Word: wouk
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Much to Live Down. Wouk knows that he will have to live up to The Caine Mutiny before he can ever live its fame down. The Caine's total sales figures to date are of heroic proportions: in all editions, some 3,000,000 Americans bought the novel; it sold more than 2,000,000 copies in Britain, and it has been translated into 17 foreign languages. The play based on the book, The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial, packed in Broadway theatergoers for two seasons and grossed about $2,500,000. The movie piled up a box office take...
...Herman Wouk himself, The Caine Mutiny brought the Pulitzer Prize (1951), nearly a million dollars in cash, countless autograph hunters (whom he loves), countless requests for speaking engagements (most of which he declines), and several thousand letters (all of which he answered). But to Novelist Wouk, a cool customer in a superheated profession, The Caine is simply "Novel No. 3" (No. 1 was Aurora Dawn; No. 2, City Boy), and he does not worry for an instant that Marjorie may be lost in the undertow of The Caine's popularity. This unique assurance is typical of Herman Wouk...
Chipless Shoulder. Wouk, a man of paradox, seems like an enigmatic character in search of an author. He is a devout Orthodox Jew who has achieved worldly success in worldly-wise Manhattan while adhering to dietary prohibitions and traditional rituals which many of his fellow Jews find embarrassing. He is an ex-radio gagwriter who severely judges his own work by the standards of the great English novelists. He is a Columbia-educated (class of '34), well-read intellectual with an abiding faith in "the common reader" ("They're good enough to elect our Presidents, aren...
...Caine Mutiny, Wouk defied recent literary fashion and loosed some real shockers by declaring his belief...
...decency-in language as well as deeds, 2) honor, 3) discipline, 4) authority, 5) hallowed institutions like the U.S. Navy. In Marjorie Morningstar, Wouk will set more teeth on edge by advocating chastity before marriage, suggesting that real happiness for a woman is found in a home and children, cheering loud and long for the American middle class and blasting Bohemia and Bohemians. Wouk is a Sinclair Lewis in reverse. His chief significance is that he spearheads a mutiny against the literary stereotypes of rebellion-against three decades of U.S. fiction dominated by skeptical criticism, sexual emancipation, social protest...