The Ninth Wave

by Eugene Burdick

A political novel which opens with protagonist surfing and waiting to catch a Big One, a "9th wave" generally the largest in a wave sequence, and if possible , a NINTH ninth wave, etc. This concept of the gathering propitious moment becomes a conscious often reflected-upon metaphor throughout the story.

Genres: Fiction, Politics

332 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1956

About the author

Eugene Burdick was an American Political Scientist and co-author of The Ugly American (1958), Fail-Safe (1962) and The 480 (1965).

He was born in Sheldon, Iowa. His family moved to Los Angeles, California, when he was age 4. Burdick attended Stanford University and Oxford University where he earned a Ph.D. degree in psychology, and he worked at the department of Political Science at the University of California. In 1956, his critically acclaimed novel The Ninth Wave, a Houghton Mifflin Literary Fellowship winner, was published. At the end of the 1950s, he was among the first members of the Society for General Systems Research. He died suddenly of a heart attack at the age of 46.

Reviews

[Jay · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is a handful of books that I read in my youth that had a significant impact on how I began to see and understand the world about me—books, if you will, that forged what the Spanish identify as a “vision del mundo.” Some were classics, others were contemporary fiction. Eugene Burdick’s The Ninth Wave (published in 1956) is one of the latter.

The Ninth Wave was Eugene Burdick’s first novel. It was a Book-of-the-Month Club selection and won for him a Houghton Mifflin Literary Fellowship. He went on to write The Ugly American and Fail Safe, both of which became popular movies. With the success of the last two works, The Ninth Wave seemed to disappear. I recently ran across a 2006 opinion piece by a Steve Tollefson that suggested that The Ninth Wave deserved to be resurrected. Tollefson concluded that the book is one that “provokes the reader to look-at both the physical and political environments-through a new lens.”

For me, the book did provide in the late 1950s a “new lens.” Reading it at the age of 15, I began to gain a new way to understand the political processes that were emerging in the years of the Eisenhower presidency. It was, for someone nourished on the myth of American superiority and exceptionalism (to use the now current claim from the Political Right), a sobering suggestion that our democratic political structures were also capable of manipulation by special interests that could be antithetical to community or broader societal needs.

At its most basic level, Burdick’s novel is the chronicle of Michael Freesmith, who could almost be a fictional prototype of the non-fictional Carl Rove. (Clever of Burdick to anticipate Mr. Rove.) Michael, while a young college student at Stanford before World War II, discovers what he believes to be a political equation that will enable him to manipulate human political behavior: fear + hate = power. Acting on that equation in the aftermath of the Second World War, he goes about orchestrating a California gubernatorial election.

Not all are happy with that orchestration, most notably his best friend, Hank Moore and his mistress, Georgia Blenner. Both, but particularly Hank, grow increasingly convinced that Michael needs to be stopped—that he is, for all his charisma, pernicious.

Michael is, in many respects both heartless and soulless—someone emotionally disengaged from the world around him. He is, at his core, a callous man disengaged from other people, even those who form his inner circle. At one point, Georgia tells him: “You’re like one of those little glass balls that has artificial snow and a winter scene inside of it. You shake it and the snow swirls-around the scene. Except that all one sees of you is the swirling, the snow. All the things are there inside, but I can’t get a fingernail into the glass to pry it open. It’s all smooth and tough. …And you don’t want anyone inside. You’d fight it; you’d keep them out.”

Even his long term friend doesn't know what makes Mike tick:

Why do you hang around Mike?” Georgia asked.
“Because I’ve known him for a long time and I like him,” Hank said. “I don’t know why, but I do. I like him and there’s something curious, attractive about him. I keep thinking if I hang around I’ll find out some answer that will make the whole thing sensible.

But neither Hank nor Georgia find that answer. In the end, they are forced to conclude that Mike’s disengagement is what gives him power. “See, Hank [notes Georgia], it doesn't make any difference now whether Mike is right or not about how people act in politics. He’s persuaded enough people that they act in a certain way…and now, they’re acting the way he believes they do.”

The novel is, however, more than a chronicle of one man’s rise and fall. It is a snapshot of California from the end of the 1930s through the 1940s and into the 1950s. Burdick’s chapters on World War II are lyrical and engaging. His surfing descriptions at the beginning and end of the novel are equally vivid. And the several vignettes that punctuate the story—the drunk that Michael talks into suicide; the man who makes and looses a fortunate growing avocados; the history of gold mining and its impact on the environment—are miniature jewels.

[Pat · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eugene Burdick, known to friends and colleagues as Bud, was one of those authors with an incredible c.v.: a decorated Naval officer in WWII, a Rhodes Scholar, a political science professor at Berkeley. He studied writing under Wallace Stegner at Standford and went on to publish numerous books. His most famous were co-written: The Ugly American with William Lederer and Fail-Safe with Harvey Wheeler. Both were made into films.

The Ninth Wave was Burdick's first novel and a Book-of-the-Month club selection. It's a sprawling California epic the main themes of which are power, personal ambition and politics. The book, which is flawed in many ways (e.g., there are too many long, descriptive passages and some characters -- especially the female characters -- are thinly drawn and lack credibility), takes a very dark and disturbing view of humanity, perhaps befitting a combat veteran who saw action at Guadalcanal.

That Burdick is scarcely remembered today is probably due to his untimely end. He suffered a heart attack and died on a San Diego tennis court at age 46. The obituaries inevitably noted that he won the match.

[Thom Dunn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book over 50 years ago. It was in paperback around the time when Failsafe was in, I think, Life magazine. It was about the first time I ever tried to track books by author. No. First would be A. A. Milne. About all I remember was the "ninth wave" business....that received great reinforcement from the Beach Boys'
"Catch a wave" . Funny how things stick with you. I think this work should probably be shelved with the whole era of Ban the Bomb/Ugly American/Eisenhower Fifties/Cold War stuff. When I finish reading it again, I will amend this review. SEE GOODREADS LISTOPIA: "IF YOU LIKE MAD MEN" (They mean the TV show, Madmen)

[Louis Bruno · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first read THE NINTH WAVE in high school and still believe it should be read (and kept) with George Orwell's1984.
Not only is it just as valuable and insightful, but also disappearing from the shelves at the same time it is needed to remind everyone it's message; "Fear + Hate = Power"!

[Chris Gager · Rating 3 out of 5]

More 50's sex for me to covertly glean from my sister's bookshelf. She was 5 years older than I was and "allowed" more leeway. Date read is a guess.

I just found a paperback copy of this at the town transfer station. Maybe I'll read it again. I do that with some of those books from the 50's, 60's and 70's when it seems like the contrast between the "old"(actually young) me and the now me would make a big difference. It certainly worked with "Lolita".

I've been kind of leaning toward re-reading this for a while now. I have a sort-of beat-up-but-readable paperback on my shelf and started to read it this morning. Rude shock department: the first 60 or so pages have gone missing. Should I put it back down? Naaah - I already read those pages anyway - right? I remember two things; the surfing stuff and Mike having an exploitative affair with his high school teacher. I specifically remember him observing how her fading youth showed in how two little rolls of finger fat crowded around a ring she was wearing. The story that begins on page 65 has Mike and Hank as students at Stanford. As I mentioned above this book belonged to my older sister and was one of her collection that had sex in it. This caused the book to be a bit sensational in the 1950's.

Finished with my second reading of this once-(sort-0f)sensational book last night(2-22-21). Time in between readings: sixty years, more or less. Even though I was mainly interested in the sex the first time around, I was pleasantly surprised to see that I actually read the whole book back then. This leads to one of my complaints about the book: It's kind of simplified and basic in its plotting. This can be a good thing at times. The war scenes are particularly good, but the political stuff seems overly and unrealistically dramatic and TV-ish. I don't think that Mr. Burdick was a particularly good writer and I specifically was unable to swallow the premise that Mike was some kind of amoral monster and deserved what he got in the end. Sorry ... not buying it at all. Much as I have at times wanted to deep six such political operatives as Steve Bannon, Newt Gingrich, Karl Rove and Lee Atwater, I wouldn't have been morally justified in the doing of it if I had the power. More ...

- What happened to Connie? She just disappears from the story. And ... after accompanying Mike on a particularly sordid escapade earlier in the story, would she then have gone ahead and married him? Seems unlikely to me.

- Compare Eugene Burdick with another fifties writer: James Jones. Much as JJ's writing tended to the over-wrought and operatic in "From Here to Eternity," it was still a lot more interesting to read than the black-and-white prose and over-simple and at times murky plotting of EB.

- That said, both books wind up with a 3* rating. Despite its flaws, this book does stick in the memory. At least it stuck in mine. Remember "Fear plus Hate equals Power."

- Cromwell = Trump/McCarthy

- The back cover blurb contains an incorrect spoiler.

- The political stuff is pretty dated, as is a lot of the California stuff. So many years have passed. On the other hand, I you like "California" books, this one might be of interest.

- 3.25* rounds down to 3*

[Benjamin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this book as a teen. At the time, it made a great impression on me.

[MALCOLM T · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a 5-star read. In it Eugene Burdick inverts the notion of “historic fiction.” Instead of a Modern going back and filling in gaps on a past figure or era, Burdick reverses that order. He takes the hypothetical “natural man” created by 17th Century philosophers (in the guise of one Mike Freesmith), places him in the politics of California in the mid Twentieth Century, and shows us the true significance of that model of behavior in manipulating the “Great Beast,” aka the Leviathan, or Society as we call it. Leviathan was written by Thomas Hobbes (1588 – 1679)]. Along the way Burdick writes a stimulating story.

Hobbes’ philosophy is one of pure power with no responsibility to a higher order. Mike Freesmith’s name so indicates. He is “Free” of moral constraints. He is a “Smith” (i.e. a forger of iron). He uses polling to manipulate the masses, the Great Beast…. i.e. the Leviathan.

There are numerous references throughout the book to the underlying 17th Century philosophy and Mike Freesmith as its “natural man.” His character and psychology are summarized in Chapter 20, on p. 292, (Dell Ed, 1956). John Cromwell, a brilliant Stanford student and the politician promoted by Freesmith early on publishes a paper “Hobbes and Natural Law” [Ch 2; p. 26, Dell]; Hank (Freesmith’s best friend) had a father who regularly saw a Dr. J. J. Locke, [aka John Locke? [1632-1704] a “specialist in men’s diseases…” [Ch 3, p. 44]; Philosophy was originally conceived, in part, to address the diseases in society and in men’s souls. Finally, in Chapter 8, p 116, Freesmith states “everyone agrees … [with Hobbes, Locke, etc.]… “that people do not live up to their potential—ie. Power.

If I taught political philosophy, I would include The Ninth Wave. To show readers what the foundations of the Modern philosophy actually look like in a concrete setting today (1950s) ; and, to show how low we have sunk from the days when the we looked to the Great Souled individual [the Philosopher] to elevate us instead of turning us loose to feast on each other.

[Joel Menkes · Rating 4 out of 5]

read when i was in my teens, likely late teens better than 50 years ago, stuck with me all these years, and a good impression all these years. A rather emotionless king maker is what i remember, using psychology and, as i see someone else from goodreads noted, a form of opinion polling to achieve his goals though opinion polling, i have only a hazy impression of finding out what will drive people to make certain decisions, to choose to act and vote as they do, not formal opinion polling, but perhaps that was in there, but most of all, the manipulation of people. Manipulation of people being i think the overriding theme. Good read, i thought maybe a bit contrived ending to wrap it up before the book got tedious. Again, an impression carried for 50 yrs+. If you pick it up enjoy it

[P.S. Winn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This author writes books with underlying messages. The ninth wave is an interesting read. Readers get a bit of a history lesson as they follow along on the story and if you think about when it was written it is a prophetic look at where technology can lead us. Good or bad.

[Leon C. Webster · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although it is 60 years old, good insight into politics of 2021

Like many others I first read this book when I was in my early teens. It has stayed with me, so I decided to reread it in my 70s. I find that it is somewhat prescient in its early use of polling and the notion that the electorate is motivated primarily by two emotions. Fear and hate. It seems a good explanation for the rise of Donald Trump and other demagogues.

[Pat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Maybe the best novel ever about California.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

A re-read from high school. I loved the book, though the ending was rather unrealistic to me, as though the author was reaching his maximum page count

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

The ninth wave is the always a good wave to surf. The ninth ninth wave (the 81st) is the best of all.

[Charlene Gordon]

I read this well over 50 years ago and really don't remember much about it.