海角大神

To legions of mostly elderly folk from Miami Beach to San Diego, Herman Wouk is one of the giants of American fiction: a national treasure, a great novelist, someone who鈥檚 enriched their lives in ways Thomas Pynchon and Don DeLillo never stood a snowball鈥檚 chance in hell of doing. It goes without saying that critics think otherwise, but what do they know? Most of them couldn鈥檛 tell an aircraft carrier from a Norwegian Lines cruise ship, let alone appreciate the uses of each. Whatever else he is, the author of "The Caine Mutiny," "Marjorie Morningstar," "Youngblood Hawke," and "The Winds of War" is no dinghy.

Me, I wouldn鈥檛 dream of telling those legions their devotion is misplaced. The audience Wouk writes for may be unhip, but they know good value when they see it. His readers are people with sturdily old-fashioned ideas of what novels are good for: pleasurable moral and social instruction, reliable-sounding descriptions of how made-up people behave in assiduously reconstructed real-world environments, a reassuring solemnity of purpose, and never an ounce of mystification or oddity. Wouk鈥檚 integrity is all in his indifference to the fact that such endeavors are as out of style as paintings of cavalry charges 鈥� or, for that matter, cavalry charges themselves.

He sees them instead as challenges, which they are to a writer with his altogether admirable belief in doing right by his public and his subject matter alike. Wouk鈥檚 pride in having lived up to his self-devised responsibilities isn鈥檛 fatuous, considering that "The Winds of War" and its sequel, "War and Remembrance," really did end up as America鈥檚 foremost popular chronicle of World War II and the Holocaust. Whether you know those books firsthand or in their miniseries incarnations, his gigantic soap opera didn鈥檛 fail at the job of enshrining the 鈥淕ood War鈥檚鈥� significance for a mass audience, not that Tolstoy鈥檚 ghost had much to worry about otherwise.

Disparaging this kind of achievement just because it鈥檚 not great art, which it obviously isn鈥檛, has never made much sense to me. Even 1955鈥檚 relatively forgotten "Marjorie Morningstar," whose heroine is n茅e Morgenstern and pines to see her new moniker on Broadway marquees before life and Wouk teach her that Scarsdale is more her speed, doesn鈥檛 get enough credit for introducing a vast and mostly clueless gentile readership to the Jewish-American vantage point on the USA鈥檚 appealing but perplexing circus, prefiguring the next decade鈥檚 cultural deluge of Barbra Streisand, Philip Roth, Mel Brooks, and Woody Allen. Decades from now, anyone trying to understand how 20th-century America understood itself 鈥� that is, swiftly reconceived itself to stay in business at the old stand 鈥� will bump sooner or later into Herman Wouk, a ziggurat disguised as a traffic cone.

If you鈥檒l forgive me for quoting Arthur Miller 鈥� who鈥檚 closer to being Wouk鈥檚 theatrical (and liberal) equivalent than is commonly recognized, if only because Marilyn is so distracting 鈥� attention must be paid to such a man. Pasteboard characters, proficient but humdrum prose, proudly square convictions, and all, something about him compels respect. Even Gore Vidal, taking a brief break from being sardonic about "The Winds of War," startled New York Review of Books readers back in 1973 by announcing he didn鈥檛 regret reading a single word of it. Then he called Wouk鈥檚 professionalism 鈥渁we-inspiring,鈥� something mean old Gore certainly never said about any of his flashier contemporaries. Or Arthur Miller, for that matter.

My own high estimate of "The Caine Mutiny" and "Youngblood Hawke"听鈥� Wouk鈥檚 1962 doorstopper about a virile, doomed facsimile of Thomas Wolfe, still my favorite among his books 鈥� had bumped down a few rungs by the time I finished high school, because encountering "Lolita" will do that to a guy. But my affection for Herman Wouk will never die, and apparently (knock wood), neither will he. Born the year D. W. Griffith directed "Birth of a Nation," this hardy centenarian鈥檚 newest book is called Sailor and Fiddler: Reflections of a 100-Year-Old Author. Summing up his works and days in just 137 pages of genial reckonings and vignettes, it鈥檚 such a nonchalant little charmer that I happily read it twice in an afternoon.

Of its two sections, 鈥淪ailor鈥� covers what Wouk calls 鈥渕y adventures in the narrative art鈥� 鈥� with a nod, of course, to the Navy days that gave rise to "Caine," "The Winds of War," and "War and Remembrance." 鈥淔iddler,鈥� as in "Fiddler on the Roof," recounts his embrace of his Judaism and increasing identification with Israel, to him still a heroic place rather than an increasingly isolated target of international contumely. To put it mildly, if you鈥檙e in the market for latter-day misgivings about what Zionism wrought, this is not the book for you. But the man has spent his career romanticizing the United States every bit as sunnily, so no surprises there.

Despite their supposedly divergent priorities, 鈥淪ailor鈥� and 鈥淔iddler鈥� are both in the same key: anecdotal, glancing, casual, and far more concerned with sharing fun facts about Wouk鈥檚 career than divulging anything especially intimate. His wife of over 60 years until her death in 2011, Betty Sarah Wouk 鈥� or 鈥淏SW,鈥� as he a mite disconcertingly calls her 鈥� appears mainly as his testiest critic and invaluable literary helpmeet (she was his de facto agent for decades). A few jokes about her mania for decorating aside, the love story that their marriage obviously was remains off limits. Except for a single, pained mention, so is its major tragedy, the death of the couple鈥檚 firstborn son, Abe 鈥� 鈥渓ovable and winsome beyond telling鈥� 鈥� at age five in a swimming pool accident. Says Wouk firmly, 鈥淚 have not written, nor will I, about this catastrophe, from which we never wholly recovered.鈥� Curtain down again, and readers are put on notice that this author鈥檚 private life isn鈥檛 our concern.

At the urging of Sir Isaiah Berlin, no less 鈥� for a guy supposedly outside the intellectual swim, he鈥檚 done his share of hobnobbing 鈥� Wouk did once consider writing a full-scale autobiography, so he tells us. But BSW, immediately guessing that hubby was trying to avoid buckling down to his next novel, put the kibosh on that: 鈥淵ou鈥檙e not that interesting a person.鈥� So he mostly gets chatty here about his interesting profession instead, going back to his chipper pre-Pearl Harbor days as a gagman for radio humorist Fred Allen. 鈥淚f there is a trace of Fred Allen鈥檚 art in my books, that is all to the good,鈥� he says, and he鈥檚 not wrong. His solemn streak would make his novels much duller if it wasn鈥檛 at least occasionally offset by whimsy.

Then comes the war, and a few coy glimpses into the real-life makings of 鈥淭hat Crazy Captain Book,鈥� a.k.a. the Pulitzer-winning "The Caine Mutiny." The rattletrap minesweeper Wouk actually served aboard was named the "Zane." Its cuckoo captain made 鈥渟urviving鈥� seem like a matter not wholly in Japanese hands. Not unlike the book鈥檚 Lieutenant Keefer, he spent his spare time scribbling away a novel: his first, 1947鈥檚 lighthearted "Aurora Dawn."

Left unexplained is what prompted him to turn "Caine"'鈥檚 rattling good yarn into a scolding by switching gears at the climax to proclaim crazy Captain Queeg the hero and his own stand-in as the villain of the piece. But that鈥檚 the somewhat clumsy way Wouk the emerging Jewish moralist 鈥� he hadn鈥檛 taken his own faith too seriously in his younger years 鈥� said goodbye to the frivolity of being a mere entertainer. From then on, despite occasional reversions to larkiness 鈥� e.g., 1965鈥檚 "Don鈥檛 Stop the Carnival" 鈥� he aimed at being a consequential one.

Because Wouk has always presented his material as if its sociological value outweighs any merely personal agenda, it鈥檚 charming to get filled in about how intimately his next two novels also mined his own life. His sister sat for Marjorie Morningstar鈥檚 portrait. As for Youngblood Hawke, however much his hectic career owed to 鈥減resumptuously touching in color from the great Thomas Wolfe鈥檚 short tragic life,鈥� he was simply Wouk himself in Dixie-fried disguise. Or anyhow, 鈥渕y nightmare vision of what might have become of me鈥� if he hadn鈥檛 married Betty Sarah, here identified as the novel鈥檚 tartly loving but stymied 鈥淛eanne Green.鈥�

Those of us whose lifelong adoration of Suzanne Pleshette was spawned by the immortal 1964 movie version may irrationally catch ourselves thinking that BSW鈥檚 husband was one lucky dog. But the most delicious surprise for literary trivia buffs is learning that Hawke鈥檚 demeanor and speech were inspired by Georgia-born comic novelist Calder Willingham, a attractively colorful figure compared to 鈥渕y dull synagogue-going uptown look.鈥� Unexpectedly, Willingham 鈥� whose books are as gleefully dirty-minded as Wouk鈥檚 are notoriously chaste 鈥� was also the fellow author he was fondest of: 鈥淥ur friendship lasted until he died.鈥�

For many readers, however, all this will be a mere warm-up to the pages of "Sailor and Fiddler" devoted to "The Winds of War" and "War and Remembrance," the enormous project that Wouk was calling 鈥渢he Main Task鈥� long before he girded himself to tackle it. First conceived as a single huge novel centered on WWII鈥檚 Pacific campaigns 鈥� enough, so he thought, 鈥渢o epitomize the folly of industrialized war鈥� 鈥� it expanded once historian Raul Hilberg鈥檚 "The Destruction of the European Jews" convinced him, with some trepidation, that he had to deal with Hitler and Auschwitz as well.

What Wouk doesn鈥檛 say outright is that this was commercially risky. Unlike the war鈥檚 rather more salable guts-and-glory aspects, the Holocaust was still a relatively alien subject to his primarily Gentile public. If that seems preposterous today, "The Winds of War" and "War and Remembrance" played no minor part in effecting the change. Indeed, the latter book鈥檚 depiction of the Final Solution鈥檚 day-to-day workings 鈥� above all, the excruciating scenes from the German perspective, convincingly putting us inside the mentalities of petty careerists jockeying for favor as the gas chambers operate 鈥� may be the closest Wouk has come to being a great writer, if only because no one else had had the nerve to try. Never underestimate the determined popularizer鈥檚 ability to go where capital-L Literature fears to tread.

From then on, he was more or less done with the goyim, at least as novelistic subjects. After "Inside, Outside," his most candidly autobiographical novel 鈥� although, with Woukian concern for larger relevance, he turned his stand-in into a hapless Jewish adviser to President Nixon as Watergate and the Yom Kippur War erupted 鈥� came "The Hope and the Glory," the twofer that meant to do for Israel鈥檚 battles what "The Winds of War" and "War and Remembrance" had done for WWII. His most recent novel, at age 97, was 2012鈥檚 sprightly "The Lawgiver," which converted his long-mulled dream of writing a fictionalized life of Moses into an antic fantasy about being dragooned into helping concoct a movie about him instead. It鈥檚 the only one of his later books I鈥檝e read, but a dotty delight, right down to the affectionate spoof of 鈥� wait for it 鈥� Lena Dunham. (Attention must be paid to such a girl.) When Herman Wouk finally goes, our literature may not be much the poorer, but creating literature has never been the vital yardstick in his case. Transcending it is.