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jhbandcats's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
An in-depth look at the life of a young officer who joins the Navy to avoid being drafted into the Army in WWII. The writing drew me in (once I got used to the dated style) and I needed to keep reading to see what was happening with these characters.
The book begins with the naive officer’s training, takes him through tedious duty in the Pacific under two reviled captains, describes the terrifying experience of being in a typhoon and under a kamikaze attack, and ends with the decommissioning of the rattletrap ship that amazingly made it through the war. Throughout there’s a side story of a forbidden romance with a girl back home.
By today’s standards, the racism and misogyny are unacceptable - at the time this was written, the WASP* outlook was prominent. Interestingly, the Jewish author wrote some pretty insulting bits about Jews, clearly reflecting his experience. *WASP = White Anglo-Saxon Protestant
The characters are fully developed and the Navy jargon and lifestyle are explained without sounding condescending to the layman. Despite knowing nothing of the Navy and the Pacific Theater in WWII, I always knew what was going on and what it meant.
I loved the book up through the court-martial. After that, the plot went in a different, more realistic, direction than I’d expected. It disappointed me but that wasn’t a fault of the book. The author was prolific; now I need to decide if I want to read his two 800-page WWII novels that followed twenty years later.
The book begins with the naive officer’s training, takes him through tedious duty in the Pacific under two reviled captains, describes the terrifying experience of being in a typhoon and under a kamikaze attack, and ends with the decommissioning of the rattletrap ship that amazingly made it through the war. Throughout there’s a side story of a forbidden romance with a girl back home.
By today’s standards, the racism and misogyny are unacceptable - at the time this was written, the WASP* outlook was prominent. Interestingly, the Jewish author wrote some pretty insulting bits about Jews, clearly reflecting his experience. *WASP = White Anglo-Saxon Protestant
The characters are fully developed and the Navy jargon and lifestyle are explained without sounding condescending to the layman. Despite knowing nothing of the Navy and the Pacific Theater in WWII, I always knew what was going on and what it meant.
I loved the book up through the court-martial. After that, the plot went in a different, more realistic, direction than I’d expected. It disappointed me but that wasn’t a fault of the book. The author was prolific; now I need to decide if I want to read his two 800-page WWII novels that followed twenty years later.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcohol, Misogyny, Classism, Antisemitism, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Racism, Bullying, Grief, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Mental illness, and War
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