The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk

The Caine Mutiny: A Novel of World War II by Herman Wouk
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

If you were like me and have only seen the movie version, starring Humphrey Bogart, you should do yourself a favor dive into this book. It is far more in depth than the movie version. In fact after listening to the book and then watched the movie I was surprised how much the movie left out.

The book focuses more on Willie Keith and his telling the story and how he changed. It's and interesting telling of life aboard a ship during World War 2 with all it's trivialities. Like it has been said before war is often short bursts of excite stretched between extreme amounts of boredom. It tells of the stress and exhaustion that can take a toll on a crew that's been together a long time under stress.

At first the eccentricities of Captain Queeg seem even more unreasonable as the story goes along. As you are brought into the world of the crew you feel in agreement of how crazy their skipper is. When he is relieved during a typhoon that is endangering the ship you can see why.

Then when the reality of it comes later during Maryk's Court Martial you begin to see how Keith, Maryk, Tom Keefer and others were just as complicate in their actions. They realize they did not support their Captain when needed and added to his stress and led to his disgrace.


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