Williwaw

by Gore Vidal

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 among the treacherous 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. Illustrated with photos.

Genres: Fiction, American, War, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, American Fiction, Novels

119 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1946

About the author

Works 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.

Reviews

[mark monday · Rating 2 out of 5]

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!

[Lottie Louise · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Nathan "N.R." Gaddis]

Williwaw 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.

[Rebecca Huston · Rating 4 out of 5]

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...

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Russell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superbly drawn characters and a palpable claustrophobic atmosphere. Great debut novel by one of America's finest.

[Darren · Rating 3 out of 5]

[review to follow...]

[Tim Pendry · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Stuart Peters · Rating 3 out of 5]

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). The "murder" occurs in the last 10% of the book, there is no mystery as to how it happens, and the book barely addresses the investigation into it.

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.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent addition to the supply of WWII naval tales, and by such 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."

[Alexis(Andra) · Rating 3 out of 5]

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

[Jack · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

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!

[Karl Andrew · Rating 1 out of 5]

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.

[rndgmoat · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Ron Kerrigan · Rating 3 out of 5]

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.

[Setaryu · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story of Evans, a young skipper of a small battleship, and his crew in the Aleutian Islands during World War II. The crew are tough as they sail through bad weather, encountering a powerful arctic storm known as Williwaw, which breaks their mast. The crew's only pleasure is meeting the familiar prostitutes at the brothels in the ports of call. However, there is a final twist(?) over the handling of a crew member's fatal accident during the voyage. The author was 19 years old when he wrote his first novel, but the psychological portrayal of the crew is well-written, and although it is a medium-length novel, it was enjoyable enough.

[Mr Alexander · Rating 4 out of 5]

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!

[Jenna · Rating 3 out of 5]

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.

[Ronald Wilcox · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Inge · Rating 5 out of 5]

brilliant

[Mike Sigler · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good story set in the Aleutians during WW II.

[Ivan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Williwaw

First off, it’s impressive that Vidal published this in his early twenties. Certainly lays the groundwork for Vidal’s later works.

[Larry Knowles · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tight prose but an underwhelming story.

[Ward Hammond · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[robert block jr · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dnf

[Vahe Mankerian · Rating 3 out of 5]

The buildup to the climax is mesmerizing. You can feel the fear these shipmates are struggling through. Otherwise the rest of the novel is mundane.

[Vincent Darkhelm · Rating 3 out of 5]

Excellent first novel by my favourite novelist.