Mike on Nostr: I just finished reading The Caine Mutiny. The novel is set in the waning years of the ...

I just finished reading The Caine Mutiny. The novel is set in the waning years of the Pacific war, on a slovenly minesweeper with a slovenly crew, neither of which has ever swept a mine. A new captain, for whom “excellent performance is standard, standard performance is sub-standard, and sub-standard performance is not permitted to exist” starts whipping the crew into shape, but becomes increasingly tyrannical and unhinged, until a crisis leads his second-in-command to relieve him of duty and take over. The reader breathes a sigh of relief…but is the captain the real villain here? The moral landscape is haze grey, and the lives of the ship's officers (for mutiny in the time of war is a capital offense) will hang on the evaluation and judgement of men sitting safely in offices far from harms way.
Something interesting happens in this book that I don't know if I've ever seen elsewhere—just when you think you’ve gotten to the climax, the story arc recapitulates. Characters depart, and others step in to assume the vacated roles. We get a second climax, a second crisis, and a second villain who, I'd argue, is worse than the first.
The Caine finally sweeps a mine, but is forced to withdraw from the op due to a mechanical failure. The rest of the threads of the story resolve in a similarly satisfying way.
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