Word: herman
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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What a shame that a novelist with the narrative ability of Herman Wouk should use it to advocate the intellectually obnoxious doctrines of conservatism, conformity, mediocrity, orthodoxy, discipline, authority and obedience. The great novelists were tormented with difficult questions; Wouk has easy answers. In the '20s, H. L. Mencken would have laughed him off the library shelves...
...only have you risen a notch in my esteem, but you have displayed a rare, delicate and wonderful sort of quality in your Sept. 5 tribute to Herman Wouk...
Your story on Herman Wouk and his blast against the irresponsibility of the intellectual could well be pointed up by Thomas Molnar's analysis of the rejection by the masses of the intellectual [Sept. 5]. Wouk's espousal of the family unit as a stabilizing force, and his recognition of man as primarily a creature of God, is in contrast to what Molnar calls the "rootlessness" of the intellectual. The American public may be uncultured, but they know the basic facts of life...
Somewhere inside Herman Wouk there plays a permanent recording of The Little Engine That Could. He has at various times doggedly tackled flying, boxing, aquaplaning, and taught himself to type, play the piano, and do the breast stroke. When Wouk saw Shaw's Don Juan in Hell, he went home in despair: "You worm! You thug!" he raged at himself. "Get out of this business'" But next morning he was still in business, lifting the court-martial sequence out of The Caine. He wrote the whole play in "three horrible weeks...
...critical meat cleavers may indeed be out for Herman Wouk this time around, but though they cut up the work, they will miss the man. Novels No. 5 and No. 6 are already in the mental blueprint stage ("I wouldn't even tell my wife what they're about"). Says Wouk earnestly: "I'm going to write novels for the rest of my life, each one better than the last...