The Caine Mutiny: A Novel [Paperback]

Herman Wouk (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 15, 1992

The Novel that Inspired the Now-Classic Film The Caine Mutiny and the Hit Broadway Play The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial Herman Wouk's boldly dramatic, brilliantly entertaining novel of life-and mutiny-on a Navy warship in the Pacific theater was immediately embraced, upon its original publication in 1951, as one of the first serious works of American fiction to grapple with the moral complexities and the human consequences of World War II. In the intervening half century, The Caine Mutiny has become a perennial favorite of readers young and old, has sold millions of copies throughout the world, and has achieved the status of a modern classic.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Novel by Herman Wouk, published in 1951. The novel was awarded the 1952 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. The Caine Mutiny grew out of Wouk's experiences aboard a destroyer-minesweeper in the Pacific in World War II. The novel focuses on Willie Keith, a rich New Yorker assigned to the USS Caine, who gradually matures during the course of the book. But the work is best known for its portrayal of the neurotic Captain Queeg, who becomes obsessed with petty infractions at the expense of the safety of ship and crew. Cynical, intellectual Lieutenant Tom Keefer persuades loyal Lieutenant Steve Maryk that Queeg's bizarre behavior is endangering the ship; Maryk reluctantly relieves Queeg of command. Much of the book describes Maryk's court-martial and its aftermath. The unstable Queeg eventually breaks down completely. -- The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Language Notes

Text: English, French (translation) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 560 pages
• Publisher: Back Bay Books; 1ST edition (April 15, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316955108
• ISBN-13: 978-0316955102
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 1.5 x 8.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (131 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #36,942 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

71 of 74 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A ripping novel of World War Two in the US Navy. April 28, 2004

By Roger J. Buffington TOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

This is perhaps not the greatest novel ever written about World War Two, but it may be the most readable. This is an engrossing, ingenious, and well-written story of ordinary men at sea, placed in an uncommon predicament. Their predicament is simple: their captain is a spectacularly bad leader. This leads to consequences that Wouk develops brilliantly. Wouk's own experience in the US Navy gives this book a gritty authentic feel. The reader really gets a flavor of what it must have been like to be a junior US Naval officer aboard a destroyer-minesweeper. The discussions of officer efficiency reports, the codebreaking duty, casual discipline, and more, all ring true.

The real story is the maturation of Willie Keith. At the beginning of the novel he is a spoiled, overprivileged lad living an aimless life. His time in the service, and the unusual predicament in which he finds himself, hardens him into a true fighting-man in a way that has happened to countless thousands of servicemen. Wouk tells this story exceedingly well, in a manner that most readers will be able to easily relate to. I found this novel to be an unusually good read primarily for this reason. Wouk's writing is first-rate, and it is easy to see why this novel appealed to readers of the early 1950s, many of them with fresh memories of World War Two. The flavor of that war lingers in the novel even today, and gives the twenty-first century reader a notion of what those times were like.

This is altogether a remarkably good novel, deserving of every one of its five stars.

66 of 72 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars My favorite novel ever December 17, 2001

By S. Fackler

Format:Paperback

Please read this book.
I was assigned it in high school English, and thought, "Oh great, another war book." I took it home, began my first 4 chapter assignment, and realized 3 hours later that I was halfway through it. I finished it the next day. That was ten years ago, and I have been rereading it at least twice a year ever since. I read it to my husband on a cross-country journey and the miles went by like nothing. It never fails to involve me, and I never fail to be moved by the ending.
A few reviewers have said that the book is hard to understand, or that there is too much military jargon, but there really isn't; there was nothing in there that a seventeen-year-old girl couldn't understand (at least, a seventeen-year-old who knows how to spell "squat".)
This book is powerful, funny, insightful, and moving. Don't pass it up.

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Lost in time August 4, 2006

By Ltc Timothy R. O'neill

Format:Paperback

The Caine Mutiny was my first adult novel -- I was 12 when I read it, only a few years after it won the Pulitzer. I had just seen the film, and was surprised to find the book far richer. However much I enjoyed it, however, I nevertheless failed to grasp the points the author was making; that clarity did not appear until I read it again many years later as an Army officer with over fifteen years' service.

I recently read quite a few online reviews, and they reflect a much more contemporary viewpoint -- the original context of the novel is lost in time. One reviewer thought the mood and point of the book were "Faschistic"; others concluded that the point was "it's okay to buck the system." I was reminded of a colleague on the faculty at West Point who was teaching a cadet elective in psychology of abnormal behavior who used a clip of Bogart's performance on the stand at the court-martial as an example of disordered paranoid ideation. Sometimes I wonder what book all these people read!

This is a novel of war, seen through the eyes of a nonprofessional officer of incisive intelligence, one both inside and outside the Navy system and possessed of ability to look beyond the moment. Many readers (or movie fans) somehow completely miss the story's central issue and the critical turn of plot. Captain Queeg was not crazy; he was overwhelmed by the burdens of command, but would probably have muddled through if his officers had managed to put aside petulant resentment and work to compensate for the captain's flaws. Instead, they put a combat vessel out of action during a critical period in the Pacific campaign.

How anyone can misinterpret Wouk's intent is a mystery to me -- the author sets us up for the lawyer Barney Greenwald's famous demolition of the slippery intellectual Tom Keefer, then hammers the point home after the climax when Keefer proves himself no more fit for command than Queeg.

We see this through the eyes (though not the narrative persona) of Willie Keith, whose character matures as the result of hard lessons in the affair; to an extent, this is a Bildungsroman for the character. Are modern readers less perceptive than the frivolous Willie? The author neither proposes a Fascist call for blind obedience nor justifies bucking the system for the sake of independence of thought.

The relevance of the novel is undiminished after more than fifty years; moral dilemmas are the stuff of war, all wars, since war is the most daunting dilemma of all.