Hawaii: A Novel by James A. Michener
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Book Reviews of Hawaii: A Novel
Book Review: Not my favorite
Summary: 3 Stars
My favorite Michener novel is "The Novel". This is probably partly because I'm a writer myself. As I contemplated my review for Hawaii, I did read some of the reviews and they fascinated me. It would be interesting to know a profile of readers who love Michener. Please indulge me regarding the comments below prefacing my review of Hawaii.
Michener's books are almost invariably extremely lengthy. And he gets away with what would be literary suicide for many writers. Most all his books include hundreds of pages of exposition: geologic research, cultural backgrounds, historical references, family trees/genealogies, archaeological discoveries, geographical information, etc. I've read stern warnings in many instructional books regarding the temptation to include all your research in a novel just because you spent so many hours compiling it. The books state how boring and tedious this can become for readers to wade through all this exposition in a desperate search for the plot.
It was a little amusing to me how many readers acknowledged Michener's penchant for massive exposition. Then the reviewer typically goes on to say that the book was still great and engrossing, etc. I'm a researcher as well as a writer, so it's saying a lot for me to state that I think Michener does go a little overboard at times with the truckloads of background material. But he's great enough to still keep an interesting plot moving along and sell tons of books.
Regarding Hawaii, I read it and, like others, found sections of it quite fascinating. One section, however, disturbed me quite a bit. It seemed as if the missionaries were caricatured as horrible human beings. They were foolish, sour, stern, mean-spirited, and even cruel at times. I'm not saying Michener is lying. I believe that some early missionaries misunderstood grossly what it meant to evangelize and invite people to consider the salvation offered through Christ's death on the cross for mankind. They thought that native people's cultural mores must be forsaken for them to be "Christianized." They sometimes made cultural mountains out of molehills and forced standards upon native peoples which did not even come from the Bible. Christian missions has changed in huge ways and for many decades it has spread the gospel of Christ without destroying the cultures and customs of various people groups.
Maybe I'm overreacting a little, because most reviewers seemed to realize that Michener was not cynically condemning all Christian missions with ugly, biased intentions. But, in any case, I'm just recording my reactions to the book. Please don't email me with bristling retorts as if I've bad-mouthed Michener. I have read some of his books and agree that he's a great writer. If you have an interest in writing, I especially recommend that you read The Novel. It is excellent.
Book Review: Not Michener's Best
Summary: 3 Stars
I've read several Michener novels and this is frankly not his best work. As always, he spends plenty of time acquainting the reader with the locale, beginning with the formation of the earth's crust. I enjoy the historical and archaeological background, and thoroughly enjoyed the story of the early people who made that incredible journey of faith and will across the sea to found Hawaii. But with the arrival of the missionaries the story takes a turn, and I kept having to wonder whether or not Michener himself believed that their deliberate, disrespectful destruction of the beautiful, thousands of years old, Polynesian society was a crime against a human population. However, his telling leaves one to wonder, and in fact it seems that the author does not see the irony in his own telling.
To be fair, it is certainly challenging to write hundreds of pages about such a very unappealing character as the missionary Abner Hale (who believes unswervingly that his God is the only one, and that the religious beliefs of the Polynesian people is pure heathen fantasy that must be destroyed). His success is painfully unsettling, and is the crux of much of the story.
The book is long on missionaries, and short on connecting the reader with the culture that was willfully destroyed (in the name of God).
There are better Michener novels with which to spend a thousand pages of reading time.
Book Review: Not a great novel
Summary: 2 Stars
This book started off slow with the formation of the Hawaiian islands and just continued from there. The second chapter was more insightful and interesting but it seemed to drag. Several pages could have been cut or edited out. It would have been better if this book moved through the years a little more swiftly, than dragging to each persons life. It was very difficult to finish and this is one book I will not re-read again. It was about as interesting as a school text book, without a teacher to bring out the lesson.