Notes from the Lampert Library

Today, Wednesday, May 27, 2015 is a special day. My French born granddaughter turns nine years old and enters the “mean girl” stage either as a perpetrator or a victim, and, perhaps more significant for the rest of us, best-selling, award winning author Herman Wouk turns one hundred. In the scheme of things, I’m thrilled by the nine-year old but am awed by the centenarian.

While Suzanne, despite being literate in both French and English, has yet to produce her first published book , Wouk has published more than twenty memorable books beginning with Aurora Dawn in 1947. His last novel was The Lawgiver in 2012.

He is probably best known for The Caine Mutiny (1951), a best selling legal drama set in the Pacific Theater during World War II. Partially based on Wouk’s experience on a battle ship, this ethical and moral novel became a Broadway play and a movie starring Humphrey Bogart. The novel garnered the Pulitzer Prize and created in Captain Queeg one of the great characters of modern fiction.

The Caine Mutiny has been called one of the best depictions of daily life aboard a US ship during World War II. The review magazine Kirkus said that The Caine Mutiny was “perhaps the most important novel of the war in the Pacific.”
Other landmark titles include Marjorie Morningstar which Kirkus described as an “extraordinarily successful portrait of someone who is every woman at some point in her life.” Wouk stated that Winds of War and War and Remembrance were “the main tales I have to tell.” The latter books were made into two blockbuster mini-series which introduced the whole expanse of the World War II experience to millions of TV viewers. Finally The Hope and The Glory chronicle the early history of Israel through the Yom Kippur War.

In his 20s, Wouk returned to traditional Jewish life modeled on that of his grandfather. He is said to begin each day with reading from the Bible in Hebrew. This is My God: The Jewish Way of Life remains a basic book on Jewish belief. Kirkus evaluated it in these words: “throughout the book, the ideals, the aspirations, the fibre of Judaism is contagiously reflected-providing together the answer to the miracle of Jewish survival for 3000 years and the miracle today of Israel.”

Despite his 100 years, Wouk still writes. Since 1937, he has kept a series of diaries which he presented to the Library of Congress in 2008 on receiving the Library’s Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Writing of Fiction. In December, Simon and Schuster will be publishing Sailor and Fiddler: Reflections of a 100 year-old author.

Says Wouk, “I’ve lived to a great age, and for that I thank Providence. To the readers who’ve stayed with me for the long pull, my warm affections and I hope you’ll enjoy the light-hearted memoir about my writings.”

In addition to receiving the Pulitzer Prize, Wouk is the recipient of numerous medals and literary awards including The Jewish Book Council Lifetime Literary Achievement Award and awards from Columbia, Berkeley and Bar-Ilan Universities.