Pulitzer 1952: The Caine Mutiny

I don’t think of myself as a lover of war stories, but this book was a humdinger. The Caine Mutiny supposedly grew out of Herman Wouk’s personal experiences on a minesweeper during WWII. For sure Wouk never experienced a mutiny (the US Navy has only had one mutiny, the USS Sommers in 1842), but the book has a vividness and feeling of authenticity in the details that I think comes from the characterization of the sailors, Navy life in general, and wartime experiences in particular.

Wouk expertly plots the story of Willie Keith, a shallow, affluent young man who applies for the Navy so he won’t get stuck in the Army. Willie is a mama’s boy, and his mama has money. He’s been working as a two-bit piano player and canoodling with a beautiful and sincere singer, May. Willie’s crazy for her, but at the same time, he’s too aware that she’s not of his same social class and thinks constantly about dumping her.

About a quarter to a third of the novel takes place in New York prior to Willie’s Navy enlistment. It’s crucial, because we the reader get a good grasp of who Willie is before he goes through his transformation aboard the Caine. Willie is spoiled and privileged, but he’s our protagonist and I found myself firmly interested in his well-being.

Once in the Navy, Willie forms some tight, manly friendships at boot camp, and then gets his orders to report to the rather decrepit Caine, a destroyer converted into a minesweeper. Willie’s a spoiled greenhorn who makes several outrageous (by Navy standards) mistakes. Still, his new captain, De Vriess, thinks privately that he’ll become a good officer one day. And he does, but not before Captain Queeg takes over the Caine. Queeg’s competency as a captain is questionable from the very beginning. This and his weird and random disciplinary quirks both confound and worry other officers and sailors. Willie ends up being witness to mutiny to Queeg’s leadership during a typhoon in the western Pacific. The court-martial section of the book which follows the mutiny is gripping.

Heavily plot driven books like this are a huge palate cleanser for me sometimes. There’s not much nuance in this tale–it’s an adventure story and one man’s arc of maturation through the course of these adventures. I can just zip along, following the adventure vicariously, without chewing much over themes or layers of meaning, because that’s not the point of a novel like this. I think it takes enormous skill to keep such a plot moving forward, to know exactly how much of Willie’s background must be constructed, how much sailing around the Pacific must be done,  how much contrast between “regular” Navy and off-beat Navy needed to be shown, how much Willie must mess up before he does right, all in order to drive the story to its climactic mutiny and court-martial. I think Wouk won the Pulitzer for damn good plotting and storytelling. Full stop.

In addition to checking one more book off my Pulitzer project, this also counts toward my 2018 TBR challenge hosted by Roof Beam Reader. I signed on to this at the beginning of the year, but am only now reading one from that list. Finally!

5/5
personal copy

Pulitzer 2011: A Visit from the Good Squad

I’m going to find this book tough to review because — dare I confess? — I really couldn’t follow parts of it. It starts off with a great scene — Sasha’s on another bad first date and heads into the women’s room for some recharging. She spies a green wallet sticking out of a bag, while its owner is busy in the stall. Sasha’s a kleptomaniac, and she’s been working with a therapist to understand why stealing gives her such a rush of pleasure. But the opportunity the unattended wallet presents to give her a rush of relief from her boring date is just too perfect a chance to pass by.  So she nabs it. This first chapter nabbed me, too, even if I did have to wonder — who the hell leaves their bag outside the stall while using a public bathroom?

Pulitzer 1965: The Keepers of the House

I’d say that 1965 was a very good year for the Pulitzer prize in literature. It was awarded to Shirley Ann Grau for The Keepers of the House,  a morally complex novel about racism, family, and gender set in the deep south.

Abigail Howland is the seventh generation heir to the Howland family estate in rural Alabama. Her great-great-great-great grandfather established the farm in 1815, and by the time Abigail inherits from her grandfather, William, the Howlands are deeply respected members of the state and county, not in the least because they own most of it.

William’s story is fascinating — his wife dies and he lives alone until he meets a young black woman, Margaret, who becomes his housekeeper and also bears him five children. Everybody in the town/county seem to know about his children, but as has been done for generations, they turn a blind eye to his “woods colts.” The children, who are so light-skinned they can pass for white, are sent off to boarding schools at puberty, never to return. The eldest, Robert, is the same age as William’s white granddaughter, Abigail.

Shazam! The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

I feel like the world is divided into those who love comic books and those who don’t much care. Other than reading a few Archie and Josie and the Pussycats comics in my girl days, I was one of those who never much cared. It kind of surprises me, because I loved (and love) drawing and art. And while I can now appreciate some of the cheesy appeal of the genre, I have always preferred immersing myself in a novel and letting the author’s word spin my own unique images of the characters and action in my mind’s eye.

Perhaps my disinterest in comic books is why it took me over ten years and three tries to finally read The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon. Despite a complete lack of illustrations anywhere in its 636 pages, I can picture the Escapist, Luna Moth, and other creations of the two main characters, Joe Kavalier and Sammy Clay, two Jewish cousins breaking into and developing the comic book genre in the early twentieth century.

Stories of sadness: Olive Kitteridge

There was a certain point in Olive Kitteridge when I was mentally adding it to my best-books-ever list. While it’s still a contender, it’s not quite lingering with me in the way those books do. But I don’t want to give the impression that Olive Kitteridge (henceforth OK) is disappointing or lacking in some way. It’s really brilliant, but also unrelentingly sad.

OK has an interesting construction. Is it a novel or a collection of short stories? Each chapter is a unique stand-alone story, but all the stories are about people in the same small Maine town. Olive herself appears in every story, but sometimes only as a mention. Other times, she is the main character of the chapter/story. To me the book reads more like a novel mainly because the stories begin in the past, but move forward in time. Also, there is progression and change in the characters, including Olive herself.

The first story introduces Olive through a story about her husband, Henry, and his unrequited love for one of his employees. By the end of the book, we have learned from various stories that Henry has had a stroke and has been left completely incapacitated in nursing home. Finally, in another story we learn that he has passed away. The book is a bit like being privy to all the best (and saddest) small town gossip.