War and Remembrance by Herman Wouk Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of War and Remembrance
Book Review: Read the whole story
Summary: 5 Stars
You're in for a long haul but it's well worth it. I take on at least one epic every winter and picked "Winds of War" and it's sequel "War and Remembrance" this year. I love historical fiction and these two books are some of the best. You'll learn about WWII and still be able to wrap yourself around the characters whose family soon becomes a part of your life. There's intrigue & suspense, there's action & very personal relationships as well and then there are the facts of WWII that will have you looking online for more information. These are powerful novels that really draw you in; so much so that after I read "Winds of War" I was going to take a break and read something else between it and "War and Remembrance" but as I read the "other" book I kept wondering about what happens to these characters Wouk created. So I quit the "break" book and got right back on "War and Remembrance." I'm very glad I did. Both novels are such page turners that it's darn near impossible not to want more. The two combined are close to two thousand pages but they read like a novel of several hundred. Good stuff!Book Review: Sets the standard for historical fiction
Summary: 5 Stars
WOW. Exceptional historical research, developed characters and subplots, great storytelling. A book for the ages. With Winds of War (read it first), this was a 2000+ page trek. Worth it and very satisfying. While being entertained, the reader receives an educational narrative of the progression of events, the atmosphere, and the personalities of WWII. Among the most enjoyable aspects for me was reading the face-to-face encounters with important personages of the war (at least Wouk's interpretation of them). It was the next best thing to having sat in a room with these people. By cleverly using a fictional family and its involvement in the war, Wouk takes the reader all over the world, providing a wonderful comprehensive overview of WWII. Finishing it meant saying goodbye to old and beloved friends. I repeat . . . WOW.Book Review: Subtleties . . .
Summary: 5 Stars
To those of you who have read this book and loved it: read it again. You will uncover subtleties that almost surely escaped you the first time. I know I did. We think of the great loves of this book being Victor/Pam, Byron/Natalie, and perhaps Warren/Janice. There are others buried deeper: Victor/His sons, Warren/Byron. We all know fathers love their sons, and brothers love each other, but this book touches ever so lightly, but effectively on these familial loves. At first reading, the relationship between Pug and Byron seems distant, conflicted, and filled with disappointment, with occasional warmth. On second reading, that is still there, but there is bedrock of love that is so deftly written than it is amazing to uncover it. Think of Pug and Byron visiting the old house in Manila, where Pug apologizes for being rough on Byron when tutoring him as a young boy. Byron's response? "I didn't mind, Dad. I understood you. Best grades I ever got." Or Pug watching his sons at Warren's house prior to Midway. It's Byron who leaps up first to get his Dad a beer. Or the line in which Pug realizes he couldn't survive as a functioning man if Byron were lost. SPOILERS: And that's not just because Warren has already been lost. Also, reread Pug's letter to his wife about Warren's death. As a father myself, it is heart rending. How do you put into words the feelings of losing a son. Wouk does it well. "There was nothing better than just resting my eyes on him." or "We have Byron. We have Madeline. But Warren is gone, and there will never be another Warren."
As for Byron and Warren, think of the party prior to Midway with the hula dancer and Warren dancing. The women are looking at Warren, the men salivating at the hula girl, and there is Byron, tears streaming, watching his brother. Do you have an older brother? At some point, he was your hero. For Byron, he still feels that way about Warren, and Warren is deserving of that. In the other direction, there are several light sentences in which Warren acknowledges the superiority of his younger brother, e.g., his recognition that while Janice is a catch, Natalie is even more of one.
The relationship between Pug and Pam is very well done. It is not rushed, and you don't get a sense of being a prurient onlooker when they are together. Pam has her faults, to be sure, but you can see her making the older man happy, and not just in the bedroom as might be presented in more current fictions. It's wonderful to follow the starts and stops of this relationship, especially after the initial "I love you" uttered (at long last) by Pug.
Finally, I really enjoyed the writing about each Henry's feelings after a brush with death. Pug's feelings seeing the U.S. flag on embassy row in London (was that in WoW or this one?), Warren's bonhommie with the gun tub crew ("You bet your ass . . . sir") after his first Midway sortie, or Byron's sense of camaraderie after a depth charging.
Is this book perfect? It's pretty close: the history is good, the romance is well done, and there are subtleties that emerge only upon a second (or third!) reading. There have been few other books where I have regretted their ending -- that's saying something when talking about a thousand page book.
Reread it, maybe even with a pen to underscore the best parts. I only wish Wouk were alive to write a follow-on to this one. But maybe it is indeed best to leave us wanting more. I cannot see Pug as a bureaucrat in peacetime navy, Byron as an insurance salesman, Rhoda as a twice-divorced alcoholic.
Book Review: THE BEST
Summary: 5 Stars
Huge, strong, explosive, beautiful. Mr. Wouk is a modern classic.Book Review: The Greatest Historical Novel Ever!
Summary: 5 Stars
Herman Wouk is a great writer. With War and Remembrance and its predecessor, The Winds of War, He sealed his reputation as a great writer of historical fiction. Unlike such writers as Leon Uris, who tends to create heroic larger than life heroes and James Michener, who skimps on characterization altogether, Wouk creates brilliantly real figures who seem to live, breath and sometimes die. Whereas the Winds of War covers the period from just prior to the German invasion of Poland in Sept. 1939 through Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, War and Remembrance covers the period from after Pearl through the surrender of Japan in August 1945. As with the previous book, Wouk blends his fictional characters with real figures such as Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin and Hitler. By exploring the experiences of the fictional Henry family and their extended acquaintances, Wouk manages to cover virtually every aspect of this sprawling epic struggle between good and evil. There is Victor "Pug" Henry, stoic Navy captain, his dutiful bound son Warren, a Navy flyer bound for action in the Pacific, his formerly wayward son Byron, now a submarine officer who marries the Jewish woman Natalie Jastrow in Europe. Natalie herself is trapped in Italy with her Uncle, the intellectual scholar Aaron Jastrow and her baby Louis. The Nazi vice that slowly closes on the American born Natalie is excruciating yet stunningly realistic. There is Leslie Slote, the callous foreign service officer who has an epiphany when he discovers the plans for the Final Solution and there are many many others. Wouk blends the personal stories of these characters with an expositional account of the war. He uses the device of a fictional memoir of an imprisoned German officer to prsent the war from the German perspective. It is bone-chilling reading. Finally, Wouk's stunning descriptions of Auschwitz are the most realistic and engrossing description of the Holocaust I have ever read. This book is moving, gripping and engrossing. It is also highly educational. The reader of War and Remembrance will learn a great deal about the Second World War and the War will be brought to life by this book better than any history. This novel should not be missed nor should The Winds of War.