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The Caine Mutiny

Herman Wouk

Start date: April 1, 2018

Finish date: April 30, 2018

Discussion: Group Reads

Why we're reading this: April 2018 Classics - Stormy Weather
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What Members Thought

Oct 30, 2015 Sarah rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: audio

4.5 rounded up this time. I was wondering when I started this how you can possibly get 500+ pages/26+ listening hours out of a mutiny. It seems like that's an event rather than a lengthy story. It turns out that it's not entirely about the mutiny. That's sort of a moment in time where the character's fates intertwine, otherwise it's a story about what it's like to be on a ship in the Navy in war time.

The book starts out with young, naïve, slight spoiled Willie Keith getting drafted into the Army 4.5 rounded up this time. I was wondering when I started this how you can possibly get 500+ pages/26+ listening hours out of a mutiny. It seems like that's an event rather than a lengthy story. It turns out that it's not entirely about the mutiny. That's sort of a moment in time where the character's fates intertwine, otherwise it's a story about what it's like to be on a ship in the Navy in war time.

The book starts out with young, naïve, slight spoiled Willie Keith getting drafted into the Army during WWII. He runs off to enroll in the Navy to become an officer. He comes out of training an Ensign, which was the moment when I realized he couldn't possibly be leading the damn mutiny, so why was he the main character? At the time that he went into training, he was a decent pianist who made a living making up puns in ridiculous little cringe-worthy ditties. This is where he meets the beautiful and highly desirable Mae. He sees her on the sly because Mom wouldn't approve of this vulgar, coarse, poor, Italian woman.

Wouk does a truly beautiful job of developing Willie's character and showing us the ways that he grows over the course of the story. After we're pretty firmly comfortable with Willie's character, he starts showing us interactions that are happening between other people on board. He does this so effectively that I actually did burst out laughing a few times because the interactions were just so natural.

Since Willie is not the main person involved in the mutiny, it also allows us to see what he thinks of the mutiny afterwards, and what he thinks of the Navy. What his hindsight is and what he thinks of the Navy in general at the end of the story.

It's a very human story and a fascinating story of WWII. And I just have to use one of my favorite lines here. Upon meeting his completely naked Captain (not Queeg) "Willie felt an urge to salute, to bow, in some way to express reverence for supreme authority. But he remembered a regulation about not saluting a superior when he was uncovered. And he had never seen a more uncovered superior than his commanding officer." How awkward. ...more

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