The Winds of War

I won't lie. This was an intimidating book to start. Typically 500+ pages in books don't phase me, but for me, that usually means nonfiction. I seldom find a fiction book so long that interests me. This book was suggested to me and I jumped in blindly, purchasing the book only to see the length afterward. I ended up opting for the audiobook to help me through it before the end of the year.

The book is broken up into different POVs in the Henry family as they go their separate ways in the early days of World War II (namely, America's part in it). Pug is a Navy man, something his wife Rhoda grows to resent more and more now that their children, Warren, Byron, and Madeline are grown and leading their own lives.

The book covers a lot of World War II history, often at the expense of the flow of the story. I'm not sure if these more nonfiction sections were footnotes being read at the end of certain chapters or full chapters themselves, but the first couple of times it happened I ended up checking the book to see if Audible had somehow changed my books. I didn't love the pacing or the organization. I can blame being accustomed to modern historical novels for that undoubtedly. That was a fair trade for the content, however. It was refreshing to be reading a piece of World War II fiction that didn't rely on the same handful of tropes and their variations. The story was deep, meticulous, and aimed at educating rather than romanticizing. For that, I enjoyed it immensely.

Some of the characters didn't feel necessary. Even while I was actively reading the book, I couldn't distinguish Warren from Pug and found myself forgetting his existence completely. I could say the same for Madeline although her scenes felt like such a distraction from the meat of the story that she became memorable. I was most invested in Byron and Pug's storylines. Toward the end, I felt as though I was wading through the rest just so I could carry on with the stories I cared about.

I kept telling myself throughout the entire book that I wasn't hooked enough to continue with the next installment. The last 100 pages or so changed my mind which I suppose should have surprised me as it was obvious where the build-up was leading to. On I go to War and Remembrance, in the new year...

When the pot boils, the scum comes to the surface.

That is my main takeaway from The Winds of War. I've read a few of Herman Wouk's novels now and, like the rest, this one is another incredibly compelling drama detailing the conflicts and relationships between a well-drawn cast of characters. In this case it's a military family, the Henry's, and how they orbit the days of World War II.

While the characters and the situations they found themselves in kept me turning the pages, it was the setting and cultural attitudes which left me thinking about the book long after I closed the cover. Wouk's exploration of the larger social attitudes which allowed Nazism to flourish in Germany, as well as the indifference displayed by many Americans, made this book feel almost vital in this moment.

It is all too easy to draw parallels between the mass unrest which allowed facism to take hold in the early 20th century and the modern shift in the West towards ideaologies of bigotry. When speaking on the duology as a whole, Wouk noted that Winds of War was the prologue, setting the stage for the story he really wanted to tell in War and Remembrance, which covers America's experience upon entering the Second World War. Reading today, this first volume isn't prologue but prophecy, and a damning condemnation of how American exceptionalism has made many blind to the mainstream fascism which has taken root in the West today.