Daniel Villines's Reviews > The Cruel Sea

I enjoy war stories because they hold the potential for human extremes, and examining extreme situations provides a better perspective on everyday life. Within The Cruel Sea these extremes present themselves as unimaginable situations; situations that humans must live through in order to survive. Situations where every action, every decision, is absolutely right regardless of the judgments that may be imposed after the fact, in a relative calm, or in a comparative sanctuary of safety.

This book focuses on humans that are thrown into war from their peacetime lives. Accountants, bankers, journalists, cargo ship captains, pension seeking peacetime sailors, are all placed in a war that they, as individuals, had very little to do with its inception. From there, the changes in the characters are illustrated through the most extreme of circumstances and the ever-accumulating risk associated with time. Decisions are made and sacrifices are suffered. The enemy becomes transformed from humans with differing points of view into mere objects of resistance: worthy of a hatred that can only be bestowed upon the most inhuman of threats. And the defenders are transformed into machines that are virtually unaware of the hatred that they display.

The book serves to bring to life the historical accounts of the war, but it also opens up parallels that exist in our current lives. In the hear-and-now, stresses are also ever-present and they accumulate with time. We eventually lose our peace-of-mind to a constant and continuing struggle.

Today's economic participants are perpetually at sea and failure may very well be a sort of virtual death. Our livelihood, which is often synonymous with life itself, can be stolen by seemingly inhuman forces, which are easily hated. Our home ports are but a fleeting reprieve, sometimes despised for the temporary shelter that they represent. And we are constantly cast adrift, at sea, at war, again and again.

The criticisms that I have for The Cruel Sea are not numerous. They ride below the surface of the book, but they are still there. They include an inability on the part of Monsarrat to fully hit home with the important themes of the book. He seems too polite and he stops short of making you put the book down, look away, and to say (if I may borrow an appropriate phrase) you son of a bitch. The other shortcoming is distraction. There are subplots that do not contribute much to the story and seem to cater to more popular themes. However, even with these flaws, this book still stands on its own, offering insights into life at the extremes of human existence.