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Williwaw
Vidal's first novel - written when he was 19 - takes place aboard an Army boat in the Aleutian Islands near Alaska, and is as turbulent a drama as the Arctic wind from which it takes its name.Into the minds of a half dozen men aboard a ship making a three day voyage amongh the trecherous Aleutians, nature projects the conflict of her forces. Battling the sea and struggling against each other as the dreaded williwaw approaches, strikes, and subsides, the men reveal the storms within their souls, stark, fierce, and compelling. And pervading all is the grim atmosphere, set down with a mastery of description, of the desolate Arctic and the harsh destructive storm.
119 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1946
About the author
Gore Vidal
292 books1,742 followersWorks of American writer Eugene Luther Gore Vidal, noted for his cynical humor and his numerous accounts of society in decline, include the play
The Best Man
(1960) and the novel
Myra Breckinridge
(1968) .
People know his essays, screenplays, and Broadway.
They also knew his patrician manner, transatlantic accent, and witty aphorisms. Vidal came from a distinguished political lineage; his grandfather was the senator Thomas Gore, and he later became a relation (through marriage) to Jacqueline Kennedy.
Vidal, a longtime political critic, ran twice for political office. He was a lifelong isolationist Democrat. The Nation, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, The New York Review of Books, and Esquire published his essays.
Essays and media appearances long criticized foreign policy. In addition, he from the 1980s onwards characterized the United States as a decaying empire. Additionally, he was known for his well publicized spats with such figures as Norman Mailer, William F. Buckley, Jr., and Truman Capote.
They fell into distinct social and historical camps. Alongside his social, his best known historical include Julian, Burr, and Lincoln. His third novel, The City and the Pillar (1948), outraged conservative critics as the first major feature of unambiguous homosexuality.
At the time of his death he was the last of a generation of American writers who had served during World War II, including J.D. Salinger, Kurt Vonnegut, Norman Mailer and Joseph Heller. Perhaps best remembered for his caustic wit, he referred to himself as a "gentleman bitch" and has been described as the 20th century's answer to Oscar Wilde
Also used the pseudonym Edgar Box.
+++++++++++++++++++++++
Gore Vidal é um dos nomes centrais na história da literatura americana pós-Segunda Guerra Mundial.
Nascido em 1925, em Nova Iorque, estudou na Academia de Phillips Exeter (Estado de New Hampshire). O seu primeiro romance, Williwaw (1946), era uma história da guerra claramente influenciada pelo estilo de Hemingway. Embora grande parte da sua obra tenha a ver com o século XX americano, Vidal debruçou-se várias vezes sobre épocas recuadas, como, por exemplo, em A Search for the King (1950), Juliano (1964) e Creation (1981).
Entre os seus temas de eleição está o mundo do cinema e, mais concretamente, os bastidores de Hollywood, que ele desmonta de forma satírica e implacável em títulos como Myra Breckinridge (1968), Myron (1975) e Duluth (1983).
Senhor de um estilo exuberante, multifacetado e sempre surpreendente, publicou, em 1995, a autobiografia Palimpsest: A Memoir. As obras 'O Instituto Smithsonian' e 'A Idade do Ouro' encontram-se traduzidas em português.
Neto do senador Thomas Gore, enteado do padrasto de Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, primo distante de Al Gore, Gore Vidal sempre se revelou um espelho crítico das grandezas e misérias dos EUA.
Faleceu a 31 de julho de 2012, aos 86 anos, na sua casa em Hollywood, vítima de pneumonia.
People know his essays, screenplays, and Broadway.
They also knew his patrician manner, transatlantic accent, and witty aphorisms. Vidal came from a distinguished political lineage; his grandfather was the senator Thomas Gore, and he later became a relation (through marriage) to Jacqueline Kennedy.
Vidal, a longtime political critic, ran twice for political office. He was a lifelong isolationist Democrat. The Nation, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, The New York Review of Books, and Esquire published his essays.
Essays and media appearances long criticized foreign policy. In addition, he from the 1980s onwards characterized the United States as a decaying empire. Additionally, he was known for his well publicized spats with such figures as Norman Mailer, William F. Buckley, Jr., and Truman Capote.
They fell into distinct social and historical camps. Alongside his social, his best known historical include Julian, Burr, and Lincoln. His third novel, The City and the Pillar (1948), outraged conservative critics as the first major feature of unambiguous homosexuality.
At the time of his death he was the last of a generation of American writers who had served during World War II, including J.D. Salinger, Kurt Vonnegut, Norman Mailer and Joseph Heller. Perhaps best remembered for his caustic wit, he referred to himself as a "gentleman bitch" and has been described as the 20th century's answer to Oscar Wilde
Also used the pseudonym Edgar Box.
+++++++++++++++++++++++
Gore Vidal é um dos nomes centrais na história da literatura americana pós-Segunda Guerra Mundial.
Nascido em 1925, em Nova Iorque, estudou na Academia de Phillips Exeter (Estado de New Hampshire). O seu primeiro romance, Williwaw (1946), era uma história da guerra claramente influenciada pelo estilo de Hemingway. Embora grande parte da sua obra tenha a ver com o século XX americano, Vidal debruçou-se várias vezes sobre épocas recuadas, como, por exemplo, em A Search for the King (1950), Juliano (1964) e Creation (1981).
Entre os seus temas de eleição está o mundo do cinema e, mais concretamente, os bastidores de Hollywood, que ele desmonta de forma satírica e implacável em títulos como Myra Breckinridge (1968), Myron (1975) e Duluth (1983).
Senhor de um estilo exuberante, multifacetado e sempre surpreendente, publicou, em 1995, a autobiografia Palimpsest: A Memoir. As obras 'O Instituto Smithsonian' e 'A Idade do Ouro' encontram-se traduzidas em português.
Neto do senador Thomas Gore, enteado do padrasto de Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, primo distante de Al Gore, Gore Vidal sempre se revelou um espelho crítico das grandezas e misérias dos EUA.
Faleceu a 31 de julho de 2012, aos 86 anos, na sua casa em Hollywood, vítima de pneumonia.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 46 reviews
August 27, 2016
according to my best friend Wikipedia, a williwaw is "a sudden blast of wind descending from a mountainous coast to the sea... the williwaw results from the descent of cold, dense air from the snow and ice fields of coastal mountains in high latitudes, accelerated by the force of gravity".
the novel was published in 1946 by a very young Gore Vidal and is based on his experiences during his Alaskan harbor duty. depending on what source you use, it was written either at age 19 or 21. incredible! it is concerned with a small group of characters as they take a short voyage between islands and features an encounter with the titular act of nature, as well as what may be considered a murder near the end. personally, I thought it was manslaughter of the unlawful-act variety, but I'm no lawyer.
there is something strangely interesting going on in Williwaw and it has to do with flatness. the novel is a special kind of lifeless. its characters are not "flat" per se - they certainly have interior lives and can be seen as three dimensional - but there is a plodding predictability to their every thought and action. there is very little joy in this book and yet it is not actually a depressing book either. it is almost as if the characters are all following carefully predetermined destinies - and those destinies are not necessarily unfortunate or unhappy ones, but they are destinies lacking interest or spontaneity or joy or, most sadly of all, value. I don't think this feeling of predestination was, er, designed in advance by Vidal. I think that Vidal was aiming for both even-handedness and realism. he attained both. but in doing so he also created a work of striking monotony.
perhaps he wanted to stay true to his own real life perspective and experiences - and therein may lie the source of the monotony. he thoroughly imagines his characters and his narrative, but it is as if this story were written by one of his more unimaginative and uninteresting characters. or as if it were written by a person who has experienced quite a lot in life but has not yet achieved the wisdom or maturity to truly understand the people around him or what he has been seeing and experiencing. Williwaw is a novel of shallow depth. a curious achievement! but it is still quite clear that even in his first novel, Vidal was a writer of much talent whose powers would only increase with age.
this is a book that I would have repeatedly fallen asleep to if I had read it at home. fortunately I read it on a 12 hour flight for which I was awake the entire time. thanks to the friendly, hearty, and oversized Australian adventurers who sat on either side of me and who arrived for our flight ripely un-showered from a long hike in the jungle, and who talked over my head to each other for the first hour and then proceeded to fall asleep against me for the remaining hours (although waking twice to consume large amounts of food, of course), I was able to remain thoroughly awake during the flight and finished this book and another in one sitting. I was so hemmed in that I was able to conveniently prop up my thick Gore Vidal Omnibus on each of their knees. you have my gratitude for helping me to get through two books, Australians!
the novel was published in 1946 by a very young Gore Vidal and is based on his experiences during his Alaskan harbor duty. depending on what source you use, it was written either at age 19 or 21. incredible! it is concerned with a small group of characters as they take a short voyage between islands and features an encounter with the titular act of nature, as well as what may be considered a murder near the end. personally, I thought it was manslaughter of the unlawful-act variety, but I'm no lawyer.
there is something strangely interesting going on in Williwaw and it has to do with flatness. the novel is a special kind of lifeless. its characters are not "flat" per se - they certainly have interior lives and can be seen as three dimensional - but there is a plodding predictability to their every thought and action. there is very little joy in this book and yet it is not actually a depressing book either. it is almost as if the characters are all following carefully predetermined destinies - and those destinies are not necessarily unfortunate or unhappy ones, but they are destinies lacking interest or spontaneity or joy or, most sadly of all, value. I don't think this feeling of predestination was, er, designed in advance by Vidal. I think that Vidal was aiming for both even-handedness and realism. he attained both. but in doing so he also created a work of striking monotony.
perhaps he wanted to stay true to his own real life perspective and experiences - and therein may lie the source of the monotony. he thoroughly imagines his characters and his narrative, but it is as if this story were written by one of his more unimaginative and uninteresting characters. or as if it were written by a person who has experienced quite a lot in life but has not yet achieved the wisdom or maturity to truly understand the people around him or what he has been seeing and experiencing. Williwaw is a novel of shallow depth. a curious achievement! but it is still quite clear that even in his first novel, Vidal was a writer of much talent whose powers would only increase with age.
this is a book that I would have repeatedly fallen asleep to if I had read it at home. fortunately I read it on a 12 hour flight for which I was awake the entire time. thanks to the friendly, hearty, and oversized Australian adventurers who sat on either side of me and who arrived for our flight ripely un-showered from a long hike in the jungle, and who talked over my head to each other for the first hour and then proceeded to fall asleep against me for the remaining hours (although waking twice to consume large amounts of food, of course), I was able to remain thoroughly awake during the flight and finished this book and another in one sitting. I was so hemmed in that I was able to conveniently prop up my thick Gore Vidal Omnibus on each of their knees. you have my gratitude for helping me to get through two books, Australians!
January 4, 2024
A sublime wartime adventure, written and set during World War Two, Gore Vidal’s debut ‘Williwaw’ is a claustrophobic terse novel about a journey along the Aleutians. Drawn from his own experiences and the stories he heard whilst First Mate during the war, Vidal’s vividly haunting descriptions and his knack for capturing the violence of humanity, creates a perfect storm.
Although Vidal warns in his preface that Hemingway was not an inspiration for the work, I can say with certainty that if you love Hemingway you will love this novel. Turbulent masculinity, the fraught tension of close quarters, a storm like no other. The passengers and crew have no idea what lays ahead of them on what should be a simple three day trip.
Vidal creates the crooked tension of a war novel without any enemy to fight, instead nature itself and the undignified fragility of men at sea is enough to make you hold your breath.
It is astounding to think at just nineteen years old this was Vidals first novel, a perfect indication of the masterful career ahead of him.
Read
August 21, 2016Williwaw is Gore Vidal's first novel. It was published 1946 when he was 20.
"Williwaw is the Indian word for a big wind peculiar to the Aleutian Islands and the Alaskan coast."
Vidal wrote this novel under the influence of Stephen Crane and Ernest Hemingway.
It was once published under the title, Dangerous Voyage, an inferior title, to be sure.
It was one of the first of many-to-come WWII novels; published 1946.
I would prefer to think of this thin volume as a novella or long short story; novelistic it is not.
The material for Williwaw is derived from Vidal's own experience during WWII among the Aleutian islands; but the experience of the Williwaw itself is not his, accurate as it may be.
"The author of Myra Breckinridge describes Army life in the lonely white wastes of an Aleutian outpost--a chronicle of land and sea, and of the bored, sex-starved men who are pushed to a point of explosion as violent as the Arctic storm, the treacherous Williwaw." -- from the Signet MM backcover.
Williwaw is a beach read, myself having purchased an old Signet MM for $0.3333 at a church thrift store in Bethany Beach. I read it on the sofa, in air conditioning, rather than be disturbed by beach wildlife.
"Williwaw is the Indian word for a big wind peculiar to the Aleutian Islands and the Alaskan coast."
Vidal wrote this novel under the influence of Stephen Crane and Ernest Hemingway.
It was once published under the title, Dangerous Voyage, an inferior title, to be sure.
It was one of the first of many-to-come WWII novels; published 1946.
I would prefer to think of this thin volume as a novella or long short story; novelistic it is not.
The material for Williwaw is derived from Vidal's own experience during WWII among the Aleutian islands; but the experience of the Williwaw itself is not his, accurate as it may be.
"The author of Myra Breckinridge describes Army life in the lonely white wastes of an Aleutian outpost--a chronicle of land and sea, and of the bored, sex-starved men who are pushed to a point of explosion as violent as the Arctic storm, the treacherous Williwaw." -- from the Signet MM backcover.
Williwaw is a beach read, myself having purchased an old Signet MM for $0.3333 at a church thrift store in Bethany Beach. I read it on the sofa, in air conditioning, rather than be disturbed by beach wildlife.
March 2, 2013
A short but well-done novel that is set in World War II, in the Aleutian Islands. Caught in a storm while taking three officers to a nearly port. As the storm worsens, the crew and captain fight for survival and when the storm subsides, someone turns up missing. It's not quite a mystery, but I loved how the atmosphere and tension was created in this. It's a short novel, but there's hardly any wasted words here. It was listed as part of the Guardian's 1000 must read novels. Four stars overall, and recommended.
For the longer review, please go here:
http://www.epinions.com/review/Gore_V...
For the longer review, please go here:
http://www.epinions.com/review/Gore_V...
July 31, 2012
Nineteen-year-old boys fight our wars for us and apparently, they also write our great, war novels. Vidal, who in real life grew up at West Point, writes of a WW II army transport boat in stuck in a windstorm off the Aleutian islands. It's less gritty than Norman Mailer's "The Naked in the Dead," but more eloquent in its details of daily life.
May 28, 2015
Superbly drawn characters and a palpable claustrophobic atmosphere. Great debut novel by one of America's finest.
September 3, 2020
[review to follow...]
December 11, 2019
Written when he was only 19 and published within a couple of years in 1946, this relatively short and terse novel shows a young man with exceptional talent, a remarkable first novel without any of the literary pretensions that can marr the first efforts of young men with writerly ambitions.
At the time of writing, Vidal was an enlisted man who had served in the Aleutian islands as a first mate on a transport ship much along the lines of the novel before getting the chance to write it all down in a camp on the Gulf of Mexico while waiting for discharge.
Interestingly, he did not actually experience a williwaw but he heard others' experiences of them. The storm in the novel crystallised from the experience of another major storm on land in the Gulf. Like all good writing, one has to remind oneself that it is fiction.
The story is not complex - a bunch of men deracinated by war take a journey by a small transport ship along the Aleutians with a violent and unexpected storm and a tragic incident along the way. There is no hysteria, just truth-telling about men and manliness in the face of fear.
Vidal writes well in many ways - as a describer of the environment, of men in close claustrophobic relationship to one another, of human vanity, of authority's fear of a loss of authority and of the way we hide our instincts under peer and superior's pressure alike.
It is also interesting as a story of men against the environment set in a wartime system of bases and travel between bases with not a Jap in sight. The ship's gun has been stored in the hold because it is no longer needed. The real threat lies in the sea, the wind, failed machinery and accident.
Writers like to write about war as violence and confrontation. Vidal was in the right place and at the right time to write about war as a logistical system well away from the enemy and still show it to be fraught with danger and psychological tension.
I would be tempted to explore the cast of characters who are all finely drawn without obvious caricature but I think that might ruin the book for the reader who is best left to make up their own minds about the human dynamic that Vidal explores.
What we have to remember though is that these men are mostly young, far from home, with disrupted lives, thrown together to cope without any meaningful female company and with the fear of early extinction, reliant on a generalised military order and discipline for structure.
They were not put together by a human resources department looking for a compatible team but were thrown together as a team by luck and bureaucracy. The young captain has considerable experience of the sea but his two mates did not and have learned on the job.
A competition for rare sexual favour from a rare girl in a port between a naive youngster and a cynical old engineer drives the story from below but equal weight is given to the themes of sailors against a harsh sea and of the vulnerability of passengers who dare not show their fears.
The telling of the storm that nearly wrecks the ship (the 'williwaw' of the story) reeks of authenticity regardless of the fiction. I have an edge on this because I listened to my father speak of similar storms (and even paint one) as a former merchant marine himself.
But Vidal never overplays his hand. The storm is central but it is played as incident and not as symbol or for the audience. Contact with it is based on an understandable misjudgement, it comes on fast and furious, it almost wrecks and it is gone but we experience just how close death was.
And this is one of the triumphs of the book - Vidal deals with death and the prospect of death exactly as it should be dealt with in such circumstances. It is a near-perpetual risk at sea and in war inducing anxiety. It is faced not by choice but by necessity. Once passed, it is dealt with, forgotten.
The dead are dead. There is no point in complicating things by going over what happened. No one wanted it to happen and if it could have been avoided, every effort would have been made to do so. It is a mentality without room for trauma and victims. Its pragmatism is alien to us now.
The book is nearly faultless as narrative and style. Vidal demonstrated an understanding of human psychology beyond his years. And it stands as an indirect historical record of a peculiar point when America was still at war yet leaving behind a logistical system yet to be dismantled.
Of course, because of the Cold War, it was not dismantled but extended. Vidal did not know this in 1946 and one wonders in retrospect how much of his political radicalism owed to that disappointment but we will have to read later books of his to find out.
August 13, 2020
Williwaw by Gore Vidal
10 out of 10
The exhilarating Williwaw is one of the masterpieces that make staying at home such a peripatetic, glorious experience, given the chance to travel the wide world in the company of exuberant characters, in intense, stormy, exotic surroundings, created by the brilliant minds of angelic creators…a few days ago, this reader had the chance to fly over to Africa in the company of 007, as imagined by William Boyd (somewhat unexpectedly not by his original Maker, Ian Fleming) in the intriguing Solo http://realini.blogspot.com/2020/08/s...
In Williwaw, the story takes us to the Aleutian Islands, where the wondrous Gore Vidal has been stationed and thus has had the chance to get inspiration for this wonderful Magnum opus, written when he was only 19 (!), an aspect that made the under signed think of two ways to take this incredible detail, one being the jealousy, chagrin that one is not able to write anything close to this even after decades of effort, but the other is much more appropriate, a feeling of gratitude, elation for the opportunity to go through something so rewarding, thought provoking and magic, born in the mind of such a young man and yet so mature, sophisticated, imaginative and also penetrating, able to look at those he had navigated with and find the seeds for the characters that populate Williwaw.
Perhaps the most interesting character in the book is an unexpected one, that might not attract the attention of most readers – alas, the book seems to have fallen into some obscurity, for when you look on the net, the first information you get refers to another book with the same name, at least in this part of the world – the few that take it on would not think of the chaplain O’Mahoney, the one that does not do much on the ship, except and because he is quite sick, and then when he has to perform his duty at a tragic moment, when somebody dies – for this is both a psychological novel and a crime story.
The chaplain though has a kind of epiphany, a feeling that he is unable to share with the others on board the vessel, even when he tries to bring up the experience, the vain, arrogant, quite despicable Major Barkinson – who would be promoted Colonel and the one who is most scared during the Williwaw and affected by the massive storm, taken down by sickness, frailty, lack of courage, weakness, shortcomings that he will forget in his pathetic egotism, with his ridiculous and quite amusing tendency to show others his profile, thinking he looks like Wellington, acting at a certain stage as if he has been paramount in the middle of the tumultuous, aggressive, killer weather, when in fact he was beaten, finished, washed up, losing his grip and acting without power, vitality and bravery and then ultimately turning against the skipper of the ship and accusing him of doing the wrong thing!
Evans is the skipper of the ship, a complicated man, married and then divorced because the war has placed a barrier between him and his wife, a character that is analyzed with finesse, talent, insight, just like all the figures that populate a narrative that reminds this reader of the equally phenomenal, Pulitzer Prize Winner The Caine Mutiny by great Herman Wouk http://realini.blogspot.com/2017/06/t... in which we also have a captain that is not liked by his crew, albeit Evans is in a different position from that of Philip Queeg, the latter acting like a mad man, and both captains of the ships have to face a tremendous storm.
Williwaw is the Native American name for the strong wind that will hit the ship in the middle of the narrative, causing damage, havoc, sickness and an epiphany for the chaplain, who would state that this caused him to change, to realize he does not care about petty things anymore, given that he will have had to face death, nature at its most terrifying and they are very close to being crushed and only luck or the Almighty have changed a tragedy into a possible opportunity for redemption…this recalls the experience that Dostoevsky had when he had been sentenced to die for subversive activities and he had to face the firing squad, dividing his last minutes so that he could take part from his family, friends and life and admire a ray of sunshine falling on top of the tower of a church nearby…he is pardoned at the last moment, but we can read about the thoughts, desperation, hopes, desires of the last moments, when one would rather live on a small rock in the middle of the ocean than die, in his Magnum opera – The Demons, The Idiot, Brothers Karamazov, Crime and Punishment, all available at http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page or also for free on the librivox site, where volunteers have produced the audiobooks for these and other fundamental works of mankind.
On board the ship there is acrimony and resentfulness, due to the long time that the crew has had to share the same small space, it becomes difficult to tolerate idiosyncrasies, habits – for instance, the skipper has a few grudges with the rest, in particular he dislikes the fact that his first mate – maybe based by Gore Vidal on himself, given that he was also a first mate – John Martin, who used to be an actor before the World War II, uses long words, an aspect Evans does not agree with in anybody- but one particular conflict stands out, that between the second mate, Bervick, and the Chief engineer Duval.
Second Mate Bervick used to see much of Olga, a Norwegian woman, who is one of the few women on the islands and thus in great ‘demand’ , one who would see the situation as one to take advantage of and make some money from her encounters with the very horny, lascivious and determined men from the ships, but when she starts seeing Duval, as well as others, the animosity between the two degenerates and it becomes a source of continuous friction, irony, sarcasm and then insults are traded and the bitterness reaches a near boiling point…the two are so possessed by their conflict that they continue with it even when Major Barkinson, Lieutenant Hodges and the chaplain are on board the ship which has to take the major to bring a report and seeing that the others have business in the same parts, they travel along.
Skipper Evans is very upset that members of his crew are out of line in front of the major who outranks him, the officer he had informed that the weather could be, indeed, it often is quite bad in the sea, but Barkinson would later pretend he had not known about that and accuse the skipper of being wrong in his decision to take the vessel to sea, when the purpose of the trip was to get the idiotic, malevolent, rather contemptible major to where he was needed…
10 out of 10
The exhilarating Williwaw is one of the masterpieces that make staying at home such a peripatetic, glorious experience, given the chance to travel the wide world in the company of exuberant characters, in intense, stormy, exotic surroundings, created by the brilliant minds of angelic creators…a few days ago, this reader had the chance to fly over to Africa in the company of 007, as imagined by William Boyd (somewhat unexpectedly not by his original Maker, Ian Fleming) in the intriguing Solo http://realini.blogspot.com/2020/08/s...
In Williwaw, the story takes us to the Aleutian Islands, where the wondrous Gore Vidal has been stationed and thus has had the chance to get inspiration for this wonderful Magnum opus, written when he was only 19 (!), an aspect that made the under signed think of two ways to take this incredible detail, one being the jealousy, chagrin that one is not able to write anything close to this even after decades of effort, but the other is much more appropriate, a feeling of gratitude, elation for the opportunity to go through something so rewarding, thought provoking and magic, born in the mind of such a young man and yet so mature, sophisticated, imaginative and also penetrating, able to look at those he had navigated with and find the seeds for the characters that populate Williwaw.
Perhaps the most interesting character in the book is an unexpected one, that might not attract the attention of most readers – alas, the book seems to have fallen into some obscurity, for when you look on the net, the first information you get refers to another book with the same name, at least in this part of the world – the few that take it on would not think of the chaplain O’Mahoney, the one that does not do much on the ship, except and because he is quite sick, and then when he has to perform his duty at a tragic moment, when somebody dies – for this is both a psychological novel and a crime story.
The chaplain though has a kind of epiphany, a feeling that he is unable to share with the others on board the vessel, even when he tries to bring up the experience, the vain, arrogant, quite despicable Major Barkinson – who would be promoted Colonel and the one who is most scared during the Williwaw and affected by the massive storm, taken down by sickness, frailty, lack of courage, weakness, shortcomings that he will forget in his pathetic egotism, with his ridiculous and quite amusing tendency to show others his profile, thinking he looks like Wellington, acting at a certain stage as if he has been paramount in the middle of the tumultuous, aggressive, killer weather, when in fact he was beaten, finished, washed up, losing his grip and acting without power, vitality and bravery and then ultimately turning against the skipper of the ship and accusing him of doing the wrong thing!
Evans is the skipper of the ship, a complicated man, married and then divorced because the war has placed a barrier between him and his wife, a character that is analyzed with finesse, talent, insight, just like all the figures that populate a narrative that reminds this reader of the equally phenomenal, Pulitzer Prize Winner The Caine Mutiny by great Herman Wouk http://realini.blogspot.com/2017/06/t... in which we also have a captain that is not liked by his crew, albeit Evans is in a different position from that of Philip Queeg, the latter acting like a mad man, and both captains of the ships have to face a tremendous storm.
Williwaw is the Native American name for the strong wind that will hit the ship in the middle of the narrative, causing damage, havoc, sickness and an epiphany for the chaplain, who would state that this caused him to change, to realize he does not care about petty things anymore, given that he will have had to face death, nature at its most terrifying and they are very close to being crushed and only luck or the Almighty have changed a tragedy into a possible opportunity for redemption…this recalls the experience that Dostoevsky had when he had been sentenced to die for subversive activities and he had to face the firing squad, dividing his last minutes so that he could take part from his family, friends and life and admire a ray of sunshine falling on top of the tower of a church nearby…he is pardoned at the last moment, but we can read about the thoughts, desperation, hopes, desires of the last moments, when one would rather live on a small rock in the middle of the ocean than die, in his Magnum opera – The Demons, The Idiot, Brothers Karamazov, Crime and Punishment, all available at http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page or also for free on the librivox site, where volunteers have produced the audiobooks for these and other fundamental works of mankind.
On board the ship there is acrimony and resentfulness, due to the long time that the crew has had to share the same small space, it becomes difficult to tolerate idiosyncrasies, habits – for instance, the skipper has a few grudges with the rest, in particular he dislikes the fact that his first mate – maybe based by Gore Vidal on himself, given that he was also a first mate – John Martin, who used to be an actor before the World War II, uses long words, an aspect Evans does not agree with in anybody- but one particular conflict stands out, that between the second mate, Bervick, and the Chief engineer Duval.
Second Mate Bervick used to see much of Olga, a Norwegian woman, who is one of the few women on the islands and thus in great ‘demand’ , one who would see the situation as one to take advantage of and make some money from her encounters with the very horny, lascivious and determined men from the ships, but when she starts seeing Duval, as well as others, the animosity between the two degenerates and it becomes a source of continuous friction, irony, sarcasm and then insults are traded and the bitterness reaches a near boiling point…the two are so possessed by their conflict that they continue with it even when Major Barkinson, Lieutenant Hodges and the chaplain are on board the ship which has to take the major to bring a report and seeing that the others have business in the same parts, they travel along.
Skipper Evans is very upset that members of his crew are out of line in front of the major who outranks him, the officer he had informed that the weather could be, indeed, it often is quite bad in the sea, but Barkinson would later pretend he had not known about that and accuse the skipper of being wrong in his decision to take the vessel to sea, when the purpose of the trip was to get the idiotic, malevolent, rather contemptible major to where he was needed…
August 15, 2018
Mixed feelings on this one. Does a very good job of evoking the feeling of what I can only assume was an incredibly harsh, difficult environment.
The pacing is odd, and it's a huge stretch to call it a "murder-mystery" (as the book cover does).
I eventually warmed on the characters, but for the first half of the book I had a difficult time differentiating between the various sailors. The Major was memorable though.
Overall, although it was initially a battle to get invested in this book, I did enjoy it. The plot and characters were not great, but the tone and setting were.
The pacing is odd, and it's a huge stretch to call it a "murder-mystery" (as the book cover does).
I eventually warmed on the characters, but for the first half of the book I had a difficult time differentiating between the various sailors. The Major was memorable though.
Overall, although it was initially a battle to get invested in this book, I did enjoy it. The plot and characters were not great, but the tone and setting were.
March 19, 2019
An excellent addition to the supply of WWII naval tales,and by sync a young author too. Not for landlubbers .Reminded me of the time I was caught up in a Typhoon in the China Sea. Water was flooding into the hold as I called the Chief to keep the pumps running.
"I don't want to have to take to the rafts,there are Great Whites hereabouts."
"Do they swallow you whole?" He asked.
"I think they spit that bit out."
"I don't want to have to take to the rafts,there are Great Whites hereabouts."
"Do they swallow you whole?" He asked.
"I think they spit that bit out."
September 16, 2019
After reading about a Japanese incursion of the Aleutian Islands, I was curious about the area. Chose this book by a teenage Gore Vidal . Although it is set during the war, this book is a simple description of being stationed on the desolate brutal islands. War seems far away. The bulk of the book is about a voyage from one island to another , encountering the weather phenomenon called the williwaw, and a curious subplot.
Enjoyable in that I leaned something.
3.5
Enjoyable in that I leaned something.
3.5
July 27, 2011
It would be a bit of a stretch to call the novel a murder mystery but it is still an enjoyable read giving some insight into what life was like during wartime in the army merchant marine. The book is all the more impressive as it was written by the then 19 year old Gore Vidal.
May 24, 2024
Gore Vidal's first novel, written when he was all of 19, is quite a bit different than what we normally think of as Vidal's usual fare and style. Although there is some of his famously quick- and dry-wittedness to be found, especially among his descriptions and his third-person omniscient accounts of some of the inner thoughts and private behaviors of his characters. But his predilections toward political point-making, social criticism, discursive passages about history, and his occasional forays into satire are all in scant supply; instead what we have here is a short but initially very slowly paced narrative of a wartime U.S. Navy cargo ship making what ought to be a standard run to port in the Aleutians to drop off a trio of Army personnel (two officers and a chaplain), until it has the misfortune of being waylaid by a powerful storm of a variety known as the "williwaw," characterized by sudden, fierce winds, towering rogue waves, and white-out snowfalls. The novel is, for the first couple of chapters, almost defiantly uneventful, with the handful of characters from among the ship's crew who we follow (mostly the ship's commander, his first and second mate, and the engineer) going about their daily routines, daydreaming occasionally about life before and after the war has ended, sporadically getting into petty squabbles of the sort that arise when small numbers of people (especially small numbers of men in hierarchical arrangements) are forced to live together without interruption for long periods of time, etc. It's full of authentic details about life aboard such a ship, and Vidal's prose is already clean, crisp, and intelligent if not quite as lively or pleasingly lush as elsewhere. Whatever shortcomings it may have aesthetically, though, Vidal delivers in particular when it comes to that lived-in authenticity of the lives of sailors, as well as with his set pieces detailing the terrifying power of the titular storm once it arrives. I wouldn't quite say he writes about the sea with a power worthy of Conrad or Patrick O'Brian or anything, but it's a very well-drawn tale of a ship and her crew in harm's way.
I think a lot of people will probably be put off by the wilfully uneventful opening sections, but for those who like "slices of life" or books about life at sea and/or life in the armed forces, this is a really nice read. And, again, he was 19 when he wrote it!
I think a lot of people will probably be put off by the wilfully uneventful opening sections, but for those who like "slices of life" or books about life at sea and/or life in the armed forces, this is a really nice read. And, again, he was 19 when he wrote it!
December 29, 2020
Well, I tried reading “Julian” and it was plodding and lifeless- Vidal actually made me put down Roman history and not pick it up again.
I gave him a second chance with “Williwaw”. The story is also plodding, lifeless and just cliche ridden. It’s so predictable that you find yourself reading further to see if your suspicions are merited or not. Vidal makes as boring as the Aleutians must be in the winter, or really at any time. Ugh.
The character development is juvenile at best, I regret reading to the lazyass cliffhanger ending. I wasted my time reading to the last page, and find myself jealous of the character Duval. He at least didn’t have to suffer through to the end. I’d give this ‘classic’ (sarcasm intended) less stars if it were possible.
I will not waste time on any more Gore Vidal. Twice in one life is enough. 🤮
I think I will just throw away this book of Vidal stories. I cannot imagine forcing them upon anyone else.
I gave him a second chance with “Williwaw”. The story is also plodding, lifeless and just cliche ridden. It’s so predictable that you find yourself reading further to see if your suspicions are merited or not. Vidal makes as boring as the Aleutians must be in the winter, or really at any time. Ugh.
The character development is juvenile at best, I regret reading to the lazyass cliffhanger ending. I wasted my time reading to the last page, and find myself jealous of the character Duval. He at least didn’t have to suffer through to the end. I’d give this ‘classic’ (sarcasm intended) less stars if it were possible.
I will not waste time on any more Gore Vidal. Twice in one life is enough. 🤮
I think I will just throw away this book of Vidal stories. I cannot imagine forcing them upon anyone else.
September 19, 2021
I put off reading this book because I wasn't sure if it was going to be any good given that it was written by Vidal when he was only 19. However, this is a pretty excellent novella, clearly influenced by Conrad, in the man vs. sea genre. There are hints of Vidal's later themes here and, in many ways, it almost seems like a revisionist version of our accepted history about WWII. It doesn't focus on any big battles and takes place in a forgotten theatre of the war, and that's the point. Everyone present is marking time, making do until the war is over and they can go back to their real lives. In the meantime, they all almost die ferrying a pompous officer on a pointless voyage. I would say this has to rank as one of the best literary debuts of all time.
November 30, 2021
A book probably more interesting for who wrote it than for its contents, "Williwaw" comes from the pen of a 19-year-old Vidal and, from that angle, is very impressive. Vidal had mastered a sparse, Hemingway-esque prose that he eventually abandoned for his more lurid and literary style. The simple story is a basic maritime adventure with a plot twist thrown in at the end to change things up. Characters are slightly flat but the story is brisk and moves fast. Gore went on to do a lot better than this but it is well worth a read.
June 18, 2022
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.
October 12, 2021
This was my second time reading Williwaw, and this time going in, not expecting a hyper-real Vidal-fest, or indeed, much of anything, I enjoyed it much more this time. As his first proper novel, this is much more naturalistic than later works, but you can certainly see traces of that style. It is still compelling and beautifully written. I may end up revisiting it again!
July 9, 2017
A simple story, but intriguing. Takes too long to get to the good stuff, and then has a pretty interesting twist that unfortunately it doesn't meditate on long enough for my taste. But it works as a whole and that's what matters.
February 2, 2018
First novel written by Vidal. Story is set on an Army ship that is taking three passengers along the coast of Alaska when a severe storm (the Williwaw) hits. Parallel to the outside storm is a storm brewing between two shipmates. Absorbing book which draws the reader in well.
March 8, 2022
I enjoyed this solid story and the interesting language. This was Gore Vidal's first book, written when he was 19 years old. What a writer, even at that age! If you like a little drama on the high seas, this book's for you.
January 1, 2018
brilliant
September 3, 2018
A good story set in the Aleutians during WW II.
December 29, 2018
Williwaw
First off, it’s impressive that Vidal published this in his early twenties. Certainly lays the groundwork for Vidal’s later works.
First off, it’s impressive that Vidal published this in his early twenties. Certainly lays the groundwork for Vidal’s later works.
December 5, 2019
Tight prose but an underwhelming story.
September 9, 2022
If memory serves me this was GV's first novel. Men on a boat. A death. Not too much to it. Enjoyable but not one I will re-read.
September 17, 2018
This was my first Gore Vidal book.
I can't say I loved it. Good plot, exciting, etc., but character development wasn't great and some of the dialogue felt forced.
Vidal wrote the book at a young age, and that shows, to my mind.
I'll have to read some of his later work to get a better read on Vidal overall.
Having read Michener's Alaska, I enjoyed revisiting some of the places on the Aleutians. But overall, I wasn't thrilled with the book.
I can't say I loved it. Good plot, exciting, etc., but character development wasn't great and some of the dialogue felt forced.
Vidal wrote the book at a young age, and that shows, to my mind.
I'll have to read some of his later work to get a better read on Vidal overall.
Having read Michener's Alaska, I enjoyed revisiting some of the places on the Aleutians. But overall, I wasn't thrilled with the book.
October 20, 2022
Being this is Vidal’s first novel, published while he was still a teenager. Knowing this, I did not expect wonderous prose and I was not disappointed. It is rather stilted, or as the author himself writes, “A careful, calculated style, a bit simple-minded but useful in telling this sort of story.” (9) I had hopes, however, for the descriptions of the actual storm, and again, I was not disappointed.
Quotes that caught my eye
… actions are important only to the degree we invest them with importance. (9)
It was several miles to the Headquarters. It was several miles to everything around here.
The countryside, if it cold be called that, was bleak and brown. There was no vegetation, only the spongy turf. Low hills sloped down into the water and beyond them the white mountains disappeared into the clouds. (179)
Quotes that caught my eye
… actions are important only to the degree we invest them with importance. (9)
It was several miles to the Headquarters. It was several miles to everything around here.
The countryside, if it cold be called that, was bleak and brown. There was no vegetation, only the spongy turf. Low hills sloped down into the water and beyond them the white mountains disappeared into the clouds. (179)
November 3, 2023
Williwaw (1946) is Gore Vidal’s first novel, written when he was 19 years old and serving in the US Army during World War II. It is a harrowing tale of survival, isolation, and desperation among the crew of a US Army ship on the treacherous waters of the Aleutian Islands in Alaska. Their charge is to transport an Army Major, a Chaplain, and other crew members from one island to another, all the while trying to avoid horrible storms on the high seas, known as “williwaws.” Vidal’s cast of characters in this novel are truly an ensemble; no one character is the center of the action: there’s the captain, Evans, his first officer, Bervick, Duval the engineer, Smitty the cook, and others. Tensions are high among the crew, as they are tired of war, isolated from family, and exhausted from bearing Alaska’s intense weather. Unfortunately for the crew, they encounter many storms that nearly destroy the ship and bury its crew in the deep. The most shocking scene comes towards the end, when Bervick, whose jealousy and dislike of Duval leads to the former murdering the latter and throwing him overboard. Captain Evans, anxious to get home and his crew away from intense investigations, convinces the military brass that it was an accident, despite his own knowledge to the contrary.
Williwaw is written in a direct, almost stark style, which Vidal attributed to his study of novelist Stephen Crane, whose Civil War novel, The Red Badge of Courage, is a classic in its own right. There are also shades of Joseph Conrad, especially with the book’s pessimistic tone. Despite its short length and sparse descriptions, the world Vidal creates feels very realistic and lived in; his characters feel like real people encountering almost insurmountable odds. Vidal also has a keen ear for dialogue, and when the novel focuses on the interactions of the crew and their thoughts on life, it really shines. He would write more elaborate work later in his career, but this first novel shows Gore Vidal at his most raw, a developing talent that in a few years would rock the literary world. For casual readers, it may be skippable, but for Gore Vidal die-hards like myself, it is an essential work.
Williwaw is written in a direct, almost stark style, which Vidal attributed to his study of novelist Stephen Crane, whose Civil War novel, The Red Badge of Courage, is a classic in its own right. There are also shades of Joseph Conrad, especially with the book’s pessimistic tone. Despite its short length and sparse descriptions, the world Vidal creates feels very realistic and lived in; his characters feel like real people encountering almost insurmountable odds. Vidal also has a keen ear for dialogue, and when the novel focuses on the interactions of the crew and their thoughts on life, it really shines. He would write more elaborate work later in his career, but this first novel shows Gore Vidal at his most raw, a developing talent that in a few years would rock the literary world. For casual readers, it may be skippable, but for Gore Vidal die-hards like myself, it is an essential work.
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