Winds of War

Winds of War-Herman Wouk

How I found this book: In my father’s massive clutter of books that he had while I was a child. My father loved the mini-series, I grew up watching it, it was Dad and me’s thing to do, sit around and watch Winds of War, and War and Remembrance on cold winter afternoons. I’d like to add that because of this, I was the only person on my high school academic bowl team who knew that Herman Wouk was the author of these books when this question came up in the district academic bowl tournaments held my senior year.

Did I also mention I was a raging nerd in high school?

Setting: Pre-World War II, the late 1930’s, before Poland is invaded by Germany. The story ranges from Europe to Hawaii, as it’s one of those sweeping, epic types.

Main Characters:

Victor ‘Pug’ Henry: Long time naval officer, he has his heart set on command of a ship, but instead is sent to Berlin to serve as the naval attaché there as Hitler prepares his war.

Rhoda Henry: Victor’s longtime wife, a former socialite who has never settled easily into life as a naval wife.

Warren Henry: The eldest Henry child, he’s the ideal son, good at school and in sports, he follows his father into the navy and becomes a pilot.

Byron Henry: The middle Henry child, he is an indolent, restless man, not particularly good at or interested in anything. His vague interest in the Italian Renaissance takes him to Europe to study where he meets Aaron Jastrow and his beautiful niece, Natalie.

Madeline Henry: The youngest Henry child, she is bored with college, and takes the opportunity of her parents’ absence to run off to New York to be an independent young woman working in show business.

Aaron Jastrow: A respected scholar and author, Jastrow, a Polish Jew who emigrated to America quite young, live now in Siena, Italy, ostensibly researching and writing. He feels free of the threat to other Jews as he has not practiced his religion in years, and he is a renowned scholar and an American.

Natalie Jastrow: Aaron’s equally brilliant as well as beautiful niece, a Radcliffe graduate who is assisting her uncle while carrying on an affair with Leslie Sloat, a member of the American consulate.

Leslie Sloat: An American diplomat who is involved with Natalie, though he never intends on marrying her because she is ethnically Jewish.

Alastair Tudsbury: A British broadcaster, he befriends Pug Henry and warns him about the threat that Hitler poses the future.

Pamela Tudsbury: Alastair’s beautiful, impulsive young daughter, who steadily grows more attracted to the much older Pug.

Palmer Kirby: An American businessman whom Rhoda Henry becomes increasingly more involved with.

Plot: The Henrys, an American naval family, are swept up by the winds of war leading to Pearl Harbor. Pug Henry and his wife Rhoda watch as Germany begins to militarize itself, while unknown to them, their middle son Byron is caught in the middle of it as he works for Aaron Jastrow and falls in love with Aaron’s beautiful and willful niece. Far away in America, the eldest son, Warren trains to be a naval pilot, unaware that his services will be needed far too soon, and their daughter Madeline is caught up in the flurry of war gossip in the American media, as already the complacent American landscape is getting ready to be changed by war. Running over a course of two years, the Henry family is changed forever, as World War II begins, and as the story closes, they are all scattered by the winds, unsure if they will see each other again or even when.

Themes:

The growing tide of war: Wouk lived and served through these times, and he does a very good job of characterizing the growing threat of war in late 1930’s America. We see through the eyes and adventures of the Henry family the political and social changes going on that lead to the horrible events of the war.

The plight of the Jews: Wouk wrote this story and its sequel not only as a war story, but as a story of the Jews as well. He shows us how in even little ways the Jews were demeaned and degraded long before the first concentration camps were built. Pug and Rhoda have a particular heartbreaking decision in which they are asked to rent a lovely home at an exorbitantly low rate by the Jewish owners. When Pug wishes to refuse, the owner begs him to reconsider, knowing that at least Pug and Rhoda will take care of their home, even if he the owner would be victimized.

It is also revealed in the relationship of Byron and Natalie, who is an American Jew. Byron’s father isn’t happy with the relationship between his son, who was raised a Methodist, and a Jewish girl, (setting up a strange dichotomy in Pug, who hates the way Jews are treated in Germany). Yet Byron thinks nothing of aiding Natalie’s Polish family members as the Germans role into Poland. He furthermore stands up for both Natalie and an American diplomat against German officials who want to separate the two out for being Jewish. Byron sees first hand the danger the Jews in Europe face at the hands of Hitler’s forces, though he knows there is little he can do to stop it, save perhaps be involved in the war he and his father both suspect is coming.

Father/son relationships: Perhaps not a major part of the novel as the war, the relationship between Pug and his sons is a key tie between the Henrys in general. Pug has vastly different relationships with Warren and Byron. This tends to make Byron much more estranged from his father, though in many ways father and son are more alike than they let on. Warren, the ideal son, we find out is not as perfect as his father would see him either. While the brothers are close to one another, the tension between Pug and Byron will characterize Byron’s actions through much of the book, and in the sequel as well.

Military marriages: No matter how you slice it, military marriages aren’t easy. Pug and Rhoda’s marriage suffers from years in the navy, and now that war is coming, the tension comes to the breaking point.

So every book has to suck somewhere: If you LOVE World War II History, this is the book for you! If however you are not into history, politics, religion, World War II, or books big enough to build the foundation of your house with…I’d leave off this one. It’s a bit dry and prosaic in spots, and you’ll find yourself skipping through to the good bits. I’d recommend reading the good bits at least, maybe even the dry bits to educate you a bit, but really, this is a book for a certain type of reader, and if you aren’t that type, you’ll be bored by Chapter Three.

Rate this wormy book: This book rates a FAT WORM. If you love World War II, military history, or just a great, sweeping epic historical novel, YES, YES, YES. This book has all those things and more, and it is a great fictional insight into a tumultuous time in history. While it does have its drawbacks, (much more focus on Europe than on the what is going on in Asia or in America), it’s a great study on how the world changed for Americans when the war started, and how families like the Henrys were effected by it.