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challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
A sprawling novel with a grand plan to lay out the history of Hawai'i for a modern (in the 50's) reader. It should be clear that this is a very big read, and may take several attempts to get through. I appreciate Michener's detail, but I found myself with a few complaints, and at least one kudos.
The kudos is that his explanation in the early sections about the Polynesian navigators would have been progressive for the time (that is, the idea that they knew where they were going because they were skilled seafarers, rather than that they were hapless wanderers who lucked out to get washed up on the beach). By the 1970's it was generally regarded in academia that the native Hawaiians got there by sheer luck on current-borne rafts, which we now know through both a good historical record and experimental archeology to be false. I was glad to hear Michener holding his fellow humans to a high standard and assuming that they had the same drive to develop skills and knowledge that he has.
That said, it is still the 50's and his descriptions tend toward a bit of Orientalism. I'm not sure how many times he refers to native Hawaiians as "moon faced" but I got a bit tired of it after a while.
All said and done, I felt like I understood more about the history of Hawaii, and it provided a bit of a cultural framework on which to hang other important works like Hawai'i's Story by the last Queen Lilioukalani. What I really regret, however, is that the book is a work of fiction. It seems a great missed opportunity to have written a detailed history, rather than a novel. It must have taken a lot of effort to research the history the way he did, and if he just went a bit further we could have had a true lasting reference, rather than just a novel.
The kudos is that his explanation in the early sections about the Polynesian navigators would have been progressive for the time (that is, the idea that they knew where they were going because they were skilled seafarers, rather than that they were hapless wanderers who lucked out to get washed up on the beach). By the 1970's it was generally regarded in academia that the native Hawaiians got there by sheer luck on current-borne rafts, which we now know through both a good historical record and experimental archeology to be false. I was glad to hear Michener holding his fellow humans to a high standard and assuming that they had the same drive to develop skills and knowledge that he has.
That said, it is still the 50's and his descriptions tend toward a bit of Orientalism. I'm not sure how many times he refers to native Hawaiians as "moon faced" but I got a bit tired of it after a while.
All said and done, I felt like I understood more about the history of Hawaii, and it provided a bit of a cultural framework on which to hang other important works like Hawai'i's Story by the last Queen Lilioukalani. What I really regret, however, is that the book is a work of fiction. It seems a great missed opportunity to have written a detailed history, rather than a novel. It must have taken a lot of effort to research the history the way he did, and if he just went a bit further we could have had a true lasting reference, rather than just a novel.