The Emperor's General

Gen. Douglas MacArthur makes a provocative central character for a World War II novel, brash and swaggering, deeply complex in his contradictions. These qualities are exploited to animated theatrical effect by military-specialty author Webb (Fields of Fire). This is the story of MacArthur's actions at the end of the war in the Pacific in 1945, told from the point of view of Jay Marsh, a translator who worked on the general's staff as a young captain. Now a droll old man, a retired banker and ambassador, Marsh reconstructs his youthful days serving in the general's inner circle, his ""royal court."" MacArthur was by then appointed ""Supreme Commander,"" a living caricature with his trademark sunglasses and corncob pipe, busy ""making history"" as he met with the defeated Japanese. Marsh, in love with an aristocratic Filipino woman, is torn between loyalty to his chief and to his own growth as an independently thinking man. In his reading, Dukes plays up the characterizations, giving MacArthur a deep, drawling snobbish lilt and assuming full-blown Japanese accents for his depictions of the deposed Asian military leaders. Despite these overblown flourishes, Webb's novel comes across highly convincing on tape, taut and compelling in its unfolding surprises and made realistic in its fine human detailing. Based on the Broadway hardcover. (June)