Williwaw
by Gore Vidal
Williwaw
A review by Adrian Tahourdin
Williwaw is Gore Vidal's first novel, written when he was nineteen and
published in 1946. Williwaw, the author tells us, is the "Indian word for a big
wind peculiar to the Aleutian islands and the Alaskan coast. It is a strong wind
that swoops down from the mountains toward the sea". The novel, which is set in
the Aleutians, between Alaska and Russia, late in the Second World War, charts
the passage of a US Army freight supply ship on a three-day trip across these
treacherous waters: the ship successfully completes its voyage through a williwaw,
but after the storms have abated, the Chief Engineer, Duval, is lost overboard.
This being wartime, there will be no investigation, in spite of the cloud of suspicion
that hangs over the second mate, Bervick, whom Duval had been taunting about a
woman in port.
The real action of the war is taking place elsewhere in the Pacific, and the
Japanese are mentioned only once. Evans, the cynical twenty-five-year-old skipper,
is bored by the radio bulletins -- "our 'forces were smashing ahead on all fronts':
the usual thing". He is more concerned about weather reports and the need to
bring the ship's human cargo safely to port, among them a pompous Major from
West Point, who is forever hoping that people will spot the resemblance between
him and his hero the Duke of Wellington, and an Army chaplain always ready with
a banal observation. Vidal convincingly depicts the strains of life on a small
vessel, which culminate in the fatal stand-off between Bervick and Duval.
This is a tight, well-crafted novel. The dialogue is sharp and the description
of the barren Aleutians, where the snow is "ripped off the mountains by the
wind", vivid. The storm passages feel dramatically real. In a short preface
to this reissue Vidal reminds
us that he served as a first mate on an Army supply ship in the Aleutians towards
the end of the war, and points out that military censorship required him to
change place names (Dutch Harbor, for example, becomes Holland Harbor in the
book). He also takes a characteristic swipe at purveyors of idle "book-chat"
who mistakenly called the book "Hemingwayesque". Stephen Crane was an influence
on the young writer, particularly his short story "The Open Boat". But the wry,
worldly, narrative voice, which has echoed down the decades, is entirely his.
Adrian Tahourdin
is an assistant editor at the TLS
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