Sayonara [Hardcover]

James A. Michener (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 12, 1954

A brilliant tale of love and war, SAYONARA tells the story of Major Lloyd Gruver, son of an army general stationed in Japan, dating a general's daughter, and happy with his life. He didn't understand the soldiers who fell in love with Japanese girls. Then he met Hana-ogi. After that nothing mattered anymore. Nothing but her....

--This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

A brilliant tale of love and war, SAYONARA tells the story of Major Lloyd Gruver, son of an army general stationed in Japan, dating a general's daughter, and happy with his life. He didn't understand the soldiers who fell in love with Japanese girls. Then he met Hana-ogi. After that nothing mattered anymore. Nothing but her.... --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Random House (January 12, 1954)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0394443853
• ISBN-13: 978-0394443850
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #887,526 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Different Time, A Different Place, September 1, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Sayonara (Mass Market Paperback)

This is not my Japan - I was stationed there a generation later. Michener's prose describes Japan as it was during the Korean war. I still remember the vendors selling roasted chestnuts or skewers of yakitori beside the street. Today we have, God forbid, MacDonalds and Starbucks on the streets of Hiroshima.
These are not my girls - most of the Japanese women I met, outside of the bar scene, were students in English classes. Their reasons for speaking with gaijin (foreigners) were varied. Some wanted to learn English for work. Some expected to travel. One had a sister who was married to an American. The girl who is now my wife of 25 years was a rebel who just did not want to conform to the strictures of Japanese society. I have to admit, I was first attracted because she was the cutest girl I had ever seen. She's still is, for me. Were there communication problems? Yes, at first. Now, probably no different from any other couple. Could Gruver's attraction to Hana Ogi have been purely physical? Maybe. Probably not.
Sayonara isn't history - but the "tea ceremony" I saw in Kyoto last week wasn't real either.
Enjoy this book - it's a window on a different time and a different place and a different people. It's a wonderful read if you can shift your perspecive and accept things as they were.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Cross - Cultural Romance in the early 1950s, May 1, 2007

By 

Diana F. Von Behren "reneofc" (Kenner, LA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Sayonara (Mass Market Paperback)

In a supposed small world intent on globalization, reading a novel
like James A. Michener's, "Sayonara", although set in 1950s Japan,
suggests that in spite of each human's desire for the basic
necessities of life, racial and cultural differences may forever
divide and inhibit an ultimate understanding of another person in
terms of their all important concept of self-identity.

In the novel, Major Lloyd Gruver speaks, in first person prose of his prominent position in a post WW2 world. Symbolic of the America
of that time period, he scintillates with all the sparkling promise
of the American dream. Educated at West Point like his
distinguished father, and touted as an ace Air Force pilot for
shooting down MIGS in the Korean War, he appears to have it all,
especially since he is engaged to the beautiful socially acceptable
daughter of a general. A cushy conventional existence looms in his
future, but the routine and boring familiarity of this supposed
perfect life perturbs him. He finds himself immobilized and
uncertain of moving towards what he thinks of as a repeat of his
parents' lives. He finds himself asking why embrace a mindset and lifestyle for which he has little passion?

From the moment he sets foot in Japan, Gruver, defends his shaky
brand of the American dream; he has little understanding for the
countless GIs romancing "indigenous personnel." When one of his
men, Airman Joe Kelly asks him to stand up for him at his marriage
to a Japanese girl, Gruver is appalled. Rather than the
stereotypical Oriental doll expected, Katsumi, Kelly's bride,
borders on dowdy, the big gold tooth in the front of her mouth
wreaks havoc on Gruver's idea of beauty. The comparison between
this girl and Eileen, his fiancée, epitomizes for him the differences
between the East and the West.

Ironically, when Gruver meets and falls in love with Hana-Ogi, his
impressions of the Japanese change, as do his thoughts for his own
future. Ultimately, Gruver is faced with a few of the big questions-
-can he forgo the life for which he was groomed for an existence
that at that time would have been thought racially and socially
unacceptable? Would the erotic sense of unconditional love that he
feels for this girl, circumvent the problems he would encounter
because of the sensibilities of the day?

Bottom line: Published in 1953, and supposedly (according to "Out
of an Obscure Place: Japanese War Brides and Cultural Pluralism in
the 1950s" by Caroline Chung Simpson) reflective of Michener's
mindset regarding the survival rate of such interracial marriages,
this novel presages the author's growing interest in Japanese war
brides and his own change of heart regarding their success. In 1955
he married Japanese American Mari Yoriko Sabusawa. His
novel, "Sayonara," then magnificently details his personal struggle
to understand a culture much different from his own as he tests his
own self-identity. Recommended to read over and over again.
Diana Faillace Von Behren
"[e-mail]"

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not your average love story, January 21, 2003

By 

Moe (Toledo, Ohio) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sayonara (Mass Market Paperback)

To me, Sayonara is an amazing story of a very unlikely couple. Maybe it is simply the woman in me that enjoys reading of a great love tale, but this novel truly hit me. In the beginning Lloyd is a man that would not think twice about dating a Japanese woman simply because of her race. But as time goes on, and the storyline progresses, his perspective begins to shift. He sees Hana-ogi not as a JAPANESE woman, but as a warm-hearted, loving human being. And although both of their careers forbid their relationship, neither one of them is willing to give up the bond they share. Their friends Joe Kelly and Katsumi are only another example of how love conquers, or rather, should conquer, all. Sayonara is not just a sappy love story. It is a tale of struggle and the overcoming of obstacles merely to be with the one you were meant to be with.