Customer Reviews

Williwaw

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

 

 

Williwaw takes place in the Aleutian Islands of Alaska during World War II. The main action takes place during a freak, intense wind storm the eskimos call a "williwaw," it whips down off the coastal mountains and causes havoc, freak seas, etc. Gore Vidal, in this, his first novel (1946), creates a wonderful Joseph Conradian feel as tensions mount aboard a army transport ship making a weekly run. I don't want to spoil the ending. There is (I thought) a very CLIMACTIC moment when the tensions among the crew rise to their heights just as the williwaw hits, and - something happens. The serious tone and cool style of this book I found admirable. As a war novel I liked it as much as the ver different Joseph Heller's "Catch-22," and the lyrical, Tennessee Williams-like John Horne Burns' novel "The Gallery," while I liked it more so than Mailer's "Naked and the Dead" - which I liked for its themes and observations, I just wish Mailer could have (in my opinion) skipped the repetition and saved about 400 pages.

The copyright page of Gore Vidal's "Williwaw" notes that the novel was first published in 1946. In a preface Vidal describes the background of this novel. He served in the U.S. Army during World War II and, at age 19, became first mate of an army freight-supply ship based in the Aleutian Islands. He worked on this book while on night watch in port. "Williwaw" is similarly set in the Aleutian Islands during that war, and focuses on the passengers and crew of an army freight-passenger ship that is skippered by a warrant officer. The story follows the ship's perilous passage between islands. Vidal sheds light on the book's title in his preface: he defines williwaws as "sudden devastating winds that come without warning down from the island mountains."

Vidal has crafted a gripping wartime adventure. He masterfully charts the crew's struggle against the harsh, and potentially deadly, Aleutian environment. Equally compelling is the tension and conflict that build among the crew members. As the story develops, Vidal creates vivid portraits of the Aleutian Islands and the sea around them. The story is rich in details of the crew's daily life and routine on board the ship, as well as of their recreation in a seedy port town.

Overall, Vidal's prose style in the book is very clean and matter-of-fact; I found it a very effective mode for this particular story. His portrait of the wartime Army is full of satiric touches that are sometimes subtle, sometimes funny. Ultimately "Williwaw" struck me as having a dark, almost nihilistic vision of the human condition. But it's a darkness that I found thought-provoking, and not repellent. Through his plot and characters Vidal takes such basic concepts as love, religion, heroism, and justice and seems to strip them bare. "Williwaw" is, in my judgment, not only a solid adventure tale, but also a unique and compelling contribution to the canon of American war fiction.

Gore Vidal's first novel is a spare tale of tensions building among a group of men thrown together by random forces, in this case, the U.S. army and a freak storm in the seas off Alaska. Vidal has a keen sense for the hypocrisies of military men trying to get ahead, and that makes for some comic moments. There are some vivid scenes of tawdry bar-life in an Alaskan port town, doubtless based on Vidal's own experience in these waters during World War Two.

Interesting to read side by side with Norman Mailer's The Naked and the Dead. Vidal's novel feels more like a traditional story of the sea, Mailer's more an existential yelp.

In summary: A tight, short novel with elements of both adventure and literary fiction that can be read in one sitting.

A straightforward story set in an unusual place, but not that compelling. Nothing much happens for the first half except inane conversations between bored men who don't see much action in the frozen islands off Alaska (probably true to life when various men are thrown together and have nothing in common except their life on board). Interest mounts as the ship at sea is hit with a storm. It ends rather abruptly, though, and can't really be described as a war story.

I have to give some background behind my 5-star rating. My father was in the Army Transport Service during World War II and ran boats similar to the vessel central to this story in the Aleutian Islands during the war. In fact, he and Gore Vidal may very well have crossed paths. So I have an interest in this story that many may not. I also worked on boats in the general area so I could very much relate to the story. But if one has an interest in the sea or the war in the Aleutian Islands, this is a worthy read.

I ordered this book because of the title. I have been familiar with Gore Vidal's work for a long while but never discovered this title until doing research for a novel set in the Aleutian Islands during World War II (Paul Radford's Alaskan Exile). What made Williwaw particularly useful to me was the fact that Vidal served in the Aleutians during this period and communicated the feel of the place far better than most of the documents I was using. However, the story is well written and I find reading Vidal's earlier style refreshing. Highly recommended.