Customer Reviews

Hawaii: A Novel

5 star:		(81)
4 star:		(26)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This, as far I'm concerned, is the ultimate "family saga" novel. Some call it Michener's master work, and I wholeheartedly agree with that assessment.

HAWAII follows an organizational pattern familiar to readers of Michener's other huge historical novels. First he tells the geological and prehistoric story of the region that provides the book's setting. Next, he introduces characters from early in that region's history - characters whose descendants people the book's subsequent sections, joined by a new group of immigrants as each of the tale's installments unfolds. The Polynesians - the New England missionaries, whalers, and merchants - the Chinese - and finally, the Japanese, arrive in different eras and under different circumstances. Each of these groups finds its own place, or rather creates its own place, in a society that's both challenged and enriched by Hawaii's ever-increasing racial and cultural diversity.

Genealogy ties this vast story's threads together, yet each of its major characters exists as a memorable individual in his or her own right. The author never allows his book's colorful setting, or the exciting backdrop of world events against which local happenings play out, to upstage those characters - nor does he let them blur into each other, which could easily happen with this many for both author and reader to keep straight. But what reader could possibly forget the great Alii Nui Malama, no matter how many descendants of the original Malama wind up sharing her name? Who could forget missionary wife Jerusha Bromley Hale, or the Chinese concubine whose true name her hundreds of descendants never know?

HAWAII heads the short list of books that I can read over and over, and always find fresh. A master work, indeed!

This may have been the first adult novel I ever read. I was 13, September 11th had just happened and my father was in a hotel across the street from the pentagon. I didn't know if he was ok until an hour after the plane hit, and when I found out I collapsed. He was fine, and I was exhausted from worrying. He had given me this book a week before, saying he read it when he was 20 and had surgery soon after and hallucinated that he relived the entire book in the recovery room.

Since this book is several million years long, that's quite an experience, as is reading this book. I've real quite a bit of Michener's works, and this is buy far his best. For one, there are only 17 pages about geology, not several hundred as in other books. For another, the clear connections of family through the generations in this book really make you know the main characters. For another, it's clear he loves Hawaii, as does anyone who's been there.

This book is the history of Hawaii. It's well arranged, first there are 17 pages of geology, then the Polynesian settlers get 100 pages. Next, we head forward a thousand years and the first Christian missionaries from the east coast arrive (and insisted on wearing wool clothing!) Then came the Chinese, and leprosy. Next the Japanese, and Pearl Harbor. Finally, the golden man emerges a mix of all these races and a good dash of Aloha spirit. Each section follows one or two families who intermix with those already established and intermarry and have children.

This book is fascinating. Every part of it excellent, although I especially love the missionaries, the Chinese family (they're just great characters and you learn so much about Chinese culture) and the descriptions of the Japanese American soldiers fighting in WW2.

Reading this book requires great amounts of patience, because there are rough patches, sections where 50 or so pages will go by without an interesting thing in them. But the great parts are truly great. It's easy to see why Michener is one of the greatest American writers when you read this. I have tried many of his other works and they don't come close to the quality of this book.

I recommend this to everyone, and I recommend you buy it, not check it out from a library. You'll want to read it again and again.

Michener, the supreme storyteller, created some really memorable characters in this monster of a novel. The genre of blockbuster historical novels can seem somewhat dated (viz. the mammoth novels of Mitchell, Ferber, McCullough, Caldwell and Follett) but they are definitely delicious if you get a taste for them. Dated or not, Hawaii is a gripping tale of not-so-angelic missionaries, struggling immigrants and early Polynesian settlers. The characters are absolutely unforgettable.

I particularly liked the section of the book where the missionaries run headlong into the traditions of the Polynesian people, whether insisting they wear confining clothing in the tropical heat, or that they should quit their charming and practical tradition of dancing, swimming and surfing in the buff. The missionaries stubbornly eat dried apples shipped to them across the sea, and scorn the richly nutritious native fruits and vegetables unfamiliar to them. They wilt in their long underwear, donned by the season. They try hard to bring a foreign world to their religion in the belief it will benefit the people, but when two vastly different cultures clash, it is inevitably tragic. Michener writes about this clash in vivid, sometimes shocking detail.

This book has been filmed, used as a basis for a musical but nothing compares to reading the original. I couldn't put it down.

I had my doubts about this classic at first. At over 1,000 pages, opening with an almost painstakingly slow account of the birth and evolution of the Hawaiian Islands in prehistoric times, it seemed ripe for pretentiousness. Was I ever wrong! The great James Michener knew and loved the islands, and it shows throughout this sweeping fictionalized history of our 50th state.

Dividing the novel into five historical eras ranging from the 9th century AD to the mid-1950s, Michener creates an amazingly detailed look at the evolution of Hawaii as we know it today, the people who created it, and the lands they came from. Through a diverse collection of characters, some of them based on real historical figures, we see both the good and the bad sides of the islands and their people. Michener doesn't pretend it was a painless evolution; his accounts of the Americanization of Hawaii are brutally honest about the greed and intolerance that played into it. From the anti-hero missionary Abner Hale, whose well-intentioned piousness caused more problems than it solved, to his more business-minded friends and descendants, Michener sees the first Americans in Hawaii as noble but ultimately selfish and often racist. The Chinese who came to Hawaii are cast in a somewhat more pleasant light, as personified by peasant concubine Char Nyuk Tsin, who literally builds a family empire from nothing in true American Dream fashion. (The account of her salvation of Hawaii's leper colony is perhaps the book's most harrowing chapter, but also its most inspiring in a way.) The later arrival of the Japanese and the persecution they suffered before and during World War II is also illustrated brilliantly; this was surely close to Michener's heart when he wrote the book, not long after the war. Although the final chapter, describing the evolution of a uniquely Hawaiian people, is somewhat less developed and convincing than the rest of the book, Michener's optimism for racial harmony after years of its absence is pervasive all the same.

Although the book is fictional, it's nonetheless a very realistic look at a land most of us think of as a paradise, as well as a rare look at the very American side of our most unique state. With a long and interesting story and consistently remarkable character development, it's sure to hold your interest no matter how long it may take you to read it.

Aloha! If you have never been to Hawaii, James Michener's Hawaii will entice you into going. If you have been to Hawaii, this book will show you what you missed while you were there.

Hawaii requires that kind of explanation. I remember visiting the orchid garden in Honolulu once. I thought I had seen everything and really enjoyed it after 30 minutes. Then a volunteer gardener introduced himself and asked me if I would like a tour. I naturally agreed, and in the next 2 and a half hours, I saw the garden for the first time. That is what Michener will do for you in this terrific novel about Hawaii.

Like all Michener novels, this one starts back millions of years ago with how the islands were formed and populated. You will get a great geology and history lesson in the process. Normally, you would probably not be interested in either one in a novel, but they are both very valuable to you as a tourist in the islands by adding to your knowledge.

The people in the story are full of passion for religion, acquiring material possessions, power and sex. Although the last is not explicitly described, lust plays a big role in the story. That seems as it should in a tropical paradise where warm weather and scanty clothing combine.

When you visit modern day Hawaii, you will see reminders of the founding families of modern Hawaii all around you. Hawaii will give you a sense of the histories behind the current power and business structure.

The book itself is written in a way that feels like you are sitting at a luau with someone telling you the story through a combination of traditional means (like the hula) and good campfire story-telling. It's almost like a trip to the Polynesian Cultural Center on the northern shore of Oahu.

Seldom do I wish that long novels (and this one is really long) would keep on going, but that was my wish with Hawaii. Even if the fiction were not based loosely on fact, it would have been an exciting and engrossing novel. The fact that the reality is a lot like the novel makes it all the more appealing.

Hawaii will hook you on Hawaii. That's good. We all need more of the magic of the islands in our lives. Leave your misconceptions behind about Hawaii being too far away. It can be right inside of you. Enjoy!

"Hawaii" is one of my favorite Micheners. I enjoyed it immensely - all. Starting with the volcanic formations, then the story of the first settlers from Bora-Bora (they were so advanced navigators and engineers - unbelievable) and finally all the families coming to Hawaii from China and Japan especially, their co-habiting with the natives and mixing - it was all great. As usual, Michener did not stop at describing the historical background, but sketched also the possible past and future problems of this paradise state, the solutions in the past. Although I realize that the book is too small and too fictionalized to be absolutely accurate and comprehensive as a guide to the region, nevertheless, as usual with Michener's novels, it is a good start for someone interested in Hawaii. I recommend it!

This was my first Michener and most definetly not my last. Michener writes an amazing story with so many different kinds of characters it's amazing and it's the closest you can get to a nonfiction without it being one. If you like Hawaii or want to know more about it you will adore this book. The only thing I didn't like, although it was interesting just not entertaining, was his part on forming the islands. You get so many different aspects here such as the Japanese, American, Hawaiian, and Chinese of Hawaii if you read this book you will know more about Hawaii than I'd say 80% (or more) people in the world. Another cool aspect is the family trees in the back of the book. They tell you a lot about one of the families. All in all this is one of the most entertaining books I've ever read.

Early in the book, Michener tells a story of how man first arrived on Hawaii. The story is incredibly exciting and dramatic. What makes it so interesting is that his story couldn't possibly be too far from the truth.

Hawaii is so distant from any other island. How could anyone have found it except by sheer luck? It's just fascinating to think about the extraordinary circumstances that must have arisen to compel a sufficiently large group of primitive people to leave their home and venture far out to sea.

I first read this book about 16 years ago when I was a freshman in college. I stayed up all night reading it right in the middle of finals week, but I couldn't put it down. Since then, I have read most of Michener's books but still rate Hawaii as his best.

It is always interesting to follow Michener's overlapping generations of characters. As the protagonists age, we gradually get to know their offspring. Each generation is a wild card. Some children further the good intentions and fortunes of their parents and others set the whole community back generations. The smooth transition between generations is the main reason it is so hard to stop reading.

In classic Michener style, he frequently changes perspectives (native Hawaiian, American missionaries, Chinese, Japanese) and the reader can't help but feel compassion and understanding for each side of a conflict. Not that Michener is afraid to cast blame. Because he portrays each side so honestly, his political message has more credibility and is even more effective.

Michener's "Hawaii" is a colorful, entertaining masterpiece of historical fiction. Prefaced by an imaginative prelude on the volcanic formation of the islands, the saga begins in the 9th century with terror and suspense, as the first canoe of determined Polynesians flees Bora Bora to escape extermination under the new and evil god, Oro, guided northward only by the wind, spirits and stars on a perilous voyage that miraculously reaches the uninhabited shores of Hawaii. Deftly weaving an intricate, fugue-like procession of peoples through thousand-year genealogical charts, Michener details the multi-generational story of how the original Hawaiians clashed and intermingle--both in bloodline and culture--with conservative 19th century Congregationalist missionaries educated at Yale, ambitious Chinese workers of rivaling Punti and Hakka extraction who ventured to the islands to make their fortunes on the sugar plantations controlled by ex-missionaries and seafarers-turned-businessmen, and their hardworking Japanese brethren from Hiroshima who brought to the sugar and pineapple fields yet another distinct culture with its own deep-rooted traditions.

From the proud and innocently incestuous royal Hawaiian siblings, Alii Nui and Kelolo Kanaloa; to the prim-and-proper Hale, Whipple and Hewlett missionaries and their overworked wives; to the sincere sea captain Janders and worldly womanizing whaler Hoxworth; to the selfless, tirelessly enterprising concubine Nyuk Tsin with her big feet and unlucky leprous lover, Kee Mun Ki; to the stout Sakagawa Kamejiro with long arms swinging at his knees, who swaps picture-brides with his crazily patriotic friend Mr. Ishii--a parade of memorable characters flourish and fade, only to be replaced by their equally endearing sons, daughters, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Through beheadings and lovemaking, riots and baptism, plague and good health, conflagration and rebuilding, World War II and its aftermath, tsunami and Pacific paradise, strike and profit, struggle and frivolous pleasures, death and birth--gradually, over many generations, a unique, resilient Hawaiian culture evolves. Ultimately, despite the tendency of each individual, whatever his cultural upbringing, to cling prejudicially to his own traditions and values, out of the inevitable conflux of peoples arises a new type of Golden Man, "a man influenced by both the west and the east, a man at home in either the business councils of New York or the philosophical retreats of Kyoto, a man wholly modern and American yet in tune with the ancient and the Oriental."

Michener's sensitive portrayal of people, traditions and generational change--human strength through cultural diversity to build a brighter and more hopeful future for not only the microcosm of Hawaii but the world as a whole--is the hallmark of this remarkable contribution to literature. Self-centered Abner Hale, cursing all the non-Christian heathens and madly flailing his cane at sacred scrolls in a Buddhist temple, ironically dies a stubbornly devout, lonely missionary without a congregation; however, a century later his great-great-grandson, Hoxworth Hale, of one-sixteenth Hawaiian blood and, morever, having lived and breathed the quintessentially Hawaiian ebb and flow of disparate social, economic and political forces as head of the island's largest business empire, blossoms by story's end into the most enlightened of Michener's Golden Men. Indeed, where "ideas clash on equal footing and remain free to cross-fertilize and bear new fruit," there is hope and progress. Appropriately, the publication of this monumental work dates from 1959, the same year Hawaii ascended to statehood, becoming America's 50th state.

I highly recommend this masterpiece for anyone seeking a deeper appreciation of history and the catalysts of cultural change in our multifarious modern world. Whether you happen to be relaxing under swaying palms in Hawaiian paradise, lying on a white sand beach or elsewhere, pick up a copy of this mellifluous novel, absorb its radiance and enjoy!

I really enjoyed this 40+ year old book (classic?) by James Mitchener. I was spellbound and kept turning those pages late into the nights.

I thought his discussion of the Chinese Hakka woman, the queen mother of the successful Chinese on the islands, to be very interesting and representative of that ethnic group. However, I did have a problem with this woman, particularly at 90+ years old, going through the intricacies of tax loss carry-forwards. The internal and external dialogue was a little out of character.

But Mitchener is one of the great masters. I highly recommend this book if your going to Hawaii, if you just want an adventure story, or if you want to read about how different ethnic groups learned to muddle along together. There's a ton of supporting detail that is quite interesting to read, and the book felt that there was nothing extraneous. The pace was very quick and the characters interesting. It was easy to visualize the story as it unfolded.

John Dunbar
Sugar Land, TX