Herman --- Hero
After World War II three novels achieved great acclaim.
Norman Mailer's The Naked and the Dead was highly realistic: fuggin this, fuggin that, fug you.
For a while Irwin Shaw's The Young Lions was my favorite. It told the tale war of the war in Europe. It's M.O. was a series of interlocking short stories (Shaw's strong suit) about an American, a German, perhaps a Brit. Later, in college, I did my Honor's Paper on Shaw and directed and produced his pre-war one-act play Bury the Dead.
But it was Herman Wouk's The Caine Mutiny that, for me, stood the test of time.
The Caine was a rusted converted minesweeper used to tow targets for more important ships to practice gunnery upon. The setting is the South Pacific.
The original skipper was a most laid-back type.
He is replaced by the martinet allegedly paranoid Captain Queeg (Humphrey Bogart). The diagnosis is provided by the slippery Lt. Keefer, New York novelist (Fred MacMurray, usually the good guy in the movies.)
Under Queeg's command the Caine is almost lost in a typhoon, "cuts the towline" of a target and drops yellow stain during a landing operation, an apparent act of cowardice.
The Exceutive Officer (Van Johnson) finally heeds Keefer's diagnosis and assumes command during the typhoon. Mutiny!
A trial is held. Thanks to brilliant legal work by a Jewish New York attorney (Jose' Ferrer) the crew is acquitted.
That evening the crew (whose officers could have been hung by the neck for their mutiny) hold a raucous drunken celebration.
Ferrer comes in late, and surly.
He says he really should have represented Queeg.
Why?
Because while Keefer was writing novels, th Nazis were exterminating Jews. They could have turned Ferrer's mother into a bar of soap.
That was (barely) prevented by the few peacetime miltary men.
Wouk, I said, was an early Neo-Conservative. He understood that America had to be strong, even in peacetime.
I wrote a column about it.
Jonathan Yardley, now the WashPost editor, criticized it. "The thought that The Caine Mutiny was about politics never crossed his mind."
He was wrong. I was right.
Ben
Norman Mailer's The Naked and the Dead was highly realistic: fuggin this, fuggin that, fug you.
For a while Irwin Shaw's The Young Lions was my favorite. It told the tale war of the war in Europe. It's M.O. was a series of interlocking short stories (Shaw's strong suit) about an American, a German, perhaps a Brit. Later, in college, I did my Honor's Paper on Shaw and directed and produced his pre-war one-act play Bury the Dead.
But it was Herman Wouk's The Caine Mutiny that, for me, stood the test of time.
The Caine was a rusted converted minesweeper used to tow targets for more important ships to practice gunnery upon. The setting is the South Pacific.
The original skipper was a most laid-back type.
He is replaced by the martinet allegedly paranoid Captain Queeg (Humphrey Bogart). The diagnosis is provided by the slippery Lt. Keefer, New York novelist (Fred MacMurray, usually the good guy in the movies.)
Under Queeg's command the Caine is almost lost in a typhoon, "cuts the towline" of a target and drops yellow stain during a landing operation, an apparent act of cowardice.
The Exceutive Officer (Van Johnson) finally heeds Keefer's diagnosis and assumes command during the typhoon. Mutiny!
A trial is held. Thanks to brilliant legal work by a Jewish New York attorney (Jose' Ferrer) the crew is acquitted.
That evening the crew (whose officers could have been hung by the neck for their mutiny) hold a raucous drunken celebration.
Ferrer comes in late, and surly.
He says he really should have represented Queeg.
Why?
Because while Keefer was writing novels, th Nazis were exterminating Jews. They could have turned Ferrer's mother into a bar of soap.
That was (barely) prevented by the few peacetime miltary men.
Wouk, I said, was an early Neo-Conservative. He understood that America had to be strong, even in peacetime.
I wrote a column about it.
Jonathan Yardley, now the WashPost editor, criticized it. "The thought that The Caine Mutiny was about politics never crossed his mind."
He was wrong. I was right.
Ben
posted by Ben Wattenberg at 4:21 AM
1 Comments:
You hit the nail on the head Ben!
Post a Comment
<< Home