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Delilah
Delilah is an old four-piper destroyer whose regular beat is one of the world's most exotic --- and dangerous --- bodies of water: the Sulu Sea. Set at the beginning of the American Century just before the First World War, the ship patrols the violent racial and religious tensions that threaten to break America's tenuous group on the Philippines, and on its identity as a colonial power. In a series of exquisitely-drawn stories, Marcus Goodrich reveals tantalizing glimpses of the heart of each sailor as the crew puts down Philippine insurrections, searches for a gunrunner's cave told of only in island folklore, and delivers medicine to western mercenaries.
Here is the return of one of the 20th century's most important and widely translated novels of the sea. It is a boon for lovers of sea yarns and a must-read for any serious student of American literature.
Here is the return of one of the 20th century's most important and widely translated novels of the sea. It is a boon for lovers of sea yarns and a must-read for any serious student of American literature.
501 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1941
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About the author
Marcus Goodrich
9 books2 followersMarcus Aurelius Goodrich was an American screenwriter and novelist. He was the first husband of actress Olivia de Havilland. Their only son Benjamin was born on 1 December 1949. Before he was married to Elizabeth Norton, Henriette Alice McCrea-Metcalf, Caroline Sleeth, Renee Oakman.
He associated with the Ernest Hemingway group in Paris and was a protégé of Philip Wylie. He is best known for his 1941 novel Delilah.
He associated with the Ernest Hemingway group in Paris and was a protégé of Philip Wylie. He is best known for his 1941 novel Delilah.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
March 3, 2019
The USS Delilah is intended to represent one of the first-of-class American destroyers built mostly in 1899. By the time the story joins the Delilah, she is serving in the South Pacific just prior to WWI with a crew of about 70 men who live in close quarters. It’s worth noting that Delilah is not a typical naval sea story. Yes, the novel features a naval destroyer, the fictional USS Delilah, but there are no sea battles, submarine hunts, or daring attacks on enemy positions.
Marcus Goodrich uses the USS Delilah as a means to examine the social divisions that exist in such an intimate and intense environment. The South Pacific setting isolates the destroyer from the larger American society, which give focus to the examination.
In concept, the book is quite contemplative. Many issues of social division are explored including the Captain’s isolation associated with his command, the division that exists between the officers and enlisted men, and the divisions that exist between the various personalities that comprise the crew. On this last point, the book examines the process wherein the crew tends to subdue their own personalities down to the least common denominator in order to live and work in close proximity to one another. Also examined are the divides that separate an arrogant Western culture and the humble natives of the South Pacific. And religion does not escape scrutiny with the examination of the divide between those with a perceived religious mission and those with a more holistic view of life.
In reality, the book failed to capture my imagination. Goodrich makes all his points but dwells on each one long after it ceases to be interesting. The result is a book that moves rather slow. Also lacking are the personalities of the characters. Goodrich tends to narrate over his characters rather than allowing them to communicate directly between themselves. As a consequence, the characters never develop into individuals, which makes it hard to distinguish one from another.
Overall, Delilah was a great idea for a book. Goodrich intended to write a thoughtful book about a petri dish floating on the sea, but the end result was a sluggish read that took more than its fair share of time to complete.
Marcus Goodrich uses the USS Delilah as a means to examine the social divisions that exist in such an intimate and intense environment. The South Pacific setting isolates the destroyer from the larger American society, which give focus to the examination.
In concept, the book is quite contemplative. Many issues of social division are explored including the Captain’s isolation associated with his command, the division that exists between the officers and enlisted men, and the divisions that exist between the various personalities that comprise the crew. On this last point, the book examines the process wherein the crew tends to subdue their own personalities down to the least common denominator in order to live and work in close proximity to one another. Also examined are the divides that separate an arrogant Western culture and the humble natives of the South Pacific. And religion does not escape scrutiny with the examination of the divide between those with a perceived religious mission and those with a more holistic view of life.
In reality, the book failed to capture my imagination. Goodrich makes all his points but dwells on each one long after it ceases to be interesting. The result is a book that moves rather slow. Also lacking are the personalities of the characters. Goodrich tends to narrate over his characters rather than allowing them to communicate directly between themselves. As a consequence, the characters never develop into individuals, which makes it hard to distinguish one from another.
Overall, Delilah was a great idea for a book. Goodrich intended to write a thoughtful book about a petri dish floating on the sea, but the end result was a sluggish read that took more than its fair share of time to complete.
June 18, 2009
This novel takes place aboard a navy destroyer cruising among the Philippine Islands shortly before World War I, but it is not a "military" novel in the usual sense. Its really about the interplay of personalities among the enlisted men, the officers,and between the two groups. The authors observations of the men seem psychologically acute and, while little seems to happen in the early part of the novel, you realize eventually that all is preparation for the climactic events at the end.
March 19, 2007
might be the best naval story ever. If you liked "The Cain Mutiny" or "The Sand Peabbles" or "Run Silent Run Deep" you'll love this one.
October 3, 2018
“Like dense, black velvet the sea smoothed away in every direction from the phosphorescent swath Delilah was cutting through it, parting in two even billows flickering green flame before the knife of her bow, flashing along her sides, trailing back into the infinity of her wake, a contrast, cold, alluring, and unearthly, to the red glow above the smokestacks.”
The Delilah is an old, worn-out destroyer serving in the Philippines in 1916-17, modeled after the ship the author served on, one of the first destroyers in the U.S. Navy. It is small, at barely 250 feet long and 25 feet abeam, and crewed by four officers and 67 enlisted men. Power is provided by what today seems like exotic early technology: coal fired boilers serving triple expander reciprocating engines, only one or two engineering steps removed from the days of sail.
The book was a best seller when it came out, and it is easy to see why. The author has a remarkable talent for creating a sense of realism, and describes life at sea on a small vessel in a way that I recognize instantly from my days onboard a U.S. minesweeper and a destroyer. The characters are distinct and believable, and they respond to situations in ways that real people would. One example is the Chief Bosun’s Mate, a minor character but so distinct he seems completely real. Tough, capable, no-nonsense, the kind of man you want in charge when the work is difficult and dangerous, he even sounds like just about every Bosun chief I ever met, “He never used anything in language but a few nouns and verbs. In place of adjectives he used four or five variants of words uncommonly designating the most extreme kinds of filth. These he sprayed about continually, in a penetrating, staccato bellow, as if they were the foul froth whirled off by the pressures of his tremendous energy.”
The author also brilliantly evokes what it was like to be roused for the Midwatch after another long day and never enough sleep. For years after I left the Navy I had dreams of being woken from an exhausted, death-like slumber to drag myself to my feet to stand watch.
For all the brilliance of the narrative, however, there are some scenes that a modern reader finds deeply offensive. It is hard to know how to respond to these: the book was published in 1941 and describes events of more than two decades earlier, so it could be the author was consciously trying to recapture opinions from that time; or, as I rather suspect, they reflect the sentiments of the 1940s, and few people who read the book when it first came out would have been offended. It is also possible, of course, that the voice of the narrator is not the voice of the author, and he was describing things he did not personally believe or approve of.
One of these offensive themes is the casual anti-semitism of many of the characters. Even those who are written to be sympathetic and engaging, such as the ship’s Executive Officer, share these sentiments. Reflecting on a Jewish fellow officer he says (ellipses in original), “a Jew had no business being a naval officer...much less in command of a vessel...Schiff was clever as hell, you had to hand him that...but their guts and blood were sour...no iron in them.”
The anti-semitism is ugly but pales when compared to the vilest moment in the book. Petty Officer Second Class Cavendish is portrayed as the ship’s dandy, always taking care to ensure that his liberty uniform is spotless and eye-catching. He is also a brutal serial rapist. He uses his looks and charm to get alone with a woman, then violent assaults her, knocking her unconscious, and then rapes her. The author relates this without a hint of disapproval, as if he were describing some harmless hobby. There is even an implication that the man is somehow clever, “It never had gotten him into trouble; the outraged girl with retribution on her mind, when she was willing to face the disgrace, had little or no social or legal case: she had gone to a deserted place with him, and there had been no outcry, her clothes where not torn, there was no evidence of struggle.”
And then, at the midpoint of the book, the author loses focus somewhat. Delilah goes into the shipyard for an overhaul, and the rest of the book takes place either during the repairs or in the workup that follows. The narrative remains interesting, and worth reading, but it loses the rhythms of life at sea. There is a forty page interlude, supposedly told over the dinner table, where the tale of a monk and a scoundrel is told, and it is completely irrelevant to the main story. Similarly, the last sixty pages of the book tell the story of a sailor run amok on shore leave. It is a gripping read but it feels like a separate short story appended to the book.
Delilah ends abruptly with the announcement of the United States’ entry into World War I. Literally, three paragraphs after the official statement is read, the book ends. The author always intended to write a successor volume about the ship during the war, but though he lived another fifty years , he never published it, or any other book. His Wikipedia entry is two paragraphs long, mentions Delilah in one sentence, and focuses on the fact that he was actress Olivia de Havilland’s first husband.
The Delilah is an old, worn-out destroyer serving in the Philippines in 1916-17, modeled after the ship the author served on, one of the first destroyers in the U.S. Navy. It is small, at barely 250 feet long and 25 feet abeam, and crewed by four officers and 67 enlisted men. Power is provided by what today seems like exotic early technology: coal fired boilers serving triple expander reciprocating engines, only one or two engineering steps removed from the days of sail.
The book was a best seller when it came out, and it is easy to see why. The author has a remarkable talent for creating a sense of realism, and describes life at sea on a small vessel in a way that I recognize instantly from my days onboard a U.S. minesweeper and a destroyer. The characters are distinct and believable, and they respond to situations in ways that real people would. One example is the Chief Bosun’s Mate, a minor character but so distinct he seems completely real. Tough, capable, no-nonsense, the kind of man you want in charge when the work is difficult and dangerous, he even sounds like just about every Bosun chief I ever met, “He never used anything in language but a few nouns and verbs. In place of adjectives he used four or five variants of words uncommonly designating the most extreme kinds of filth. These he sprayed about continually, in a penetrating, staccato bellow, as if they were the foul froth whirled off by the pressures of his tremendous energy.”
The author also brilliantly evokes what it was like to be roused for the Midwatch after another long day and never enough sleep. For years after I left the Navy I had dreams of being woken from an exhausted, death-like slumber to drag myself to my feet to stand watch.
The descent of night at sea, with its long lonely watches, now plunged him into a warm shadow of febrile anticipation. This was true, perhaps especially true, even of those nights on which he was scheduled to stand the dreaded Twelve-to-Four, that watch through the four most dark and lifeless hours of the ship’s night...This ordeal, which lasted sluggishly, like a hangover of dissipation, quite through the working day following the night of the watch, arose out of the mechanics of the relationship between his being and sleep. After the hour of taps when he was free to do so, he would get to sleep between nine-thirty and ten o’clock. After he had fallen asleep, it seemed to take the two hours or so of unconsciousness for his tired muscles, his tight nerves, his pressured brain to unwind their tensions and relax. Then just at the death-like moment when sleep had begun to possess him completely, to pour through his being in soothing triumph the warm luxury of its healing peace, at the very moment when he was drugged most heavily but had not yet had time to gain any restoration from the drug, there would come a nightmare tug at his shoulder. “Twelve o’clock. You’ve got the Twelve-to-Four haven’t you? Come on, Sailor, on your feet.” He would sit up heavily, mechanically in the darkness, like a dead body responding reflexively to stimulation. Painfully his eyes would open wide under the dimly sensed necessity not of seeing but of convincing the oppressive shadow hovering impatiently above him that he actually was awake. Infuriatingly, the shadow would never disappear until he was on his feet. Then with all that made him think, feel and live, writhing, helplessly abject and betrayed, within the heavy recesses of his mechanically aroused body, he would totter about on vague legs adjusting his clothes.
For all the brilliance of the narrative, however, there are some scenes that a modern reader finds deeply offensive. It is hard to know how to respond to these: the book was published in 1941 and describes events of more than two decades earlier, so it could be the author was consciously trying to recapture opinions from that time; or, as I rather suspect, they reflect the sentiments of the 1940s, and few people who read the book when it first came out would have been offended. It is also possible, of course, that the voice of the narrator is not the voice of the author, and he was describing things he did not personally believe or approve of.
One of these offensive themes is the casual anti-semitism of many of the characters. Even those who are written to be sympathetic and engaging, such as the ship’s Executive Officer, share these sentiments. Reflecting on a Jewish fellow officer he says (ellipses in original), “a Jew had no business being a naval officer...much less in command of a vessel...Schiff was clever as hell, you had to hand him that...but their guts and blood were sour...no iron in them.”
The anti-semitism is ugly but pales when compared to the vilest moment in the book. Petty Officer Second Class Cavendish is portrayed as the ship’s dandy, always taking care to ensure that his liberty uniform is spotless and eye-catching. He is also a brutal serial rapist. He uses his looks and charm to get alone with a woman, then violent assaults her, knocking her unconscious, and then rapes her. The author relates this without a hint of disapproval, as if he were describing some harmless hobby. There is even an implication that the man is somehow clever, “It never had gotten him into trouble; the outraged girl with retribution on her mind, when she was willing to face the disgrace, had little or no social or legal case: she had gone to a deserted place with him, and there had been no outcry, her clothes where not torn, there was no evidence of struggle.”
And then, at the midpoint of the book, the author loses focus somewhat. Delilah goes into the shipyard for an overhaul, and the rest of the book takes place either during the repairs or in the workup that follows. The narrative remains interesting, and worth reading, but it loses the rhythms of life at sea. There is a forty page interlude, supposedly told over the dinner table, where the tale of a monk and a scoundrel is told, and it is completely irrelevant to the main story. Similarly, the last sixty pages of the book tell the story of a sailor run amok on shore leave. It is a gripping read but it feels like a separate short story appended to the book.
Delilah ends abruptly with the announcement of the United States’ entry into World War I. Literally, three paragraphs after the official statement is read, the book ends. The author always intended to write a successor volume about the ship during the war, but though he lived another fifty years , he never published it, or any other book. His Wikipedia entry is two paragraphs long, mentions Delilah in one sentence, and focuses on the fact that he was actress Olivia de Havilland’s first husband.
July 7, 2012
For what it is, Delilah is an amazing achievement. It very much focuses on the relationships between the men, sailors and officers alike. It's vivid and luscious language makes the ship somewhat organic despite her metallic features. However, the language did become encumbering at times. It also lacks intentionally a central plot, which may detract for some readers.
That being said, the book is certain a product of its time. While the author wants to expose racism and other negative qualities that permeated in the US Navy at the time, his narrative style sometimes lacked the same sensitivity of his message. It is also so pervasive that it felt there was almost too much. While violent crimes is nothing to be subtle about, I felt the narrative suffered from superfluous description and ongoing conflict. Being a five hundred page novel, it was a sprint of interpersonal conflict and it seemed to lack a consistent pace.
I do not mean to say that I disliked it. I was certainly happy to have finished it and I am always glad to read new naval fiction. I may reread this novel at a later time. I think it is a book that can strike new themes and emotional responses at different life stages.
August 1, 2015
The story of pre WW1 destroyer based in the Philippines prior to the start of WW1. With all the worries about the local natives, the hassles of being in a forward deployed duty station that is considered a backwater to the Asiatic fleet compared to the China coast and that the rest of the world is at war. The archetypes of the modern Naval literature characters were created in this book. From the naïve sailor out in the world who is also bookish and smart, to the experienced senior enlisted man who knows the hows and ways to push the envelope of the Navy rules. The skipper who is tough, but also worried about his command, the various officers trying to learn their business. The challenge in the story is that survival in the Philippines of day to day operations, the hassles of being on liberty in Cavite or Manila, the landing force that goes ashore in various island to protect the Americans or to put down an uprising, operating with the fleet. Again the larger background story is will the Naval combat between Britain and Germany come to the US Navy in Asia and which side will the Japanese pick. A good novel and worthy of just having on the shelves to compare to the post war authors like Wouk or Dodson or Beach.
July 29, 2011
Overwritten- but in a magnificent way. LCDR Goodrich does some things with language that I didn't think were possible. In a nutshell, this is a battle of wills among the crew of a USN destroyer tasked to the Asiatic Station before WWI, conducting low-level "counterinsurgency" operations in the Philippines (vs. the Moros). Tough sledding sometimes, but a fantastic book.
May 5, 2010
This is a classic in naval literature and a must read for anyone interested in the genre. The book is written in a way that highlights episodes and does give the reader a good idea of what an early destroyer was like and how the Asiatic fleet was composed in 1917.
May 10, 2021
The story of the crew of a coal burning US destroyer, USS Delilah, on duty in the Philippines in the year prior to US entry into WWI in early 1917 – over one hundred years ago -, and in the aftermath of the Tagalog Insurgency (Filipino-American War, 1899-1902). It was based on the author’s personal experience on the destroyer USS Chauncey (DD-3). It is not a story of sea battles. All the action is shore based expeditions and liberty, fast steaming and rescue operations, and of dry-dock refitting of the ship.
This novel is a worthy read that I thoroughly recommend for naval surface fleet professionals and naval historians, but it is a very tough read for even strong general readers. The text is dense and rich with long, complex sentences that require grammatical diagraming to decipher, and extensive vocabulary that demands a dictionary at hand. (Examples below.) The descriptions of the sea, sky and jungles are especially captivating, but this feast of words will seem verbose to modern readers. Published in 1941, there are also some objectionable (“politically incorrect”) terms and attitudes.
The mastery of this book is the portrayal of the crew, both enlisted and officers. Naval ship crew culture and protocol may be baffling to readers without some military experience. The author treats the crew as an integral part of a complex mechanical machine, like the parts of a fine clock. He progressively examines the construction (physical portrait), idiosyncrasies (personality and mannerisms), and condition (age, wear and tear) of each member (for thirty-six of the sixty-seven enlisted crew members and all four officers) but only in context of the other parts around it. Their past histories and homelives are not relevant. [For example, the Captain’s wife is immaterial to the life of the ship and crew except if she constrains the normal behavior of the Captain, for example when the ship hosts a formal party for the officers of the fleet and naval base.] The author never uses crew first names and they are usually referred to by their position or rank, like "the quartermaster first-class", "the machinist mate", "the ordinary seaman", "the fireman", "the water-tender", "the chief boatswain’s mate", or "the ensign".
It takes almost three quarters of the book, but the reader steadily begins to project and predict how the crew will act and react to orders and events. It is thrilling to watch a precision machine in action and stirring when it is pressed beyond its limits.
This book absolutely begs for its second volume. The author intended it as a two volume work, but unfortunately was never able to finish it. Readers will feel a real sense of regret not knowing the ultimate fate of the Delilah crew (especially knowing the tragic fate of the author's ship, the USS Chauncey).
[Single sentence example (p400): “His gaze encountered no fabulous, predatory hovering, nothing but the infinite blackness; save where a small, sharply defined, uneven rift in it disclosed, as above the top of some chasm in the universe, and at a greater distance than he ever had imagined or dreamed, a few eerily vivid stars that gave no light, that hung there, in the sombre blue clarity above that unthinkably deep hole in black nothingness, looking awesomely, thee-dimensionally like what they really were, like vast globes of molten metal, like monstrous specks of reflective dust, like spheres, glittering and iridescent, of frozen ash, like swirls of flaming gas towering higher than the world, all unconvincingly decreased by the illusion of the visible distance, frightful in itself, to a size no greater than that of animal eyes peering from thickets on summer nights.”]
[Single sentence example (p476-7): “There were only thirty or so of them aboard, surly, exhausted and incapable of wonder, to shuffle into double rank along the starboard side of the deck with Ensign Woodbridge and Ensign Snell at their front; and though most of them were semi-naked, without shoes or with them laced on bare feet, though they were soiled with blood, and wrung to the point of collapse by long striving, by lack of sleep and by assaults of tearing emotion, and though a murderer who had been one of them was even now lashed out there on their flank like a massive, naked, gold-toothed, Irish Christ crucified on steel, a monstrous stigma gaping in the centre of his brow and the blood of a friend splattered over his body, they yet managed to impress themselves and their Captain – who faced them with the Executive officer at his left elbow—as a ship’s company, as a collective being that had sustained itself, its peculiar, sedulously patterned self, in the face of what had proved too much for nearly each of the individuals composing it.
‘Atten…tion!’ ordered Ensign Woodbridge.”]
This novel is a worthy read that I thoroughly recommend for naval surface fleet professionals and naval historians, but it is a very tough read for even strong general readers. The text is dense and rich with long, complex sentences that require grammatical diagraming to decipher, and extensive vocabulary that demands a dictionary at hand. (Examples below.) The descriptions of the sea, sky and jungles are especially captivating, but this feast of words will seem verbose to modern readers. Published in 1941, there are also some objectionable (“politically incorrect”) terms and attitudes.
The mastery of this book is the portrayal of the crew, both enlisted and officers. Naval ship crew culture and protocol may be baffling to readers without some military experience. The author treats the crew as an integral part of a complex mechanical machine, like the parts of a fine clock. He progressively examines the construction (physical portrait), idiosyncrasies (personality and mannerisms), and condition (age, wear and tear) of each member (for thirty-six of the sixty-seven enlisted crew members and all four officers) but only in context of the other parts around it. Their past histories and homelives are not relevant. [For example, the Captain’s wife is immaterial to the life of the ship and crew except if she constrains the normal behavior of the Captain, for example when the ship hosts a formal party for the officers of the fleet and naval base.] The author never uses crew first names and they are usually referred to by their position or rank, like "the quartermaster first-class", "the machinist mate", "the ordinary seaman", "the fireman", "the water-tender", "the chief boatswain’s mate", or "the ensign".
It takes almost three quarters of the book, but the reader steadily begins to project and predict how the crew will act and react to orders and events. It is thrilling to watch a precision machine in action and stirring when it is pressed beyond its limits.
This book absolutely begs for its second volume. The author intended it as a two volume work, but unfortunately was never able to finish it. Readers will feel a real sense of regret not knowing the ultimate fate of the Delilah crew (especially knowing the tragic fate of the author's ship, the USS Chauncey).
[Single sentence example (p400): “His gaze encountered no fabulous, predatory hovering, nothing but the infinite blackness; save where a small, sharply defined, uneven rift in it disclosed, as above the top of some chasm in the universe, and at a greater distance than he ever had imagined or dreamed, a few eerily vivid stars that gave no light, that hung there, in the sombre blue clarity above that unthinkably deep hole in black nothingness, looking awesomely, thee-dimensionally like what they really were, like vast globes of molten metal, like monstrous specks of reflective dust, like spheres, glittering and iridescent, of frozen ash, like swirls of flaming gas towering higher than the world, all unconvincingly decreased by the illusion of the visible distance, frightful in itself, to a size no greater than that of animal eyes peering from thickets on summer nights.”]
[Single sentence example (p476-7): “There were only thirty or so of them aboard, surly, exhausted and incapable of wonder, to shuffle into double rank along the starboard side of the deck with Ensign Woodbridge and Ensign Snell at their front; and though most of them were semi-naked, without shoes or with them laced on bare feet, though they were soiled with blood, and wrung to the point of collapse by long striving, by lack of sleep and by assaults of tearing emotion, and though a murderer who had been one of them was even now lashed out there on their flank like a massive, naked, gold-toothed, Irish Christ crucified on steel, a monstrous stigma gaping in the centre of his brow and the blood of a friend splattered over his body, they yet managed to impress themselves and their Captain – who faced them with the Executive officer at his left elbow—as a ship’s company, as a collective being that had sustained itself, its peculiar, sedulously patterned self, in the face of what had proved too much for nearly each of the individuals composing it.
‘Atten…tion!’ ordered Ensign Woodbridge.”]
January 18, 2019
what we have here is a mostly unread eccentric modernist take on the nautical novel, following a US navy destroyer and its crew stationed in the Philippines just before US entry into WW1. like all your favourite modernists there's lots of long, dense sentences, an almost obsessive amount of psychological detail, and a general lack of interest in plot(many plot points actually go unresolved because the book was intended to be the first half of a larger work). Some of the style and the way he handles psychology almost remind me of John Cowper Powys, although the modern military setting is very different from anything you find in his books. Some excerpts:
"From far away forward, below the break of the forecastle, came the shouts of a group of belated bathers, shouts that were recognisable, even with the event hidden, as coming from naked bodies suddenly being drenched with buckets to clear themselves of soap; but these shouts from forward there, from the glistening wet bodies flexing like shafts of meaningful whiteness in the layers of brilliance and shadow beneath the awning, would seem to burst forth as if in ecstatic to some chord in the music, a seemingly elicited shout, like the yell, wild and glamorous, that rips from the lips of men in a Mexican crowd who suddenly feel themselves at one with a phrase of melody to which they are listening."
"As if the fury of the wish he shot along his gaze at that forlorn little steering-wheel had a power too strong for reality and fate to resist, an apparition, a long distorted object of blood and rags, and flesh that looked unreal in the sunlight, rose from the hatch of the submarine and crawled fumbling on all fours to the steering port. Grasping the spokes of the wheel, it pulled itself upright, a horrible caricature sharply outlined against the luminous background of the sky. It even straightened its shoulders in a grim and ridiculous gesture as if bracing itself for an ordeal; then it swung the wheel and the submarine headed for the breakwater."
"From far away forward, below the break of the forecastle, came the shouts of a group of belated bathers, shouts that were recognisable, even with the event hidden, as coming from naked bodies suddenly being drenched with buckets to clear themselves of soap; but these shouts from forward there, from the glistening wet bodies flexing like shafts of meaningful whiteness in the layers of brilliance and shadow beneath the awning, would seem to burst forth as if in ecstatic to some chord in the music, a seemingly elicited shout, like the yell, wild and glamorous, that rips from the lips of men in a Mexican crowd who suddenly feel themselves at one with a phrase of melody to which they are listening."
"As if the fury of the wish he shot along his gaze at that forlorn little steering-wheel had a power too strong for reality and fate to resist, an apparition, a long distorted object of blood and rags, and flesh that looked unreal in the sunlight, rose from the hatch of the submarine and crawled fumbling on all fours to the steering port. Grasping the spokes of the wheel, it pulled itself upright, a horrible caricature sharply outlined against the luminous background of the sky. It even straightened its shoulders in a grim and ridiculous gesture as if bracing itself for an ordeal; then it swung the wheel and the submarine headed for the breakwater."
April 22, 2021
This is the classic pre world war II navy novel. It inspired a generation, including James Michener. It is a view into the United States government view of Asia in those years.
For example the Muslim separatists of the Philippines are made ot to be somewhat heroic figures compared to the corrupt Philippines government. Those same separatists are still fighting today but the US government view has changed.
For example the Muslim separatists of the Philippines are made ot to be somewhat heroic figures compared to the corrupt Philippines government. Those same separatists are still fighting today but the US government view has changed.
April 9, 2021
Delilah is an unjustly forgotten gem from the 1940's. The author drew from his own experiences in the US Navy, where he served in the far East before WW 2. This is a literary novel and may be the only book that holds up to and I think surpasses Patrick O'Brien's Aubrey/Maturin series. Goodrich is more of a realist, and this book is a study of the social structure of a small naval vessel, obsolete and, according to the narrator, performing missions for which she was not designed. The setting is the US Asiatic Fleet, the the year 1917. A slice of life aboard the venerable destroyer is presented, ending with the pronouncement of war with Germany in April, 1917. Nothing much really happens, but the book is mesmerizing and catches the reader up in the steamy, monotonous routine. I recommend this book heartily to anyone who likes O'Brien, Joseph Conrad, or any of the great voices of the thirties (Hemingway, Dos Passos, etc.)
February 10, 2010
Other reviews are accurate. Great book. middle drops off. Detailed language paints a vivid picture. Awesome snapshot of the Navy yesterday and many aspects of today. Must-read for leaders. Read this as it was recommended by Radm Wisecup, President, Naval War College. I see why he recommended it...again, a great book.
December 28, 2007
An intriguing, more modern day sea story involving a U.S. Navy destroyer.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews