The Hope

the recapture of jerusalem was awesome - even knowing the outcome in advance (this is historical fiction) it was really moving to read the reactions of soldiers and govt officials going to the holy sites.

also, wouk did an excellent job of not being anti-arab in his telling. the story was definitely from the israeli's perspective, but he was respectful of the arabs.

The Hope is a work of historical fiction that covers the history of Israel from the War of Independence of 1948 through the Six-Day War of 1967. I would like to say I loved this book but, unfortunately, I can't. It is obvious that Wouk has extensively researched the battles, the history and the politics of that region at that time. The sections of the book that dealt with this are exciting and enormously interesting. He should have stopped there.

However, historical fiction needs a cast of characters to bring the work to life and here Wouk falls short. The four (4) fictional men are reasonably well written - especially when it comes to their roles as soldiers. I can't say the same for the women characters. There is plenty of attention show more paid to how they fill out their uniforms but not much on how they contributed to history. All four 'relationships' felt forced and on the whole, unbelievable - disappointing from the man who brought us Marjorie Morningstar, War and Remembrance and The Winds of War. On the whole, the fictional characters and their parts in the story are rather uninteresting and don't really add much to the overall story. I tended to find them distracting rather than adding to the historical account.

In my opinion, you would do better to read James Michener's 'The Source' or Leon Uris' 'Exodus' for historical fiction on this topic. For a non-fiction account, try 'Israel: A History' by Martin Gilbert. show less

It was OK but it didn't affect me the way that either The Caine Mutiny or The Winds of War did. It didn't even reach War and Remembrance.

When it comes to "founding Israel" stories, my favories are still Collins/Lapierre's O Jerusalem! and Uris' Exodus.

This saga starts in 1948 and concludes in the miraculous triumph in 1967's six day war. It is the story of the key players in those beginning days as Israel fights to be recognized as a nation.

Excellent, and I'm not especially pro-Israeli.

Wonderful! Just read it!

While the events and background to the 1948, 56, and 67 wars were interesting, the "romance" was laughably bad. A 12 year old girl falls in love with an Israeli officer and then waits to send him love letters (before suffering from mental health issues) and he eventually gives in and cheats on his with wife with her. Don't worry, his wife is ok with it (sort of). The "French whore" chapter was also a joke. Wish fulfillment? I was cheering for Nasser, if only that meant one of the main characters would die off.