Michener begins with the geologic formation of Hawaii and ends with its entry as the 50th state. Over the course of a thousand pages (and millions of years), we learn how many ethnic groups fought and learned to live in peace. “Hawaii” is a powerful novel, and the state is a symbol which exemplifies each of Michener’s recurring themes-- interracial harmony, tolerance, and coexistence. (I write this review in 2012 after having read this book in 1984.)There are six long chapters, each devoted to the saga of a different ethnic culture in Hawaii. (The chapters are hundreds of pages in length and mine are merely quick summaries that barely hint at the deep plot complexities.)1)tFrom the Boundless DeepMichener describes the geological formation of the islands from volcanoes over 60 million years. A bird flying over the igneous rock excretes a seed from which erupts a riot of lush vegetation. (I loved the lessons in geology. I don’t know if his dates (which were the best estimates 50 years ago) are still sound, but this is a wonderful way to teach geology to the indifferent.)2)tFrom the Sun Swept LagoonA band of Polynesians escape the paradise island of Bora Bora (and a brutal religion of human sacrifice) to cross 2,400 miles of the Pacific in canoes to become the first humans to arrive on Hawaii. (As I read about people questioning their religious practices, I started questioning my own.)3)tFrom the Farm of BitternessReverend Abner Hale leaves Yale Divinity School along with his friend Dr. Whipple to become Calvinist missionaries to the Hawaiian Islands in the 19th century. There is much tension around the issue of syncretism, but eventually eleven missionary families become the wealthy overlords of the island. The conglomerate Hoxworth and Hale is present through the rest of the novel. Michener includes a genealogical chart to assist readers in keeping track of the characters and their many intermarriages. ( I suspect that religious readers will think that Michener is too critical of these missionaries; irreligious readers will think that Michener is overly generous to the missionaries. Michener challenges prejudice.) 4)tFrom the Starving Village The Whipple family recruits 19th Century Chinese to work the Hawaiian sugar plantations; however, we get long background stories about these Chinese that go all the way back to Tartar invasion of the 9th Century. (I learned a lot about China and the challenges of growing sugar cane.)5)tFrom the Inland SeaThe Japanese arrive in the early 20th century to work in the pineapple fields. It takes years of experimentation before successful Cayenne pineapples from French Guiana are harvested thanks to the industry of the Japanese. As the years pass we learn about labor strife between the workers and the owners. (I learned about feudal Japan and hybrid pineapples.)The Kee family organizes to bring the rest of the family from Japan and concentrates on education. Four of the Kee sons will fight in the Italian Campaign of World War II. ( Despite the fact that Michener fought in the Pacific in World War II, he married a Japanese woman, and Asians are portrayed favorably in Michener’s tolerant fiction. 6)tThe Golden Men Hawaii is a melting pot, and the novel's major theme is proclaimed in the title of the last chapter, "The Golden Men." -- a blend not necessarily of races but of the attitudes of the different cultures: Polynesian, Caucasian, Chinese, and Japanese. I believe in and I aspire to Aristotle’s Golden Mean; Jesus' Golden Rule; and Michener’s “Golden Man.”Michener describes the Golden Human: But in time I realized that this bright, hopeful man of the future, this unique contribution of Hawaii to the rest of the world, did not depend for his genesis upon racial intermarriage at all. He was a product of the mind. His was a way of thought, and not of birth, and one day I discovered, with some joy I may add, that for several years I had known the archetypes of the Golden Man, and if the reader has followed my story so far, he also knows three of them well and is about to meet the fourth, and it is interesting that none of these, in a direct sense, owed his golden quality to racial intermixtures. His awareness of the world he owed to his understanding of the movements around him…. (891-892) My ConclusionI owe a debt of gratitude to Michener for offering me “an awareness of the world” in which I gained understanding. I give “Hawaii” 5 Stars because of the impact that it had on me when I read it several decades ago. It would probably not move me quite as much today because I am a different reader. I spent many hours reading over ten thousand pages of Michener during high school and college when I should have been studying textbooks. Had I have read the textbooks, I might have been a better student, I would not have been a better human being. Michener, through the power of story, improved my temperament and pointed me in the direction of broadmindedness. Michener is an excellent writer to entertain young readers while teaching history, science and the morality of hard work and tolerance. I heartily commend him to anybody who has not already devoted themselves exclusively to serious, literary fiction. Here is a link to my review of my favorite Michener book, "Centennial":http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...(All books deserve to be judged according to their own ambitions, so I give this book a 5-Star rating even though it is not a "literary" novel) November 29, 2012
I first read this book back in my teens, and I was in Hawaii recently and decided it was time to reread it. It has held up really well in the interim. Okay, Michener not the greatest master of the craft of writing, agreed, but he knows how to tell a story.Here he tells a history of Hawaii through the eyes of the different races who lived it, beginning with the Polynesians who emigrated in open canoes across five thousand miles of open ocean 600 years before Prince Henry the Navigator sponsored his first voyage, navigating only by the stars and a few scraps of oral history. Then come the Calvinist missionaries from New England who wrought such unthinking, well-meaning havoc on the native Hawaiian population, with help from the whalers and traders, who were all then followed by the Chinese and the Japanese imported by the missionary descendants for labor in the sugar cane and pineapple fields, although they sure didn't stay there.This epic narrative, 1,036 pages in length, is ambitious and all-encompassing. (He probably thought (or his publisher did) that if he included the story of the Filipinos the book would be too long to sell.) The story of the four Sakagawa brothers and their poor sister (I will never forgive Michener for what he did to Reiko), and the story of the 442nd Battalion in World War II is sobering and instructive, and I'm pretty sure Shig's story is the fictionalized version of Senator Daniel Inouye's life.The story I found most compelling was that of Char Nyuk Tsin, also known as Wu Chow's Auntie, also known as Pake Kokua. This peasant woman is kidnapped from her village in rural China, rescued from a career as a prostitute by an inveterate gambler and immigrates to Hawaii with him. He contracts leprosy and is banished to the leper colony on Molokai, also known as hell on earth. Nyuk Tsin accompanies him there voluntarily and nurses him till he dies, after which she takes on all the other lepers as patients, which earns her the title of Pake Kokua (Hawaiian for, roughly, Chinese Helper, which really ought to read Saint).She scratched his grave into the sandy soil, choosing the side of a hill as she had promised, and where winds did not blow and where, if there was no tree, there was a least a ledge of rock upon which his spirit could rest on its journeys from and to the grave.Finally the authorities in Honolulu, who have been supremely indifferent to the terrible state of the leper colony thus far, allow her to return home. There, she and her four sons, Africa, America, Australia, and Asia (really, and the whole Chinese name thing is fascinating, and dizzying), get their hui working to found a financial dynasty that would eventually buy the land out from under the descendants of the missionaries. This book is worth reading for Nyuk Tsin's story alone. I defy you not to tear up when she returns to Molokai to sit next to her husband's grave and report to him on the state of their family.There is an hilarious scene where one of the missionary descendents writes a marvelous expose entitledSex Aboard the BrigantineorThey Couldn't Have been Seasick All the TimeorThere was Friggin' in the Riggin'which is about exactly what you think it is about. I only wish Michener had let us read the whole thing, and I would love to have seen the original source material he got that from. I am also intensely curious as to what the Islanders themselves think of Michener's book, and how close it is to the truth. I have googled madly and found very little criticism of it, or comment of any kind for that matter. Be interesting to know.Well worth reading.
What do You think about Hawaii (2002)?
I picked up this book in the library and one of the things I noticed first about the book was that the edges of the pages have become soft from the hands and fingers of hundreds of readers. The book has been rebound in one of those lovely flat blue library covers. In the back Marsha left her phone number on a yellow sticky note which I have suspicions might be for a support group for those that have started and failed to finish reading Hawaii. 937 pages later I can say that this book is a two star book, a three star book and a four star book. I'm always generous so I decided to bump to three star because there were sections that were really fascinating to read. The book is broken up into 6 sections with each section dealing with a new generation or a new half generation with cross over characters from the previous books. I'm sure a good editor today could slice and cut this book down to 600 pages without losing too much of the intent of the writer.I read somewhere that this book has done more for Hawaiian tourism than any other book published about Hawaii. Published in 1959 and read by my mother, and most of my aunts, and some uncles I would say it probably did contribute to a lifelong longing for my mother to vacation in Hawaii. The power of the pen. The part that I enjoyed the most was the hard work and entrepreneurship that Michener explored with the white missionaries, the influx of Chinese workers, and later the arrival of the Japanese. Each group contributed to major changes in how affairs are conducted on the island. Really Hawaii was a microcosm of capitalism working the way it is suppose to. Michener is best described as a storyteller. Sometimes I felt he might be trying too hard to be a modern day Dickens. His writing doesn't have the snap and pop of what I consider to be a great writer. I try to always include a few passages from a book I read to share with goodreads readers so they can get a feel for the writer's writing style, but in this case the notes I made to check back on passages were too bland to get me excited about building a review around them.I might have given Michener four stars except for the fact that checking with a travel writer, that I respect, I was told that there are simply too many inaccuracies with the historic data of Michener's books. I understand that it is fiction, but I do expect historical writers to adhere to some rules. I love historic novels because I feel they can put flesh on the bones of real people and produce conversations and dialogue that could legitimately have happened. What I don't like is if they take a historical event and manipulate aspects so much that the reader is left with a totally unrealistic view of history. An exception of course is alternative history where I expect the writer to completely change the outcome of history, a good example is Fatherland by Robert Harris.I have put a Shoal of Time: a History of the Hawaiian Islands by Gavan Dawes in my queue to read so that I can hopefully be exposed to a more historical accurate version of Hawaii. I may find that I can live with whatever changes to history that Michener wrote into his book. Do I recommend this book? I can't say that I would. If I'm looking for a monster of a book that I can spend some real time with again I'm pulling Moby-Dick off the shelves. A story that never gets old, and a book that new things are discovered with each reading.
—Jeffrey Keeten
I am a huge fan of historical fiction. And would you believe it – this is my first Michener novel! It didn’t take me long to realize that I had been missing out. Hawaii gripped me from the first pages and despite being over 900 pages long, I was sad to see it end.Hawaii is composed of large chapters – even novellas, if you will, that connect to form the history of the islands. From the lyrical prose of the first chapter, From the Boundless Deep, which describes the geological formation of the islands themselves, to subsequent chapters telling the story of the island’s earliest inhabitants, missionaries and immigrants, Michener is a master story-teller and impressive historian.Michener presents his history with fictional characters that are based on real people. For instance, in the chapter From the Farm of Bitterness, a lecture given by the character Keoki Kanakoa inspires Abner Hale and John Whipple to become missionaries working in Hawaii. In real life, the lecturer was Henry Obookiah and he did inspire the missionaries named Hiram Bingham and Asa Thurston.In addition to writing a riveting novel, Michener has succeeded in sparking my curiosity about those real-life persons who had such a huge impact on our 50th state. It’s no surprise then, to learn that Michener inspired one of my favorite historical fiction authors, Edward Rutherfurd, to pursue his literary career.Sadly, there will be no more Michener novels – this great author died in 1997. However, he did write over 40 books, so happily I have many more to enjoy!
—Suzanne
James Michener continues his global tour with Hawaii, another historical epic.Hawaii covers the entire history of the Islands, from their discovery by their earliest inhabitants, through the first missionaries who came to spread the gospel to the islanders, to the eventual control of the USA.You learn of the varied demographic groups of Hawaii: the Chinese, Japanese, Natives, and mainland American. It is a story of great tragedy, accomplishment, and a big love for the islands that make up the modern day state.Some day that Michener writes so well and with such conviction that you may believe that this is not fiction, but actual history. This is true of this book as well. However, the story is what makes Hawaii a great book. Michener's research and detail-rich background plays a secondary, though impressive, role.This is an excellent book.
—Jonathan
