The Hope is an historical drama, painted in fairly broad brush-strokes, charting the days immediately following Ben Gurion's proclamation of the Jewish state of Israel in 1948 after the British withdrawal and continuing up to the astonishing military successes of the Six Day War. Gurion is himself a character -paunchy and punchy, fierce yet flawed- but the narrative centres around a trio of fictional surrogates whose collective ubiquity enables Wouk to give first hand accounts of all the ambassadorial, military and political events that allowed a million Jews to get the better of the eighty million Arabs who surround them on all sides.Wolfgang Berkowitz -Hebraized to Zev Barak- is a commander in the Israeli army at the time of independence who becomes an assistant to the Israeli ambassador in America, associate to a shadowy CIA operative and eye witness to the arguments in the UN.Yossi Blumenhal is a young immigrant turned emergency soldier, courageous and reckless, whose headstrong daring at Latrun and El Arish typify the Israeli fighting spirit and earn him the nickname "Don Kishote" - Don Quixote. Sam Pasternak is the experienced Mossad man and member of the inner chamber, an implacable runner and fixer for the likes of Ben Gurion, foreign minister Golda Meir and the inspirational Israeli general, Moshe Dayan.For all the insight into historical events that this trio of characters allow, the book is every bit as much about the loves of their lives, their affairs and the joys and regrets they feel in female company. I like the female characters, they were fully written and as influential as the male leads in their own way, but occasionally the melodrama just got in the way of the world changing events. I thought Golda Meir could have been seen more often, a woman who was genuinely involved in the thick of it all, but there is a follow-up work to this tome called The Glory, which picks up the story after 1967, so she will no doubt be more centre stage there. It's truly astonishing how the embattled, starved, under-resourced Israelis triumphed over the combined Arab army, a story I have been intrigued with ever since reading "O Jerusalem" by Collins & Lapierre as a teenager, I keep coming back to it. Unlike that work, Wouk gives an entirely Israeli-centric view on the conflict, though by no means an air-brushed one. He notes how for "three millennia the Jews were exactly the same quarrelsome Israelites of the Exodus, with the same God, the same language, and the same national character, including the same ineradicable tendency to veer forever between the sublime and the balagan" (cock-up).I don't often read mainstream historical novels like this, where the characters don't have much of an interior life and the events do most of the talking, but the consensus is that Wouk does this kind of thing very well and I love the subject matter so I gave it a go.I enjoyed The Hope, and look forward to one day reading The Glory.
It is no surprise, Herman Wouk is a master storyteller, and in The Hope he delivers. This historical novel that encompasses the fight to establish Israel in 1948 to hold on to it during the Six-day War in 1968 is told through the eyes of fictional characters who are as different in background and share nearly nothing in common. The one thing that binds them together is their willingness to live and die in order to establish a country that they can call their own. Wouk has deftly woven his characters, Sabras and Holocaust survivors, in with real historical figures such as Ben Gurion, Gold Meir, Moshe Dayan, and many more to achieve a true heroic tale. There are plenty of battle scenes, several love stories, and lots of intrigue which make this a quick page turner.
What do You think about The Hope (2002)?
Great read - one could be forgiven for mistaking Herman Wouk for Leon Uris and vica versa. The characters - Zev Barak, Sam Paternak, Benny Luria, Don Kishote - are so real you can touch them. As with Leon Uris and Exodus, Herman Wouk takes the reader through the formative years of Israel and beyond.What Herman Wouk has, in my opinion, managed to remain neutral in expressing his views, which, considering the subject line of the story, is very difficult indeed. That being said, The Hope still manages to take the reader through the entire range of emotion - anger, despair, elation...and hope. For those readers out there who want to know a little more about what Israel is all about, in particular what makes up the Israeli psyche, The Hope is a "must read".
—Klaus Schirmer
Actually this is not the book that I read. The title of the Herman Wouk book that I have just finished is titled simply - The Hope and was written in 1993.This book is an excellent recounting of the struggle for survival of the infant Jewish state in Palestine. If one likes history, and Jewish history in particular, one will love this book.The characters are a mixture of historical persons and fictitious people who figure in the historical story-lines. The historical accounts are factual as far as I can verify them and Golda Meir, Moshe Dayan, and others that are inserted into the historical accounts were certainly real people. Since I have written regarding Israel and the Jews I could be biased to some degree in my high esteem for this work. And since the title is not listed, perhaps I have obtained a classic of some value. But I suspect that The Hope was later revised into two volumes.
—Bill Shuey
This is a great book for learning the history of modern day Israel in its earliest years. Overcoming overwhelming odds against survival, those in positions of authority in government and the military hardly blink when doing what they must. In light of the Holocaust these Israeli Jews have a determination that as a country, as a religion and as a culture they will always have their own place. They are the best because they believe they have no choice. The stories behind the characters are constantly intertwined with real headliner names we have grown up with which gives an authenticity to the story. I feel much more informed for having read this book.
—LemonLinda
