The lawgiver

Herman Wouk, 1915-

Large print - 2013

Saved in:

1st Floor Show me where

LARGE PRINT/FICTION/Wouk, Herman
1 / 1 copies available
Location Call Number   Status
1st Floor LARGE PRINT/FICTION/Wouk, Herman Checked In
Subjects
Genres
Epistolary fiction
Published
Thorndike, Maine : Center Point Large Print 2013.
Language
English
Main Author
Herman Wouk, 1915- (-)
Edition
Center Point Large Print edition
Physical Description
303 pages (large print) ; 23 cm
ISBN
9781611736496
Contents unavailable.
Review by Booklist Review

*Starred Review* Wouk has been trying to come up with a way to write a novel about Moses ever since he wrote The Caine Mutiny, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize in 1952. At age 97, the venerated author of panoramic best-sellers finally takes on the challenge of portraying the biblical lawgiver. But with a twist: this witty and wise epistolary novel is about a writer named Herman Wouk, who is having a devil of a time starting his novel about Moses. Herman's struggle with this confounding project is interrupted by the red-hot moviemaker of the hour, who pesters him to write a screenplay instead. Through a barrage of e-mails, faxes, letters, and text messages, Herman, guided by his skeptical wife, Betty Sarah, agrees only to consult. So it is up to a bold young director, Margo Solovei, to write the anti-Cecil B. DeMille Moses screenplay. Margo has turned her back on her Orthodox upbringing and the mensch of a lawyer who stubbornly loves her, but she soon finds herself reconsidering her Jewish heritage and being single. Brisk, funny, and incisive, Wouk's romantic comedy of art versus love slyly updates the story of the beloved star of his indelible novel Marjorie Morningstar (1955), while nimbly (at last!) retelling the story of Moses. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: This smart, playful novel, along with Wouk's remarkably sustained literary exuberance, will garner major media attention and avid reader interest.--Seaman, Donna Copyright 2010 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Moses, star of the Hebrew Bible; major figure in the New Testament and the Qur'an; played on screen by Charlton Heston, Burt Lancaster, and Val Kilmer; now the inspiration for both Wouk's novel and the big-budget movie production it chronicles. At 97, Wouk (Marjorie Morningstar; The Winds of War) has created a tale that, for all its modern trappings (it's told in e-mails, faxes, and transcripts, and relies on the movements of the very rich and the very Hollywood), is essentially old-fashioned. This is not a bad thing: after an exposition-heavy start that sets up an Australian billionaire intent on financing a film about the Lawgiver, various screenwriters, producers, actors, lawyers, and even scientists with various agendas; Hollywood wunderkind and lapsed Jew Margo Solovei, who learned Moses's story from her rabbi father; and Wouk playing himself, the novel comes into its own as a suspenseful narrative that asks fundamental questions: is Moses still relevant? Can this movie get made? Will true love prevail? The answers will not necessarily surprise, but getting to them is a fun ride, and though the epilogue, an address from Wouk, has the feel of a vanity project, in creating a contemporary version of Marjorie Morningstar, Wouk the author has made something old, and something very old, new again. Agent: Amy Rennert. (Nov. 13) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review

Sixty-four years after the publication of his first novel, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and American treasure Herman Wouk (The Caine Mutiny) tackles, at age 97, what he calls an "impossible novel": the story of Moses. He succeeds in an artfully oblique, amazing, and modern way. He inserts himself as himself-the writer from whom Hollywood producers must obtain script/screenwriter approval, a precondition imposed by the wealthy backer for a blockbuster Moses movie. Employing an epistolary format with a cool 21st-century spin, Wouk moves the stories of film creation and personal relationships forward through the many voices of his characters delivered by emails, faxes, FedExes, text messages, interoffice memos, trade articles, tape and Skype transcripts, and actual letters. The characters pop off the page fully animated and imagined. Chief among them are his brilliant, dearly loved wife, Betty Wouk; Margo Solovei, a young, ambitious filmmaker who defied her Orthodox Jewish father to follow her dreams; and Margo's disarming early love, Joshua Lewin, who has grown into a thoughtful, successful lawyer who still loves her. VERDICT Anyone who has wrestled with sacred religious tradition of any kind, and everyone who loves a good story, should get this smart, engaging jewel of a novel as soon as possible. May Wouk have other tales in him and live to be 120! [See Prepub Alert, 4/30/12.]-Sheila Riley, Smithsonian Institution Libs., Washington, DC (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review

The nonagenarian novelist takes a curious, epistolary path toward the epic about Moses that has long defeated him. In his 2000 memoir, The Will to Live On, novelist Wouk (A Hole in Texas, 2004, etc.) wrote of his decades-long struggle to write The Lawgiver, which he intended to be a doorstopper about the life of Moses. This Lawgiver is a slighter, more madcap and more meta affair, focused on an effort to produce a film version of the story that would out-DeMille DeMille. Wouk has written himself into the plot: As the story opens, he's approached by a high-powered film producer to consult on a script by an untested young director, Margolit. The flurry of memos, emails, Skype-session transcripts, news clippings, etc., that make up the novel roughly cohere into a comedy of errors. The chief financier is determined to marshal algae as an alternative energy source, Margolit's favorite candidate for the role of Moses is a modest Australian actor stuck with a pernicious agent, her old shul-mates are coming out of the woodwork, and an old flame is pursuing her yet again. Wouk doesn't pretend to make this anything more than a lighthearted romp--cameos abound of Wouk's wife cautioning him not to take this Lawgiver business too seriously. Still, Wouk expends little energy connecting the dots among the algae-fuel business, the romantic subplot, Margolit's estranged father and the theology of the Moses back story, which Wouk clearly takes seriously but touches upon only lightly. At 97, Wouk still has plenty of enthusiasm for assembling the broad cast of characters that marked widescreen works like The Winds of War. The difference here is how it results in a weak, shtick-y assemblage of riffs on a fickle God and stereotypical film impresarios. A breezy romp about movies and religion that gives both short shrift.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

The Lawgiver CHAPTER ONE MR. GLUCK (INTEROFFICE MEMO, 11:20 A.M.) BSW LITERARY AGENCY HW: Sorry to trouble you. That Andrea with the British accent just rang yet again. She already rang at 9 this morning on the dot. She said Mr. Warshaw would make it worth my while if I would put him through to Mr. Wouk on the phone even for a minute or two, "by mistake." (A gross offer of a bribe?) She still won't say what it's about. I ignored 3 calls from her yesterday and 2 on Friday. This will just go on and on.   (HW OFFICE PHONE RINGS, RINGS, RINGS.) (Secretary on speakerphone) Look, HW, Tim Warshaw got through to me, told me what he wants to say to you, and asks for a couple of minutes, no more. I can't take the responsibility to pass this up. I told him I'd have to stay on the line and take notes. He laughed and said, "Why not?" Here he is. WARSHAW: (slow, deep voice) Mr. Wouk? HW: Yes. WARSHAW: Sir, would one million dollars for a half-hour conference interest you? (Insert by HW: A jolt. These Hollywood hoodlums! He has the money, he's riding high, Best Picture Oscar for his art-house breakout from the big disaster films. A million! . . . Family foundation, charities . . . son's divorce . . .) HW: Mr. Warshaw, I'm ninety-six years old, trying to get one more book done while I last. Thank you, but-- WARSHAW: Sir, dare I ask what the new book is about? HW: No. WARSHAW: May I tell you what I'm calling about, and I swear that'll be that? I'll thank you and hang up-- HW: Go ahead. WARSHAW: (pause--slow, deep) Moses . . . HW: Moses? WARSHAW: Moses, sir. Pharaoh, Burning Bush, splitting the sea-- HW: Oh, yes, that Moses. The one Cecil B. DeMille did twice-- WARSHAW: Sir, this would be all different. Think twenty-first century, think special effects--think maybe three-D-- HW: Mr. Warshaw, I've appreciated your approach. Most of all, your offer to thank me and hang up. WARSHAW: Thank you, sir. I'm hanging up. (He hangs up.)   (HW NEW NOVEL WORK JOURNAL) 9:10 a.m. Blasted day yesterday, when I was just getting a handle on the new approach to this confounded book, or thought I was. Timothy Warshaw, the red-hot moviemaker of the hour, with an artsy departure from his disaster blockbusters--he copped an Oscar for Best Picture, Midsummer Night's Dream, directed by a nutty Japanese with a cast of all unknown teenagers in masks--the critics rolled over neighing and kicking their hooves in the air--this Warshaw phoned and offered me "one million dollars for a half-hour conference." Turned him down rudely. Last night at dinner we talked about it. BSW: Good. That half-hour conference is baloney. He'd get his money's worth out of your hide, one way or another. Is this new "impossible novel" of yours really started? HW: Two preliminary journal files. No copy yet. I was drafting the first page of an opening scene when Warshaw bulldozed past Priscilla and got to me. BSW: What do you want to do about it? HW: Nothing. Write the book. BSW: Well, I've had my doubts, you know. Not much interest in Moses nowadays. HW: Oh, no? What do you suppose Warshaw wanted to talk to me about? (Imitates Warshaw.) MO . . . SES . . . BSW: No! Wow. HW: Coincidence? What else? Security breach? Nobody, but nobody, except you--and Priscilla, typing my notes, and she's a silent tomb--knows that I've been working on a Moses novel. BSW: It's a ploy. HW: Forget it, then. BSW: No. Give him the half hour, but don't take his money. Just listen. HW: What's the point? BSW: I'm curious. He'll spill something. HW: You sit in. BSW: Sure.   (E-MAIL) WARSHAWORKS CENTURY CITY, CALIFORNIA 90067 From: Tim Warshaw To: Hezzie Jacobs   Nullarbor Petroleum, Houston Subject: Wouk Well, Hezzie, I did manage to get through to Wouk. You can tell this mysterious Australian investor of yours that it wasn't easy, and he wasn't encouraging. Wouk doesn't sound over the phone nearly as old as he is, going on 97, but he was abrupt and peevish. No interest whatever. Surely if this investor is at all serious, his proposal can't hang on getting that mulish ancient to write the film. That's an irresponsible whim. It won't work. It's a deal breaker up front. Otherwise his offer is certainly intriguing and exciting. Why can't you put me in direct touch with him? An e-mail address, if not a phone number? I have persuasive power, you know. I got the bank to fund Yoshimoto's Dream, when you and other investors ran for the tall grass, telling me such dizzy nonsense hadn't a prayer. I'm looking at my Oscar on the desk as I write. Tim   (NOTE) From the desk of TIM WARSHAW Andrea, hold everything. Call Hezzie Jacobs in Houston, tell him Wouk just phoned me. I'm off to Palm Springs in the Falcon. Order a limo to meet me Signature Airport. T.   (HW NEW NOVEL WORK JOURNAL, THURSDAY) 4 p.m. Another day shot, no new writing, no nothing. Warshaw's half hour--and he stuck to it, I'll say that--killed the day. Waiting for him to get here, settling him in for the half-hour conference, seeing him out the door, then chewing over this strange business with my lady, and here I am with one day less in my life to do what haunts me, "the impossible novel." Here's Warshaw's pitch in brief. An Australian eccentric of great wealth wants a movie made about Moses, and is ready to fund it. The approach came via one Hezzie Jacobs, a Texas venture capitalist who sometimes dabbles in films, though his main interest is oil from algae. Jacobs has a vast project of algae ponds going in Nullarbor, Australia. This eccentric investor, a uranium tycoon, has money in it. When Jacobs told him a Moses film might cost two hundred million, all he said was, "Fair dinkum," Australian slang for okay, or the equivalent. Now, here's what Warshaw left out, and it's crucial. My accountant, who's wired to insiders in the film game, tells me Warshaw in fact is over a barrel. The Oscar went to his head, he's always been a high flier, cross-collateralized up to his ears. He's put some new projects into development, and another of his disaster productions is getting filmed in Turkey right now, Aeneas and Dido, a sexy epic based on the Aeneid, with a fall of Troy bigger than D-day in Saving Private Ryan. He's been close to freezing that production, short of cash and low on credit, so the rumors fly. Still, he's meeting his huge budgets week by week and acting carefree as a hummingbird. And the back story on that (my accountant again, and this gets convoluted) is that Jacobs, knowing Fair Dinkum's obsession to get a Moses film made, has started quietly bankrolling Warshaw, gambling that sooner or later it'll happen, Fair Dinkum will come across with an investment of four or five hundred million dollars in WarshaWorks, and Jacobs figures to skim off lots of cream. What it seems to come down to--and I begin to see why Warshaw was ready to pay me a million for a conference--is this: the uranium nabob either backs WarshaWorks with a whopper of a "stimulus" or Warshaw is in real trouble, and that seems to depend on whether he can get me to write a Moses film! So the thing stands. Distracting, but diverting, I have to say. Meantime, no work.   (E-MAIL) From: Rabbi Mordechai Heber To: Mr. Herman Wouk Subject: Hezzie Jacobs Sorry to bother you, Mr. Wouk. A venture capitalist who owns a winter home here wants to see you. Mr. Jacobs is a good man, not religious, but he's kept my little day school alive. You know how I guard your privacy, but as a special favor to the children of our school, will you see him if he flies here tomorrow? I need an answer right away.   (HW NEW NOVEL WORK JOURNAL, FRIDAY) 9 a.m. The plot thickens. Exponentially. Not for my book, my third false start goes into the files, hopelessly wrong. It's the Fair Dinkum thing. Turns out that this Hezzie Jacobs owns a home here and is coming from Houston to talk to me. Rabbi Heber interceded for him. I don't say no to the rabbi . . .   (FAX) NULLARBOR PETROLEUM LLC "Freedom from Mideast Oil Through Algae" HOUSTON -- MELBOURNE FAX (STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL) From: Hezzie Jacobs To: Louis Gluck Subject: Algae, Air Force, Moses, etc. Lou, good news about Wouk and Moses! A Palm Springs rabbi got me in to see him, and I told him all about you. I took a big chance, Louie. I told him that you'd fly from Australia to talk to him. You can always say I'm crazy, or your doctors won't allow you, but depending on how keen you are on the Moses film--which I still don't understand, but it's your time and money--this is your opening. Now, Lou, the big news is that the air force is sky-high on the algae! Those Arizona people put on a great show for the generals, took them around the ponds, had a Nobel Prize molecular biologist there, talking plain English about algae molecules and all that. The main thing was the green gasoline! It even smells different, kind of pleasant. They filled the tank of a jeep with it and went roaring down a highway and back, & those stiff generals with all their medals were joking and laughing, and they had a great buffet lunch with fine wine, and in short, the air force is interested, though at the moment that tankful of algae gasoline figures out at $54,000 a gallon. Louis, this can be the breakthrough. Yes, right now oil prices are down again, which is bad for algae, but looking ahead the world's oil is running out, no doubt of it. Now is the time for Nullarbor! Of the fifty-odd start-up companies doing algae, Arizgrene is the slickest, they know how to promote, but that's all. About Nullarbor's genetically altered molecule they haven't a clue. This thing is starting to snowball, Louis, don't let it roll away from us! Where's your comment on the new prospectus? Hezzie   (FILE MEMORANDUM) Meeting with Louis Gluck I've never felt the need of a tape recorder until now. In former days when I was badgered into an interview, I never allowed a tape recorder, maybe Gluck wouldn't have, either. Anyhow, here goes to bang out my recollections of the long, bizarre meeting while they're fresh and copious. Mr. Gluck is something else. Uninvited, he flew here from Australia to see me. Hezzie Jacobs called me up out of the blue, said Fair Dinkum was at the Beverly Hills Hotel, and would come down to Palm Springs before flying on to Toronto, and from there to Paris, then to Beijing, and so back to Australia. Jacobs said he's done this globe circling for years. This is his second time this year, in February he went the other way from Melbourne via Mumbai, Capetown, Rio de Janeiro, Quito, and home. So Jacobs says, and I can believe it. Whatever happens, I don't think I'll forget my first sight of Gluck, rolling through the door in a wheelchair, with one leg propped up on a board and a dark-skinned fellow pushing him. "Louie Gluck," he said holding out a hand. "You're going to write The Lawgiver. There's nobody else. This is Ishmael." The companion grinned and rolled him into the living room. Gluck's an old, old gent, round face, thin white hair, sharp blue eyes, voice hoarse but clear, piquant Jewish-Aussie accent. "Jacobs told me that you turned down Warshaw's million dollars and gave him half an hour for free. Smart, smart." I said that that was my wife's idea. "I want to meet her." I explained that I was trying to write a Moses book, and he should forget about involving me in a movie. "You're making a big mistake. Nobody reads books, everybody watches movies." "People read my books." "I've read them all. That's how I know you'll write the Lawgiver movie. I'm talking volume. Take your Winds of War, for one person who read the book how many people saw the miniseries movie, all over the world? A million to one? Or counting all the Chinese who watched pirated copies of the miniseries--like the pile I saw in a Beijing supermarket--three million to one? Why are you trying to write a Moses book at your age?" "Because I want to, and can afford to take the time, and I don't have that much time." "Who knows how much time you've got, and why waste it? You want to say something worthwhile about Moses, something people will take away with them . . . Where can Ishmael get something to eat while we talk?" I sent Ishmael off to Sherman's Deli. "He's an aborigine," Gluck said. "Smart, smart. So, you want to write a book about Moses. You can do it, because you understand Moses, but you're wasting the time you've got, because--" He was getting under my skin. "Nobody understands Moses," I barked at him. His face only lit up and he reached to shake my hand. Bony claw like mine. "See? I'm right. You're the man for the movie. Who else understands that nobody understands Moses? So let me ask you, why try to write about him altogether?" Well, that triggered, against my better judgment, my song and dance about Moses as Atlas--Western world resting on his shoulders, Christianity and Islam meaningless without him, Lawgiver of the Christian Bible, "Divine Teacher" of the Koran, etc., etc. Gluck listened with a hungry look, nodding and nodding, and broke in as I was citing a Koran passage about Pharaoh, "All right, all right, I take your point, I'm a reasonable man. The few people who read books are important to you. So write your book and the movie, what's wrong with that? One day the screenplay, next day the book, next day the screenplay, and so on. Isn't that a good plan?" "Mr. Gluck, I can't write a movie. I don't know how." "You wrote those two miniseries." "To protect the history, yes, just doing what the director told me. Anyway, it was another era. Winds ran eighteen hours, Remembrance thirty hours--" He shifted ground. Yes, yes, he could see I was making sense, he was new in all this. Warshaw would get a younger writer, best in the business, money no object, the writer would consult me, and I'd have approval of every page he wrote. How about that? I told him wearily that the director creates the film, not the writer, and Spielberg was his man, a great writer-director, a giant of the film industry, a good Jew-- "Oh? So why did he make Schindler's List about a goy?" Now he had me defending Steven Spielberg. "You missed the whole point. Because Schindler wasn't a Jew, the world audience could identify with him and enjoy a big Holocaust movie--" "Why was Munich all about how wrong the Mossad was to hunt down the terrorists who killed the Israeli athletes? Did you feel sorry for those terrorists? Well, never mind, never mind, he's a good man, he does good things, he should live to be a hundred and twenty, making his fine movies, but you'll do The Lawgiver. We'll find a writer-director you approve of, and he'll get your approval on every scene. Let's settle on that--" Ishmael returned at this point, full of praise for Sherman's pastrami, and reminded Gluck that his connection to Toronto was due at the airport in half an hour. "No good. Get us on the next flight." "Louie, we'll miss the plane to Paris." "Phone Smodar, tell her to reschedule all the flights, I have to talk more with Mr. Wouk--" Aside to me, "My Gulfstream is down, I have to get to Beijing Tuesday--" "Smodar, sir? It's three a.m. in Melbourne, what can she do?" "The Qantas line's open all night--" I had to put an end to this. I swiveled around and batted off as fast as I could type: Dear Mr. Warshaw: Mr. Louis Gluck is here in my office. If you find a writer-director who I believe can make a Moses movie measuring up to the subject, I'll consider acting as a consultant. Frankly, I see no possibility that you can come up with such a person. Even if you do, or at least think you do, I'm not bound by this note at all, except to consider your choice. Herman Wouk I signed and handed the printout to Gluck. "Here," I said. "Don't miss your plane." A quick businesslike glance, a nod, he asked for two more printouts, got me to sign them both, and I saw him out to the limousine. This Ishmael folded up the wheelchair and board and slid Gluck into the limo smooth as glass. That's how it went. BSW thinks I was an idiot to give him the note, says I'm in for a siege of nagging by Warshaw and pointless talks with writer-directors. Maybe. I had to get that Gluck out of my office, off my back.   (FAX) NULLARBOR PETROLEUM LLC "Freedom from Mideast Oil Through Algae" HOUSTON -- MELBOURNE FAX (STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL) From: Hezzie Jacobs To: Timothy Warshaw   Cedars-Sinai Hospital Subject: Lawgiver Sorry about your ulcer, Tim. It's a wonder these past weeks haven't put you in Forest Lawn. You're an iron man and you'll soon be fine. This is urgent, or I'd let you alone. Gluck is cooling off, Tim. Not about the Moses film, about you and WarshaWorks. Lou is a nice guy, but peremptory. He doesn't understand the writer-director problem that's stymied you for so long, isn't interested, and is asking me about other studios. What do you know about Margolit Solovei, a young writer-director? Wikipedia calls her a "phenom," a film business term for a fast starter, at 26 she's made three art-house movies and had a play on Broadway. Her brother and Rabbi Heber were yeshiva buddies, as it happens. She's the black sheep of the Solovei family, disappeared into showbiz, never mentions her deep Jewish background. Once when the rabbi and I were discussing Hollywood Jews, he cited her as a sad example. Why not consider Solovei? At least she's knowledgeable, and might conceivably hit it off with Wouk. A desperate long shot, but what's to lose, with Gluck getting damned impatient? Hezzie   (NOTE) MARGO Mommy dear, Something has come up that you must tell Tatti. Not that it will change his mind about me. Just to show him that I'm not quite a lost soul, not altogether a worthless schmata. I'm going to Palm Springs tomorrow to confer about a Moses film with guess who, Herman Wouk. Tatti's never read a novel in his life, and never will, but he did read a God book Wouk wrote back in the '50s-I remember that because I got it for him from the library, though I needed another card after he tore up my first two. I'll write you again after I meet the author. I didn't know he was alive. Your loving daughter, Mashie   (LETTER) MARGOLIT SOLOVEI ENTERPRISES LLC 10235 SUNSET BOULEVARD LOS ANGELES, CA 90077 Mr. Joshua Lewin Lewin, Rubinstein & Curtis 1440 K Street, NW Washington, DC 20005 Dear Joshua, I received your semiannual letter, and to be honest I had no idea Rosh Hashanah was so close, I'm very busy and of course it means nothing to me, I haven't seen the inside of a shul in a dog's age. Sorry for this belated response, thanks anyway for your New Year wishes. Your letters are very touching, but disturbing as the years pass. It was all very well for you to say when we broke up that you'd wait for me until you die, but isn't it getting a bit silly? You can have your pick of a thousand religious Jewish girls, from the prettiest young ones to the few leftovers of my time. With your international law practice and your deep learning, you're as big a fish as was ever reeled in by a nice Jewish girl. I'll reply to your letter more at length when I return from a meeting with Herman Wouk--yes, your favorite--to explore writing a Moses film. A major producer wants me to consider it, but it seems to be up to Mr. Wouk, I don't know why. So much for your gentle semiannual hints that I'm wasting my life out here, writing and producing ephemera while my biological clock ticks off the years unheard. As ever, Margo Excerpted from The Lawgiver by Herman Wouk All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.