Customer Reviews

The Glory

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

In "The Hope" & "The Glory", Wouk portrays the birth of the State of Israel, its turbulent coming of age and its development as America's staunchest ally in the Middle East, warts and all. Real people populate the books as well as Wouk's fictitious characters. For those of us who have never been to the Holy Land or who never experienced the Holocaust firsthand, you can't help but walk away from these books with a better understanding of why Israel is so important to Jews around the world. The reader also develops a working knowledge of the behind-the-scenes machinations of the Israeli and American leaders during the many Middle East crises of the last 50 years. I have been a fan of Wouk's for 40 years and was amazed at the lack of publicity these two books received when first published (I came across them by accident while browsing in a bookstore)

In his historical notes at this book's end, Herman Wouk tells his readers that The Hope and The Glory started as one book and wound up being written as two. He knew how he wanted to end this story - another Wouk epic! - from the beginning, with an event in Israel's history for which he was present. As a writer, I find that interesting. As a reader, I thoroughly enjoyed both books and found that they do, indeed, tell one story. The Glory picks up that story in 1967, and concludes it in 1988 - 40 years after the War for Independence in 1948, where The Hope began.

Wouk understands what makes his characters tick, and their growing and changing processes unfold naturally. That's what makes both books a pleasure to read. He brings the events of modern Israel's history to life by experiencing them with his characters, and his depictions of real people (people like Golda Meir, Moshe Dayan, and Menachem Begin) ring true for a reader who remembers watching those events and those real people move across the world's stage during the years that The Glory covers. It's hard to believe his fictional creations are not just as real. He even gets the women right, exactly right for the context of their times. Too much like a "movie of the week," as some reviewers state? Maybe. But it's the human dimension that brings any good story to life, and at doing that Wouk excels.

--Reviewed by Nina M. Osier, author of 2005 EPPIE winner REGS

The Glory,Wouk's sequel to The Hope, picks up where The Hope ended - in the aftermath of the 1967 War. The story is a tale of three families living through the turbulent 70's: the Yom Kippur War, Entebbe, the bombing the Iraqi nuclear reactor. I can only give it 3 stars because he punctuates the book with star-crossed lovers and familial relations that are almost as complicated as those between Near East nations. I found this distracting from the story he was telling. Wouk also tends to simplify Israeli relations with the wider world and presents only the Israeli perspective on events.

Yet this is historical fiction, so he is due a little slack. To Wouk's credit, he accurately describes the lbehind-the-scenes political manoeverings of men of state, the maddening lack of action on critical intelligence and the frustrating (and burdensome) Israeli bureaucracy. His account of Israeli drivers is also frighteningly close to the mark. An entertaining read.

I LOVED EVERY HERMAN WOUK BOOK I HAVE READ AND CAN'T WAIT TO READ ANOTHER. MORE HISTORICAL FICTION, THE HOPE/GLORY WERE GREAT AND GAVE ME A TREMENDOUS INSITE INTO ISRAEL'S SHORT HISTORY. THE ROLE OF THE AMERICAN'S AND RUSSIAN'S IS FASCINATING.

I have just finished reading The Hope and The Glory by Herman Wouk and feel that I now have a much better understanding about Israel and its place in this world. Mr Wouk writes in a way that does not dwell or overly dramatize the events of history but still makes them very believable, especially for someone who remembers many of the events and wishes she had paid much more attention to history as it was happening. Mr. Wouk has woven together history, fiction and religion in a way so that I can appreciate all of the characters and events. Reading these books makes me want to read everything else written by Mr. Wouk as well as read other information on this period in history. This knowledge makes todays happening more interesting and important as the arab countries, and others, still try to rid the world of the Jews. I write this review as the PA is getting ready to go to the UN to request admission as a Palestinian sate.

I love both The Hope and The Glory for giving a wonderfully readable history of Israel, but I think that Wouk may hold to the polygamist viewpoint. He never mentions a happy fulfilling relationship between 2 who are actually married. All of the married men and some of the married women had long-standing, continuing affairs. It got very tedious to slog through. Call it what you want, but I do not see the difference between having a wife and a mistress for 25 years or just having 2 wives.

The book is excellent. I'm new to the Kindle, which I absolutely love. I got "The Glory: A Novel" in Kindle DX Wireless Reading Device (9.7" Display, U.S. Wireless)Kindle Wireless Reading Device (6" Display, U.S. Wireless)Kindle Wireless Reading Device (6" Display, Global Wireless, Latest Generation) format and it has very few, but annoying little typos, which I suspect are OCR scanning errors that went undetected. I think this is to be expected in any new media. I'm hoping that publishers will find the errors (maybe with readers' feedback), correct them and make the corrected versions available for free to previous purchasers.

I LOVED EVERY HERMAN WOUK BOOK I HAVE READ AND CAN'T WAIT TO READ ANOTHER. MORE HISTORICAL FICTION, THE HOPE/GLORY WERE GREAT AND GAVE ME A TREMENDOUS INSITE INTO ISRAEL'S SHORT HISTORY. THE ROLE OF THE AMERICAN'S AND RUSSIAN'S IS FASCINATING.

I generally like historical novels because the author generally fills in information about what it is was like for ordinary folks during the subject time period, and so, so often the author presents historical facts which I may have forgotten or never had known. Michener's "Poland" is a wonderful example of a historical novel succeeding in all these aspects.

Wouk succeeds wonderfully in presenting a history of Israel from October, 1967 (a few months after the Six-Day War) through April 22, 1988 (the 40th anniversary of modern Israel's independence). While from America I read newspapers and otherwise followed the news all through this period, and have read non-fiction works about portions of this period (I recommend Walter J. Boyne's "The Two O'Clock War: The 1973 Yom Kippur Conflict and the Airlift That Saved Israel" for his very informative description of American reactions to the Soviet participation supplying Egypt before and during the Yom Kippur War), until I read "The Glory," I had no recollection of Egypt's sinking of the Israel Navy Ship Eilat in October, 1967 and I don't think I ever knew that Israeli pilot's had blown hostile MiGs piloted by Soviet's out of the air. Wouk includes many other interesting points that would be new to many of us (well, at least, to me). Wouk provides for us an easy to read synopsis of the real-life relations of the Israeli leaders during the period leading up to and during the Yom Kippur (1973) War, with which his book is primarily concerned.

Wouk's book concentrates on the 1973 Yom Kippur War. In my opinion he does so because it is the most important event of modern Arab-Israeli history. Wouk depicts for us the many circumstances, including excellent Egyptian and Syrian planning, deception and execution (superior even to Japan's analogous efforts with respect to Pearl Harbor), heavy diplomatic pressures, and basic errors of judging intelligence by Israel, which led to the early successes of Egypt and Syria. Wouk excellently describes the dramatic turnaround as Israel resolutely fought back. Wouk also immerses us in the fantastic development and movement through two Egyptian armies of a 400 ton roller assault bridge which proved essential to Israel's counter-attack across the Suez Canal into African Egypt.

Why was this war such an important event? Wouk's characters explain that based just on Egypt's success during the few days of the war, Sadat was able to summon the courage to do what no other Arab leader had done: negotiate to recognize Israel. (Unfortunately, such brave men willing to talk peace such as Sadat and Rabin were assassinated.)

In 675 pages (hardcover edition), Wouk gives us a very fast-paced history, which includes the rescue from Entebbe, Uganda of hijacked airline passengers and the bombing of Saddam's nuclear plant), while providing excellent context and background.

Yes, it is presented from the Israeli point of view. But it is more balanced than accounts by pro-Arab commentators who say, for example, that Israel would not have had the successes it scored in the Yom Kippur War without the help of America, while conveniently omitting the facts that Egypt and Syria had been armed by the Soviet Union and resupplied by Soviet air and sea lifts. (By the way, many articles on the 1973 Yom Kippur War, written from many points of view, can be found at <http://www.globalsecurity.org>.)

I echo doc peterson's comments. The depiction of the personal lives of the fictional characters just does not work. After the first 3 chapters I realized that I would have to diagram the relationships to keep up, what with all the love triangles, quadrangles, etc., so I decided to just no worry about them. Quite a contrast to Wouk's wonderful writing of the fictional characters in "Winds of War" and "War and Remembrance."

However, as I've indicated above, Wouk's historical depictions do work!

So, I highly recommend "The Glory." I give it only four stars because I quickly lost interest in the fictional characters.

The Glory continues where The Hope left off and continues with the characters we have come to know in The hope as well as introducing us to the trials and tribulations of their grown up children: The new generation
We are taken through key pints in Israel's struggle for survival: The raid on terrorists in Beirut in retaliation for the massacre by PLO operatives of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics; the horror and sacrifice of the Yom Kippur War and the resultant political fallout; the heroic raid on Entebbe to rescue Jewish hostages ;the tense and prolonged negotiations at Camp David between Israel and Egypt and Sadat's visit to Jerusalem in 1978 and the raid of a key Iraqi nuclear terminal by the Israeli airforce in 1981 .
The novel ends with the 1988 celebration of Israel's 40th birthday
In addition to the detailed and interesting lives of the key characters we get to engage with real life figures like Golda Meir, Moshe Dayan, Yitzhac Rabin Ariel Sharon and Defence Force Chief of Staff Motta Gur