Please Make It Stop: “Youngblood Hawke” by Herman Wouk

Please, please make it stop. I’m trying to slog my way through Youngblood Hawke right now by Herman Wouk. Right now I just wish I was closer to page 878 than I was to page 351. It’s taking so long!

I actually like Wouk (probably so far Marjorie Morningstar best followed by Inside, Outside and then Don’t Stop the Carnival) but this one…this one….It’s not like it’s bad, but it just drags and drags. It’s another New York novel. Yet another. Worse, it’s another writer in New York novel. Frankly, it’s amazing that Wouk can make me feel anything for the characters at all.

Of course, that’s getting buried under all the words. Overwriting. Honestly, it feels like the things I don’t like about Tom Wolf in The Bonfire of the Vanities or A Man in Full. It hurts.

I know, I could always stop. I just don’t tend to do that, though.

Anyway, there’s still good here. I just wish Wouk didn’t seem so much like he was trying to write a big American book here. It feels that way too much and I don’t like it.