Wednesday, May 22, 2019

Herman Wouk Dead at 103

Author Herman Wouk
There are so many news sources these days - and so much junk news about junk celebrities - that I miss more important stuff now than I missed ten years ago when far fewer sources were available to me.  The haystack is just getting so big that the actual needles hidden in there are impossible to find sometimes; that's the only thing that can explain my missing news of author Herman Wouk's May 18 death at the age of 103 (just ten days short of his 104th birthday).

From The New York Times:

Herman Wouk, whose taut shipboard drama “The Caine Mutiny” lifted him to the top of the best-seller lists, where he remained for most of a career that extended past his 100th year thanks to page-turners like “Marjorie Morningstar,” “Youngblood Hawke” and the World War II epics “The Winds of War” and “War and Remembrance,” died early Friday at his home in Palm Springs, Calif. He was 103.
His death, just 10 days before his 104th birthday, was confirmed by his literary agent, Amy Rennert. She said he had been working on another book when he died, although, as was his custom, he had declined to discuss its subject until it was finished.
According to the Times, Wouk was never a big favorite of the critics, but I'm here to tell you that he did have his fans because the man knew how to tell a story - and a long story, at that.  I've only read three of Wouk's books (The Caine Mutiny, The Winds of War, and War and Remembranceand that was in the late sixties and early seventies, but I still remember how enthralled with them I was and how I couldn't wait to get back to them every evening.  I must have been one of the "yahoos who hate culture and the mind" that critic Stanley Edgar Hyman said back in 1966 comprised all of Wouk's readers.  Stanley who?


6 comments:

  1. My mother read Wouk and had several of his books. I read her copy of The Caine Mutiny when quite young, and later read Youngblood Hawke and The Winds of War, but never got to War and Remembrance.

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    1. I was surprised in the Times article about how viciously he was attacked by critics of his day. His was not the easiest of styles to read, but his plots kept me turning the page. He was a big name in his era. Hard to believe that he was planning to publish one more book at the time of his death.

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  2. And I read Marjorie Morningstar as a young teen. I've been thinking of reading it again now to see what I think as an older woman. Oh, and Sidney Hyman - Shirley Jackson's awful husband!

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    1. I didn't make the Shirley Jackson connection, Nan; thanks for that.

      He does sound like an awful little man.

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  3. Also, there is a nice obit here: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/may/17/herman-wouk-obituary

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    1. Thanks, you can always count on the Guardian. I really like their book section.

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