Williwaw

by Gore Vidal

Book Overview

A boat of the Army Transportation Corps fights through the fierce wind of the Williwaw, carrying two officers and a chaplain with its crew. Human nature and the elements move the men through their... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 058602624X
• ISBN13: 9780586026243
• Release Date: January 1976
• Publisher: Panther Books
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Men against the sea, and against each other

The copyright page of Gore Vidal's "Williwaw" notes that the novel was first published in 1946. In a preface Vidal describes the background of this novel. He served in the U.S. Army during World War II and, at age 19, became first mate of an army freight-supply ship based in the Aleutian Islands. He worked on this book while on night watch in port. "Williwaw" is similarly set in the Aleutian Islands during that war, and focuses on the passengers and crew of an army freight-passenger ship that is skippered by a warrant officer. The story follows the ship's perilous passage between islands. Vidal sheds light on the book's title in his preface: he defines williwaws as "sudden devastating winds that come without warning down from the island mountains." Vidal has crafted a gripping wartime adventure. He masterfully charts the crew's struggle against the harsh, and potentially deadly, Aleutian environment. Equally compelling is the tension and conflict that build among the crew members. As the story develops, Vidal creates vivid portraits of the Aleutian Islands and the sea around them. The story is rich in details of the crew's daily life and routine on board the ship, as well as of their recreation in a seedy port town. Overall, Vidal's prose style in the book is very clean and matter-of-fact; I found it a very effective mode for this particular story. His portrait of the wartime Army is full of satiric touches that are sometimes subtle, sometimes funny. Ultimately "Williwaw" struck me as having a dark, almost nihilistic vision of the human condition. But it's a darkness that I found thought-provoking, and not repellent. Through his plot and characters Vidal takes such basic concepts as love, religion, heroism, and justice and seems to strip them bare. "Williwaw" is, in my judgment, not only a solid adventure tale, but also a unique and compelling contribution to the canon of American war fiction.

World War II Novel With Joseph Conrad Feel

Williwaw takes place in the Aleutian Islands of Alaska during World War II. The main action takes place during a freak, intense wind storm the eskimos call a "williwaw," it whips down off the coastal mountains and causes havoc, freak seas, etc. Gore Vidal, in this, his first novel (1946), creates a wonderful Joseph Conradian feel as tensions mount aboard a army transport ship making a weekly run. I don't want to spoil the ending. There is (I thought) a very CLIMACTIC moment when the tensions among the crew rise to their heights just as the williwaw hits, and - something happens. The serious tone and cool style of this book I found admirable. As a war novel I liked it as much as the ver different Joseph Heller's "Catch-22," and the lyrical, Tennessee Williams-like John Horne Burns' novel "The Gallery," while I liked it more so than Mailer's "Naked and the Dead" - which I liked for its themes and observations, I just wish Mailer could have (in my opinion) skipped the repetition and saved about 400 pages.