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A review by lotsandoften
The Winds of War by Herman Wouk
5.0
I loved this tremendous, sprawling epic of a book. Wouk is masterful in his handling of both history and family, weaving the two into one another in such a way that we learn something new about both.
Winds of War follows the Henry family in the few years preceding Pearl Harbour. I've never read such a well paced, slow examination of the lead up to the war. Guided by a small cast of characters I really cared about, I was transported through military history, meetings with presidents and dictators, invasions in Poland and parties in Berlin. As the Henrys expand and contract around the globe, so too does the war grow around them and terror close in at their necks.
I found some of the language a little hard to hear, particularly when it came to the Japanese, and Wouk is far from kind in his descriptions of some of his female characters. But they are always as richly drawn as their male counterparts, an element often missing in war novels or books of this era, and so I enjoyed that they were equal players here in their depth if not in their lives.
I loved the slow playing out of the relationships as much as the war itself. In the modern world we expect answers immediately, we text or call, our loves are at our fingertips. Here in 1940, a character receives a letter from his wife telling him she wants a divorce. He must write back that he'll return from war in two years and hopes to make things up with her. Such a situation is unimaginable now. These little human moments show us how the world felt at this time, as much if not more clearly at times than the telling of the facts.
It's an exciting, beautiful plotted, informative and romantic novel of staggering magnitude and ambition. Beyond anything you may learn, it is just immensely enjoyable. I would recommend it to anyone.
Winds of War follows the Henry family in the few years preceding Pearl Harbour. I've never read such a well paced, slow examination of the lead up to the war. Guided by a small cast of characters I really cared about, I was transported through military history, meetings with presidents and dictators, invasions in Poland and parties in Berlin. As the Henrys expand and contract around the globe, so too does the war grow around them and terror close in at their necks.
I found some of the language a little hard to hear, particularly when it came to the Japanese, and Wouk is far from kind in his descriptions of some of his female characters. But they are always as richly drawn as their male counterparts, an element often missing in war novels or books of this era, and so I enjoyed that they were equal players here in their depth if not in their lives.
I loved the slow playing out of the relationships as much as the war itself. In the modern world we expect answers immediately, we text or call, our loves are at our fingertips. Here in 1940, a character receives a letter from his wife telling him she wants a divorce. He must write back that he'll return from war in two years and hopes to make things up with her. Such a situation is unimaginable now. These little human moments show us how the world felt at this time, as much if not more clearly at times than the telling of the facts.
It's an exciting, beautiful plotted, informative and romantic novel of staggering magnitude and ambition. Beyond anything you may learn, it is just immensely enjoyable. I would recommend it to anyone.