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4.0 AVERAGE
4.0 AVERAGE
oh the irony of reading this massive tome, in preparation of travelling to Hawaii for the first time, and what are the odds a global pandemic would shut that down? I normally read a book about every 7 to ten days, this one took 3 months! Not sorry i read it, i am so ready to get to Hawaii when the time comes. I love Michener's deep dive on any topic, and this one starts with the literal formation of the island from volcanic eruptions through the 1950's. An epic read that i just started to weary of from page 600 to 1137! No regrets man, i learned so much and now clearly plenty of time to catch up on other reading!
Beautifully narrated by Larry McKeever, I've been listening to this book for several months. I played it in the car, but I don't drive much so it took me a long time to finish. McKeever's voice is appealingly resonant but also without too much distinction. I did not get tired of hearing him speak.
Given that it is revealed to be the work of one male character in the story it is understandably biased and old-fashioned. But I found the revelation hard to swallow and too pat of a storytelling tool. It seemed out of place with the sheer majesty of the tale. However, some historic events take on what feels like disproportionate importance while others aren't even mentioned, so that is in keeping with how an individual's reflections might come across.
Given that it is revealed to be the work of one male character in the story it is understandably biased and old-fashioned. But I found the revelation hard to swallow and too pat of a storytelling tool. It seemed out of place with the sheer majesty of the tale. However, some historic events take on what feels like disproportionate importance while others aren't even mentioned, so that is in keeping with how an individual's reflections might come across.
adventurous
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
slow-paced
a great yarn
I reread this, probably more than 30 years after the first time. I did so while on vacation in Hawaii. It is a tremendously engaging story, full of rich characters and told with a believable vibrancy. The stories of the Nissei soldiers of the fictitious 222 Regiment, based as it is on the very real courage of the 100th Infantry Battalion and the 442nd Regimental Combat Team remain particularly inspiring. Highly recommended.
I reread this, probably more than 30 years after the first time. I did so while on vacation in Hawaii. It is a tremendously engaging story, full of rich characters and told with a believable vibrancy. The stories of the Nissei soldiers of the fictitious 222 Regiment, based as it is on the very real courage of the 100th Infantry Battalion and the 442nd Regimental Combat Team remain particularly inspiring. Highly recommended.
I know that [author: Edward Rutherford], one of my favorite authors, was a sort of disciple to James Michener and his location-based historical fiction genre, but Hawaii was massively disappointing. It begins with a lot of promise: the first few chapters about the island erupting from the ocean and the early Polynesians migrating to the newborn islands are fantastic, and the first Protestant missionaries are also interesting. Unfortunately, the characters in each successive generation are identical to those of the previous ones, which gets both boring and confusing quickly. Even the introduction of new characters--immigrants from China and Japan--can't really save it.
After 1036 pages and 23 hours of reading (thank goodness for the speed-up feature on audiobooks, ain't no way I was dedicating 52 hours to this), I am honored to finally hit that little "finished" button. This was a CHORE.
I picked this up thanks to my step-grandfather, who claims this was a fantastic read from his younger days (I will have to follow up on the validity of this). Personally I found it quite difficult to get through. The book itself is massive in length, exacerbated by the fact that there are only six (SIX!!!) chapters.
The premise is kinda neat and I was intrigued to read about the history of Hawaii through a historical fiction lens. Unfortunately, I just didn't care about it that much. I was bored and just wanted to get through the book. It was highly confusing trying to keep track of all of the generations of characters, especially because they all have the same names. Big thanks to Michener for putting genealogical charts in the back of the book, because I referenced them about a hundred times and still couldn't figure out who he was talking about. Some characters definitely stood out (Jerusha Hale, Nyuk Tsin, Malama), but the majority just jumbled together for me.
Probably the most difficult part of the book for me is the "outdated" language. There were a lot of slurs tossed around and a lot of misogynistic views. I don't know (or care) if this was "accurate" to the time, but the author could have used some creativity as a novelist to frame it better.
In all, I don't regret reading this but I cannot recommend it to the average reader. This is a very niche book for a particular type of interest.
I picked this up thanks to my step-grandfather, who claims this was a fantastic read from his younger days (I will have to follow up on the validity of this). Personally I found it quite difficult to get through. The book itself is massive in length, exacerbated by the fact that there are only six (SIX!!!) chapters.
The premise is kinda neat and I was intrigued to read about the history of Hawaii through a historical fiction lens. Unfortunately, I just didn't care about it that much. I was bored and just wanted to get through the book. It was highly confusing trying to keep track of all of the generations of characters, especially because they all have the same names. Big thanks to Michener for putting genealogical charts in the back of the book, because I referenced them about a hundred times and still couldn't figure out who he was talking about. Some characters definitely stood out (Jerusha Hale, Nyuk Tsin, Malama), but the majority just jumbled together for me.
Probably the most difficult part of the book for me is the "outdated" language. There were a lot of slurs tossed around and a lot of misogynistic views. I don't know (or care) if this was "accurate" to the time, but the author could have used some creativity as a novelist to frame it better.
In all, I don't regret reading this but I cannot recommend it to the average reader. This is a very niche book for a particular type of interest.
Listening to this audiobook my attention kept drifting away because I was SO bored. But I kept re-focusing because I was like 'Come on, there's some interesting historical stuff here about the settlement of Hawaii that we are interested in'. Which is wild because the idea of a book like this is that the fictional story is supposed to keep you engaged while giving you some historical stuff in the background and for me it was the opposite. The historical background stuff was the only interesting element and the fictionalized human stories were boring as can be.
I rode it out through the first book of polynesian people and then it jumped to some white evangelical Christians. First of all, I hate multi-generational epics where they make huge jumps with no connection. I HATE short stories. Maybe the connections would come later in the book, but I will get into why I couldn't stick around to find out. Especially as there was not even a satisfying arc for the first group of people that we followed.
So in Book 2 I immediately found these people insufferable which was no accident. I can understand why the author would want to make the Christian missionaries insufferable as his readership would probably identify more with this group and he needs to set them up to show how they were not 'in the right' or at all 'helpful', but I already LOATHED them before they even arrived to Hawaii and well...we can project where that's going to go. I knew there was a lot more hate and frustration coming. So I read through a few reviews here to determine if I should stick it out and after skipping by a bunch of GLOWING 5***** reviews which I honestly think are heavily 'sunk cost' biased - the more you invest time/energy into something the more your brain gotta do that mental justification that it was TOTALLY WORTH IT. I finally found a 3 *** review that I felt was more 'realistic' and where I was at and determined that it just wasn't worth going on for me. Sounds like while the stories do connect later on it winds up being convuluted and difficult to follow and with my brain already checking out this early on I could pretty much guarantee that I wouldn't put the mental energy into figuring that all out when I got there.
I rode it out through the first book of polynesian people and then it jumped to some white evangelical Christians. First of all, I hate multi-generational epics where they make huge jumps with no connection. I HATE short stories. Maybe the connections would come later in the book, but I will get into why I couldn't stick around to find out. Especially as there was not even a satisfying arc for the first group of people that we followed.
So in Book 2 I immediately found these people insufferable which was no accident. I can understand why the author would want to make the Christian missionaries insufferable as his readership would probably identify more with this group and he needs to set them up to show how they were not 'in the right' or at all 'helpful', but I already LOATHED them before they even arrived to Hawaii and well...we can project where that's going to go. I knew there was a lot more hate and frustration coming. So I read through a few reviews here to determine if I should stick it out and after skipping by a bunch of GLOWING 5***** reviews which I honestly think are heavily 'sunk cost' biased - the more you invest time/energy into something the more your brain gotta do that mental justification that it was TOTALLY WORTH IT. I finally found a 3 *** review that I felt was more 'realistic' and where I was at and determined that it just wasn't worth going on for me. Sounds like while the stories do connect later on it winds up being convuluted and difficult to follow and with my brain already checking out this early on I could pretty much guarantee that I wouldn't put the mental energy into figuring that all out when I got there.
A bit dated, but an informative historical novel about Hawaii.
I really waffled between 2 and 3 stars for this book. It probably would have been a solid 3 stars for me if it wasn't so gosh-darned long — my paperback version clocked in at nearly 1,100 pages. I have a lot of reading stamina, and even this book was a slog for me. There's nothing really wrong with Michener's prose, there's just a lot of it, although his writing style might seem overly complex and/or long-winded to some.
Given the title, Hawaii is obviously this month's read about Hawaii (duh!). While it's neither nonfiction about Hawaii nor written by an author who is Hawaiian, I felt like I should read this book because all the reviews said it was the definitive historical fiction epic about Hawaii. For all these claims (not to mention the title), there are remarkably few Hawaiians in this book. The narrative first explores the Tahitians who originally settle the islands, then moves onto the white North American missionaries, then the Chinese, then the Japanese, and finally their mixed race descendants. To be sure, the Hawaiian locals of today are a racial melting pot, but there was about 1,000 years in the middle when the islands were populated by, you know, Hawaiians, a fact that seems to have held no interest for Michener.
The jump from the original Tahitians to the North American missionaries 1,000 years later was certainly abrupt and a bit awkward, especially because the final four sections all happen back-to-back timeline-wise, plus involve many of the same characters. Speaking of the missionary section, that one was hard for me to read, especially because 1) there is so much more to explore regarding Caucasian Western missionaries trying to convert foreign nations (hello, colonialism/imperialism and religious superiority complexes) and 2) I've seen these very issues handled MUCH better in books such as Barbara Kingsolver's [book: The Poisonwood Bible|7244]. I feel like I should be more charitable of Michener, given that he was writing in the late 1950s before scholarship had brought a lot of these issues to light, but still.
I suppose this book offers a decent overview of the 100-ish years between the missionaries' arrival and the immediate aftermath of WWII, but that's a pretty narrow band of time for an epic that calls itself "Hawaii." For being 1,100 pages long, Hawaii leaves a lot out.
Given the title, Hawaii is obviously this month's read about Hawaii (duh!). While it's neither nonfiction about Hawaii nor written by an author who is Hawaiian, I felt like I should read this book because all the reviews said it was the definitive historical fiction epic about Hawaii. For all these claims (not to mention the title), there are remarkably few Hawaiians in this book. The narrative first explores the Tahitians who originally settle the islands, then moves onto the white North American missionaries, then the Chinese, then the Japanese, and finally their mixed race descendants. To be sure, the Hawaiian locals of today are a racial melting pot, but there was about 1,000 years in the middle when the islands were populated by, you know, Hawaiians, a fact that seems to have held no interest for Michener.
The jump from the original Tahitians to the North American missionaries 1,000 years later was certainly abrupt and a bit awkward, especially because the final four sections all happen back-to-back timeline-wise, plus involve many of the same characters. Speaking of the missionary section, that one was hard for me to read, especially because 1) there is so much more to explore regarding Caucasian Western missionaries trying to convert foreign nations (hello, colonialism/imperialism and religious superiority complexes) and 2) I've seen these very issues handled MUCH better in books such as Barbara Kingsolver's [book: The Poisonwood Bible|7244]. I feel like I should be more charitable of Michener, given that he was writing in the late 1950s before scholarship had brought a lot of these issues to light, but still.
I suppose this book offers a decent overview of the 100-ish years between the missionaries' arrival and the immediate aftermath of WWII, but that's a pretty narrow band of time for an epic that calls itself "Hawaii." For being 1,100 pages long, Hawaii leaves a lot out.
I loved this book. It took me two months to read but in a mammoth book there was only really one small section I struggled with - that's pretty impressive over 960 pages! I love how each of the characters are well developed, no mean feat in a book that spans generations and across numerous cultures. I loved how the spirit of Hawaii was throughout the entire book. It was very well written and I will definitely be reading more of his books.