Wednesday, August 24, 2005
Review: War and Remembrance by Herman Wouk
Writing Style-6.7
Originality-7.3
Plot-8.4
Literary Merit(whatever that means)-7.0
Overall-7.9
This is a beautiful book. It’s historical fiction that takes you through World War II. It is the sequel to the Winds of War and flows seamlessly with that novel. They are best read together in series, though probably not back-to-back because they are both over 1000 pages in length.
It follows the story of one family. Each of the main characters is cleverly placed in places where you get a total, global view of the war. The main character, the patriarch “Pug” Henry, even writes a translation of a post-war book written by a German general so that you get the German viewpoint.
Pug is a navy captain who rises to admiral by the book’s end. He has two sons, one is a submariner, and the other flies fighter planes off of a carrier. The submariner, Byron, has married a Jewish girl in Europe (in Winds of War). Her and her uncle get stuck in Europe at the outset of the war and have family members in concentration camps. So you get the European Jew viewpoint as well.
Though probably guilty of being overly romantic about war, I can forgive it because if there is one war to be romantic about its World War II.
There are many interesting historical details throughout the book. In the afterword, Wouk says that all of the events are true as he has described except for the made up Henry family and a couple of made up naval vessels that members of the Henry family captain.
One such interesting story is that of the “Paradise Ghetto”, a horrific concentration camp that the Germans make look like a utopia so that they can invite the Red Cross in and show the world that the stories that they have heard about the holocaust are not true.
The battle scenes are all naval; I guess it was simply a preference of the author. Most of the warfare action takes place in the pacific while the European theater is written about more from the Jewish viewpoint or at times when Pug serves in a diplomatic capacity.
The book steadily gets better as you go along simply because you are investing so much in the characters.
This is a must read for fans of historical fiction.
Originality-7.3
Plot-8.4
Literary Merit(whatever that means)-7.0
Overall-7.9
This is a beautiful book. It’s historical fiction that takes you through World War II. It is the sequel to the Winds of War and flows seamlessly with that novel. They are best read together in series, though probably not back-to-back because they are both over 1000 pages in length.
It follows the story of one family. Each of the main characters is cleverly placed in places where you get a total, global view of the war. The main character, the patriarch “Pug” Henry, even writes a translation of a post-war book written by a German general so that you get the German viewpoint.
Pug is a navy captain who rises to admiral by the book’s end. He has two sons, one is a submariner, and the other flies fighter planes off of a carrier. The submariner, Byron, has married a Jewish girl in Europe (in Winds of War). Her and her uncle get stuck in Europe at the outset of the war and have family members in concentration camps. So you get the European Jew viewpoint as well.
Though probably guilty of being overly romantic about war, I can forgive it because if there is one war to be romantic about its World War II.
There are many interesting historical details throughout the book. In the afterword, Wouk says that all of the events are true as he has described except for the made up Henry family and a couple of made up naval vessels that members of the Henry family captain.
One such interesting story is that of the “Paradise Ghetto”, a horrific concentration camp that the Germans make look like a utopia so that they can invite the Red Cross in and show the world that the stories that they have heard about the holocaust are not true.
The battle scenes are all naval; I guess it was simply a preference of the author. Most of the warfare action takes place in the pacific while the European theater is written about more from the Jewish viewpoint or at times when Pug serves in a diplomatic capacity.
The book steadily gets better as you go along simply because you are investing so much in the characters.
This is a must read for fans of historical fiction.
