Herman Wouk

The Caine Mutiny is a great movie, I was just talking about the TV remake directed by R Atlman.

Wouk's Marjorie Morningstar was a childhood favorite book of my mom's. Never read him myself.

no leon uris, no credibility

clavell served in WWII too!

my biggest wouk memory is LOVING his "city boy" childhood memoir.

Wouk was from a generation that defined US self-identity in terms of WWII and the mythology of America's stern but altruistic defense of The Free World and Decent People Everywhere. The competing myth can be seen in film noir and in the rise of the Beats. (As you can see, the culture war has been going on for many generations now.)

As much as we might be tempted to laugh at this starry-eyed myth of American Sacrifice for Freedom, it was no terrible thing in terms of the ideal it postulated. The fact that such ideals most often serve as handy levers of power for scoundrels like Bush to use to manipulate is where the rub comes in. It's hard to forgive the idealists for that.

well if you fought in wwii you might tend to think that way.

For me he represents a certain strain of ham-handed idealism, fake realism and shallow fascination with psychology that swept through American literature just after WW2.