The Caine mutiny

What Hacker News says

1. kwertyoowiyopNov 2022
   I need to read Wouk’s other books. I’ve read Caine Mutiny three times, Winds of War once, and that’s it. Which should I read next?
   thread
2. hirundoSep 2019
   Another great sea story: The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk.
   thread
3. pmcfAug 2024
   "The Navy is a master plan designed by geniuses for execution by idiots."

   - Herman Wouk, The Caine Mutiny

   This is completely true. 18-20-year-old kids launch and arrest aircraft on a carrier while simultaneously performing an underway replenishment, and it's just another day.

   thread
4. nwatsonOct 2023
   "Winds of War" and "War and Remembrance" by Herman Wouk. Written in the 1970s, from the perspective of a Jewish-American family. He also earlier wrote Pulitzer-Prize-winning "The Caine Mutiny" in 1951, it was a good book but not as enjoyable as the other two.

   He fought in the Pacific Theater during WWII and so lived it.

   (I also remember his 1948 "City Boy" being a hilarious tale of a Jewish kid growing up in NYC/The Bronx.)

   Show morethread
5. JJMcJJun 2022
   If you follow the publication of big name writers, there is a tendency for their later works to get longer and longer, and, as you say, harder to read.

   Examples include Robert Heinlein in Science Fiction, James Michener in general fiction, Herman Wouk in general fiction. For Wouk, his well known Caine Mutiny is a fairly long book, but it's tightly written. Later works not so much.

   thread
6. noisefridgeFeb 2022
   The film The Caine Mutiny helped inspire the 25th amendment to the US Constitution. That's based on a book, so even if you want to narrow it to literature, it still works.

   https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/09/1...

   Of course, nothing happens just because someone saw a movie about it. The 25th amendment was also prompted by the assassination of JFK, and the new awesome responsibilities of the US president in nuclear brinkmanship.

   But I think literature and especially film are a kind of artificial experience, a memory of something that never happened. And we can start to take steps to realize or avoid those events.

   These effects can be subtle, but not that hard to trace. For instance, the police greatly benefit from their nearly universal portrayal as heroes on film and TV. I think you can draw a direct line from that to the massive police budgets you see in North America.

   Show morethread