Hawaii: A Novel (original 1959; edition 2002)

My first Michener experience at the tender age of 12. I will never forget the opening scenes of Hawaii. Michener is a painter of words, I felt the explosions of the Earth as the volcanoes erupted, saw the multiplicity of the colors when the lava flowed into the sea. And that was just the first chapter!

Long before social justice was trendy, Michener took on issues of religious oppression, sexual slavery, and so many more while weaving a thousand page plus plot that kept you inextricably linked to the very end. Hawaii is one of Michener's best! ( )

This classic, published in 1959, purchased after visiting Hawaii in 2010, was the final book on my to-read shelf. I read through everything else on that shelf during the height of the pandemic (March 2020 through February 2022), saving this 1036-page book for last. It starts slow, and ends rather weakly, but the parts in the middle are quite good. The book traces the history of Hawaii from its prehistoric formation (no people in that chapter, so I only skimmed it), through the arrival of the original Hawaiians, the American missionaries, the Chinese, and the Japanese, up to 1954, just before statehood. James Michener creates memorable characters that one can care about. Parts of the book may be politically incorrect today, but it is (well-researched) historical fiction, accurate for the time it was written. ( )

I got 50 pages from the end and then packed it in. It's long, really long.

In fairness to Mr. Michener, I did like most of the book but found the move into modern day Hawaii a little boring, so I just quit.
 
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Fiction

Three months later...but what fun to read in a year when I first visited Hawaii and Japan. ( )