By Stanley Tiger
SAN DIEGO –Denied his 104th birthday by just ten days, Herman Wouk, best known for The Caine Mutiny (1954), passed away peacefully in his sleep last Friday, May 17. He lived a blessed life.
His most famous novel, based on his WWII navy service, was also a two year Broadway hit and an Oscar -winning movie starring Humphrey Bogart, still popular on television. Wouk has 22 other published works plus many honors from institutions such as Columbia, Berkeley, and Bar-Ilan Universities, not to forget the inaugural Library of Congress Lifetime Achievement Award for fiction, a similar achievement award from the Jewish Book Council, a Pulitzer and a Time Magazine cover.
Other blessings from his 103 lucid years…
– received his B.A. in philosophy from Columbia University (1934). He tells of his invitation accepted by accomplished British philosopher, Isaiah Berlin, to join him for Seder. In Wouk’s humorous words – you can learn a great deal from a man when you “break matzo together.”
– broke into media as a comedy writer for CBS and NBC radio personality, Fred Allen, who was heard on the networks. Both talents can be seen on YouTube, Wouk a guest, Allen a panelist on What’s My Line.
– a second hit novel, Marjorie Morningstar (1955), was made into a Warner Brothers film starring Natalie Wood and Gene Kelly.
– thirteen years of WWII research for the The Winds of War (1971) and sequel War and Remembrance (1978), considered classic historical novels. Both Barry Diller (then head of ABC) and associate Michael Eisner (before Disney) visited Wouk and agent wife Sarah at their Georgetown home. Ultimately, Wouk wrote the screenplay for the immensely popular, six Golden Globes TV miniseries (available on YouTube).
– in the course of research, he befriended the Nobel physicist, Richard Feynman, occasionally referenced in The Big Bang Theory. Sharing Minsk Torah scholars as grandfathers, a fascinating account of discussions between Orthodox (Wouk) and atheist Feynman is given in Wouk’s The Language God Talks (2010, titled after a Feynman phrase).
– with a to-his-soul appreciation of the Jewish tradition, in another work of non-fiction, This is My God (1959), Wouk writes of the Hebrew Bible bringing “human spirits that gleam out like stars: Samuel, David, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and the rest, a constellation of religious genius that still lights the world.”
– in another novel and sequel on the founding of Israel, The Hope (1993) and The Glory (1994), he incorporates Ben Gurion, who invited Wouk to visit him on his Negev kibbutz.
– around age 90, Wouk wrote A Hole in Texas (2004), a novel about the discovery of the particle known as the Higgs boson, predating its actual discovery by physicists by nine years.
– at age 100, he wrote Sailor and Fiddler (2015) apparently the only autobiography ever written by a renowned centenarian, where he references twice and disproves his wife’s appraisal, “Dear, you’re not that interesting a person.” (Totally forgivable after 70 years of marriage!)
A blessing Wouk never received was a richly deserved Nobel Prize, as was awarded to other Jewish American novelists. Wouk suggests a reason – his novels were not “all shook up with angst.” Yet he was approached by three winners, including two Christians, William Faulkner and John Steinbeck.
In a 1989 “letter of praise and gratitude” for Wouk’s Inside Outside (1985), Nobelist Joseph Heller describes the novel as “funny, warm, perceptive, engrossing, exciting, titillating, and, for me, exuberantly instructive.” He adds, “I have a greater respect for the devotional attitudes underlying our Jewish religious observances than I have ever had in my life.”
A Nobel Committee oversight or not, Wouk received the greatest prize, nearly 104 years of a blessed life. He now joins the constellation of Jewish genius that still lights the world.
May his survivors be comforted among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.
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Tiger, a freelance writer, is particularly interested in the intersection of science and religion. Obituaries and eulogies in San Diego Jewish World are sponsored by Inland Industries Group LP in memory of long-time San Diego Jewish community leader Marie (Mrs. Gabriel) Berg.
Beautifully written and illuminating. Thank you, Stan, for your insight.