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17 May 19 - 03:51 PM (#3992813) Subject: Obit: Herman Wouk, author extraordinaire From: Mrrzy They are dropping like flies. But a 103-year old fly. |
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17 May 19 - 04:20 PM (#3992816) Subject: RE: Obit: Herman Wouk, author extraordinaire From: fat B****rd 103 !!. Read and enjoyed The Caine Mutiny and Youngblood Hawke many years ago. RIP Mr. Wouk |
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17 May 19 - 06:30 PM (#3992829) Subject: RE: Obit: Herman Wouk, author extraordinaire From: robomatic RIP Indeed, Youngblood Hawke, Marjorie Morningstar, President, er, I mean Captain Queeg, et. al. |
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17 May 19 - 07:40 PM (#3992835) Subject: RE: Obit: Herman Wouk, author extraordinaire From: EBarnacle He wrote a lot of good stuff. Some of it translated well to the screen. |
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18 May 19 - 06:17 AM (#3992859) Subject: RE: Obit: Herman Wouk, author extraordinaire From: Bonnie Shaljean I enjoyed the two-volume WWII saga The Winds of War and War And Remembrance, which I read after Caine Mutiny. I also loved Marjorie Morningstar, (devoured at a very impressionable age - 13 - almost in one sitting). His strait-laced attitudes on women and unmarried sex aren't mine - and weren't, even then - but he tells a good tale, driven by believable people. His characters are strong and sympathetic, male and female alike. I see he wrote an autobiography when he turned 100, titled Sailor And Fiddler, which he intended to be his last book, declaring "I have said my say, done my work." NPR did a nice review, calling it "a lovely coda to the career of a man who made American literature a kinder, smarter, better place." R.I.P. Mr. Wouk. The worlds you created gave us a lot of pleasure. https://www.npr.org/2015/12/29/461281423/sailor-and-fiddler-is-a-lovely-coda-to- |
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18 May 19 - 03:30 PM (#3992909) Subject: RE: Obit: Herman Wouk, author extraordinaire From: Mrrzy Saw an article calling him "the Jackie Robinson of Jewish-American authors - what? |
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18 May 19 - 03:45 PM (#3992913) Subject: RE: Obit: Herman Wouk, author extraordinaire From: Jack Campin I always thought his name was Dutch. And who was Jackie Robinson? I've always just sent his books for recycling when we get them donated to the charity shop where I work. And I don't see a revival on the way. |
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18 May 19 - 03:59 PM (#3992916) Subject: RE: Obit: Herman Wouk, author extraordinaire From: Stilly River Sage They covered much of what several of you have mentioned in this NPR obituary: Herman Wouk, 'The Jackie Robinson Of Jewish-American Fiction,' Dies At 103. And Jackie Robinson - really? From the link: 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." |
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18 May 19 - 07:20 PM (#3992936) Subject: RE: Obit: Herman Wouk, author extraordinaire From: Donuel Wouk's 2 act play The Caine Mutiny Trial is where he demonstrably elucidates anti semitism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Caine_Mutiny_Court-Martial |
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18 May 19 - 07:31 PM (#3992941) Subject: RE: Obit: Herman Wouk, author extraordinaire From: Joe Offer It's been thirty years since I read the play, Donuel. Where's the anti-Semitism? I think I read most of Wouk's books once upon a time. I liked them all, especially Winds of War. |
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19 May 19 - 04:00 AM (#3992976) Subject: RE: Obit: Herman Wouk, author extraordinaire From: Bonnie Shaljean How is Wouk, who was Orthodox Jewish and wrote books on religion, anti-semitic? I can’t see it in that wikipedia link either, which is mainly just a production history, list of characters, and plot summary. Anyway, the Jewish press doesn’t seem to think so. The following is only one example, but there’s plenty more in the way of laudatory memorials. https://www.timesofisrael.com/herman-wouk-the-legendary-author-who-brought-judaism-into-the-mainstream/ |
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19 May 19 - 04:12 AM (#3992979) Subject: RE: Obit: Herman Wouk, author extraordinaire From: Bonnie Shaljean I also hadn’t realised that he knew Richard Feynman. The following anecdote is very interesting (Saul Bellow also features briefly, conversing with HW in Yiddish). Herman Wouk, Richard Feynman, The Talmud http://onthemainline.blogspot.com/2007/07/herman-wouk-richard-feynman-talmud-and.html |
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19 May 19 - 04:12 AM (#3992980) Subject: RE: Obit: Herman Wouk, author extraordinaire From: Jack Campin Donuel said he "elucidated" antisemitism and he seems to know what "elucidate" means. It does not mean "advocate". I've no idea how Americans manage to identify so many of their celebs as Jewish when neither their names nor any publicized facts about them suggest it. |
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19 May 19 - 04:15 AM (#3992981) Subject: RE: Obit: Herman Wouk, author extraordinaire From: Bonnie Shaljean Maybe because the writers identify themselves as Jewish? |
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19 May 19 - 04:56 AM (#3992985) Subject: RE: Obit: Herman Wouk, author extraordinaire From: Jack Campin Nothing in the cover blurb for any of Wouk's books that I've seen says that. Hardly any British Jewish writers make a public issue of their ethnicity (whereas it does matter to their image which county they're from). I didn't know George Szirtes was Jewish until I read a piece in a Jewish magazine about his move back to Hungary, where his ethnicity really is an issue. |
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19 May 19 - 05:05 AM (#3992986) Subject: RE: Obit: Herman Wouk, author extraordinaire From: Bonnie Shaljean I'm not sure I'm getting your point, Jack. Wouk's Jewishness has never been any secret, and Judaism is a theme in many of his works, including some devoted to religion. "Identifying as" only means that it's part of how someone defines themselves. But you have to look beneath the cover blurbs into the books themselves. I can't for the life of me see what the problem is. |
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19 May 19 - 05:15 AM (#3992987) Subject: RE: Obit: Herman Wouk, author extraordinaire From: Bonnie Shaljean Originally published in 1959: This Is My God |
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19 May 19 - 05:29 AM (#3992988) Subject: RE: Obit: Herman Wouk, author extraordinaire From: Bonnie Shaljean The updated version - which I've just bought - is: The Will to Live On: This is Our Heritage |
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19 May 19 - 05:47 AM (#3992989) Subject: RE: Obit: Herman Wouk, author extraordinaire From: Bonnie Shaljean Correction: The Will To Live On is not an update of TIMG so much as a sequel. OK, so Wouk wasn't Tolstoy - but he's still a fine social historian of a particular time and place, as were Steinbeck or (in his fiction) Gore Vidal. |
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19 May 19 - 09:15 AM (#3993003) Subject: RE: Obit: Herman Wouk, author extraordinaire From: Donuel Wouk vividly exposed the cultural antisemitism of others in the last act of the play. No one ever accused Wouk of being antisemetic. Such is the weakness of language tricks of misunderstanding. |
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19 May 19 - 09:43 AM (#3993007) Subject: RE: Obit: Herman Wouk, author extraordinaire From: Bonnie Shaljean He exposed it bigtime in Winds of War and War & Remembrance. Sorry, I misread “elucidate” (which I certainly know the meaning of). Slip of the eye. |
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19 May 19 - 12:39 PM (#3993050) Subject: RE: Obit: Herman Wouk, author extraordinaire From: keberoxu indeed, there seems to be an echo in here ! Now as to the NPR story: that headline is a quote taken from remarks by the Simon & Schuster publishing house in the US. So, for a start, the person who said this is not a fellow author but someone at the top of the publishing business, where celebrity as well as craft is important (for his bottom line), and such is that person's bias. A fellow author might indeed have an entirely different metaphor. And different authors might have wildly different opinions. Perhaps in a longer, more detailed piece of writing, the Simon & Schuster talking head could have justified his opinion, and his metaphor, with a summary of the history of 20th-century publishing of USA fiction? Is there evidence, at some point in that century or even earlier, of established publishers demonstrating the prejudice of anti-semitism towards authors who happened to be Jewish? Without that evidence and history, I don't know, myself, that Mr. Simon & Schuster makes any sense whatever. |
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20 May 19 - 07:44 PM (#3993194) Subject: RE: Obit:Herman Wouk, author extraordinaire(1915-2019) From: Mrrzy I never knew from his writings -and I still don't care- that he was jewish. I think of him as a great *American* author. |