman with John Rubinstein and Michael Moriarty, with Jay O. Sanders as Maryk. Former New York Jets quarterback Joe Namath (widely known as "Broadway Joe") replaced Sanders during the run of the show, marking his only appearance on Broadway.
"Charlton Heston directed a critically acclaimed production in Los Angeles and London in 1984 in which he starred as Queeg. Heston later brought the production to the Kennedy Center's Eisenhower Theater,[1] where it again garnered critical acclaim.
"The play was first presented on television live in 1955, with Lloyd Nolan and Robert Gist repeating their stage roles as Queeg and Lt. Keefer, respectively, but with Barry Sullivan as Greenwald and Frank Lovejoy as Lt. Maryk. It was staged as an episode of the anthology series Ford Star Jubilee.
"In 1988 Robert Altman directed another made-for-television version of The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial for CBS. The cast included Eric Bogosian as Barney Greenwald, Jeff Daniels as Steve Maryk, Brad Davis as Philip Francis Queeg, Peter Gallagher as John Challee, Kevin J. O'Connor as Tom Keefer, Daniel Jenkins as Willie Keith, and Altman regular Michael Murphy as Captain Blakely. The production was first broadcast on May 8, 1988 and was subsequently released on VHS, laserdisc, and DVD."
BTW I saw Chuck Heston as Queeg in his directed production in Los Angeles and he blew than pants off the part. He was a vary under-rated actor boys and girls.
Evidently you missed it in the book when Pug explained to Pamela his nickname came from the Naval Academy where there was already a "Patrick" Henry and since he was a boxer, "Pug" Henry was hung on him.
He was "Pug"for boxing, not "Pug" for the dog--
BTW read my #87 post for the height issue in casting Bob Mitchum.
Thanks, Bender2. I always liked Charlton Heston.
I always thought Robert Duval would have been perfect for Pug Henry. He even comes from a Navy family! Mitchum was okay but yes, he was too tall, too old, and as one critic said, somnambulent ha!
I thought the only characters perfectly cast were Barry Bostwick as 'Lady' Aster and Topol as Beryl Jastrow.
What more can be expected or asked of a writer? Mailer, Roth... bah.
You'd find Wouk's books easier going than Tolstoy - and I don't mean that in a negative way - while historically detailed and accurate.
I think for both of them their service in the Pacific in the Navy was the experience of their lives (and Wouk's Judaism). Michener's Tales of the South Pacific is fantastic.
Abe Vigoda passed away a couple of years ago. For real.
I did too. One of my favorites. Bogart was amazing. Van Johnson too.
Fred MacMurray was an absolute WEASEL in that movie.
MacMurray played that part so well....as did the others.
Jose Ferrer was fantastic as well.
You can definitely tell there where Miguel got his looks from.
Duval will always be The Great Santini.
I thought Barry Bostwick was great as "Lady".
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