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BOOKS
Wouk Offers Jaded View
Of Literary Establishment
BY JOSEPH COHEN
Special to The Jewish News
Thirty years ago, on Sept. 5,
1955, Herman Wouk's picture ap-
peared on the cover ofTime maga-
zine. His Marjorie Morningstar
was a unanimous choice for the
Book of the Month Club, and his
publishers had printed a first run
of 100,000 copies. Marjorie Mor-
ningstar soon became a runaway
bestseller, following hard on the
heels of The Caine Mutiny (1951)
which had won a Pulitzer Prize
and was still grossing millions of
dollars as a book, a play and a
movie. Herman Wouk was sitting
on top of the world.
Now, five novels later, includ-
ing the enormously successful
Winds of War and War and Re-
membrance, Herman Wouk is still
sitting on top of the world. His
new novel Inside, Outside (Little
Brown and Co.), is again a Book of
the Month Club selection with a
gigantic printing and the cer-
tainty of grossing millions more.
Since Inside, Outside is a
memoir of sorts, it is a good time to
reflect on this book's relationship
to Wouk's whole career. In fact, it
might be thought of as a case-
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study in the craftsmanship of
Herman Wouk. Among his
greatest strengths has been his
sense of timing. He always
seemed to make the right move at
the right moment.
Though it was Saul Bellow's
Dangling Man published in 1944
that heralded the true beginning
of the American Jewish .literary
renaissance, it was Marjorie Mor-
ningstar that got the credit for
that auspicious start. It also crys-
tallized the emerging character
and symbol of the Jewish Ameri-
can Princess. Marjorie Mor-
ningstar was no great shakes as a
literary achievement, but because
of its timing it had tremendous
sociological and critical signifi-
cance and so it is well remem-
bered today-whereas Dangling
Man is practically an academic
museum piece. Nonetheless, it is
Saul Bellow who is required read-
ing in the universities where
Wouk is hardly ever given a nod.
Wouk is now 70 years old, an
age when eminent people write
their memoirs. Not content to do
an autobiography, Wouk has
taken whole globs of his life and
cast it into fiction, albeit mighty
thinly veneered, and added some
new inventions which make for
some highly entertaining read-
ing, full of rewarding insights into
Joseph Cohen is director of the
Jewish Studies Program at
Tulane University in New
Orleans.
what Wouk's priorities in
subject-matter are, but which
leave the reader wondering where
the facts end and the fiction be-
gins. Still, the bottom line is that
there is a lot of hilarity here
coupled with bittersweet nostal-
gia and a surprisingly bitchy at-
tack on several prominent Ameri-
can Jewish novelists whose char-
acteristics are combined to form a
"Inside, Outside" by
Herman Wouk. Little
Brown and Co.
composite of a thoroughly rep-
rehensible writer.
The reprehensible writer is
named Peter Quat. What kind of
books does Quat write? Their ti-
tles make it pretty clear: Deflow-
ering Sarah, The Smelly Melamed
and Onan's Way. Wouk's pro-
tagonist, I. David Goodkind, a
top-notch tax attorney, has to
spend a lot of time in court defend-
ing Quat.
Who are the likeliest candi-
dates for the composite? One
guess is Norman Mailer, Philip
Roth and Joseph Heller, not
necessarily in that order. Why the
vendetta? Ah, that's for Wouk to
answer. A plausible conjecture is
that a nagging envy may underlie
the characterization: they're re-
garded as significant writers, he's
merely a popular one. Maybe so,
maybe not.
In any case, the best way of-ap-
proaching Inside, Outside is to
recognize that it is neither fiction
nor autobiography but an elabo-
rate indulgence, a kind of
homecoming Wouk is allowing
himself, an award for years of
faithful if mixed service, giving us
a glimpse of a medium-sized Ulys-
ses resting on his laurels, regaling
his listeners with tales, jokes and
gibes, reminding us that the
foundations of his literary edifice
were laid on his early successes as
a collegiate musical revue writer
and as a radio gag-man for Fred
Allen and other famous come-
dians.
After some sobering experi-
ences at war and some maturing,
and with a willingness to do some
proper research, Wouk found that
he could spin an absorbing and
compelling multi-peopled tale
with the best of them. The proof of
this accomplishment is in his war
books where he allows himself
only minor distractions.
In the other novels, the gag-
man has always taken over and
dominated the action. Distrac-
tions run rampant in Inside,Out-
side with "witty devil-may-care
whimsey and shocking looseness
all over the place" to pinch a line
from Marjorie Morningstar. Here
the distractions compromise
reality morning, noon and night.
But it doesn't matter, because the
old man is loaded, the party's on
him, and, pray God, we should all
have a good time, remembering
that old gag-men never die, they