Book Report: Tales of the South Pacific, by James A. Michener
It's the "Tales" part of the title that throws me. When you read these chapters, you don't feel like you're reading tales. They sound like the reminiscences of a US Navy Commander stationed near Guadalcanal during 1942-1943, which wouldn't be surprising, because Michener did serve there then. But they are stories, works of fiction. I'd hate to tell you how many of the people, places, and events I've tried to look up online, only to find that they're not real. I have no doubt that they're based on real people, places, and events, but they've been carefully shaped to be extremely realistic stories. It's an amazing effect.
(Aside: Michener is probably responsible for naming more Asian restaurants in the US than anyone in history, by inventing the name Bali Hai for an imaginary island.)
Each of these tales is a little gem that captures the essence of humanity. If a Martian landed and wanted a summary of what people are like, I'd hand over this book. The stories are haunting and the characters unforgettable. There's the Australian pilot hundreds of miles from home, trying desperately to get any news about whether his homeland has been invaded, his wife and children put to the sword. The mysterious and cheerful voice on the radio from behind enemy lines, delivering perfect and valuable information about enemy airplane and ship movements, his listeners hanging on every word and wondering how many days, hours, or minutes this brave spy can elude capture, torture, and death. The beautiful young woman from the Midwest who falls in love with a local French plantation owner, but can't marry him because his illegitimate children aren't white. Even the trees are interesting: special trees of historical significance that must either be spared or mown down to make way for a bomber airstrip: every other page I changed my mind about which outcome I wanted, and I read hungrily, as if it were a mystery thriller, until I got to the end to find out.
There is a theme through all the stories of people in places they don't fit in. People from the temperate US in the smothering, maddening, and debilitating heat of the tropics. White people, from places where white people are the majority, in a place where they are a minority among Polynesians, Melanesians, Chinese, and a hundred varieties of "native". English-speaking people where English – and even European language – is rare. People accustomed to moral rules in a place where there are no rules or shockingly unfamiliar rules. People of peace thrust in the middle of a terrifying war.
The stories are interwoven. A main character of one may turn up as a minor character in another. I never quite worked out if the stories are logically chronological. They are more like a tapestry, all on the canvas at the same time, an interlocking whole picture.
There is also an "I" character in some of the stories. I don't know if this is Michener or some creation. If real, it's clear that Michener was in some dangerous situations, and witnessed some horrifying battles.
Looming over all is the enemy, ferociously hostile and inhumanly cruel. This was not one of those optional wars that you could decide to sit out. This was a desperate battle to save yourself and everyone you knew from certain slavery and death. Everyone knew what it meant, what failure meant, and what battle against such an enemy meant. Reading these stories, Hiroshima and Nagasaki are no surprise. What is a surprise is that the victors permitted Japan to continue existing.
These stories also clearly present the American character. Being Americans, we don't have a real sense of it, like fish about water. It combines volunteering, helping out, a sense of fair play, cleverness, optimism, playfulness, and determination. Of course, the author is American, so no big surprise if we come out looking okay. But he's careful to show all kinds of Americans, including the bigoted, nasty, evil, and despicable Americans. Even so, it's clear that these are deviations. You have to use special adjectives to describe those particular people: they aren't what being American means.
I can't imagine how Rodgers and Hammerstein thought this was a suitable book to base a musical on. Sure, there's a little romance in the stories, but almost none of the light and innocent hijinks of the movie. It's kind of like making a musical about the battle of Gettysburg. Still, the musical does share with the book a concern about race relations. This book was an early (1947) examination of how unfair and foolish racial prejudice is. The movie continued that then-controversial theme, to its credit.
"Tales of the South Pacific" won the Pulitzer Prize, and rightly so. I highly recommend it.
It's the "Tales" part of the title that throws me. When you read these chapters, you don't feel like you're reading tales. They sound like the reminiscences of a US Navy Commander stationed near Guadalcanal during 1942-1943, which wouldn't be surprising, because Michener did serve there then. But they are stories, works of fiction. I'd hate to tell you how many of the people, places, and events I've tried to look up online, only to find that they're not real. I have no doubt that they're based on real people, places, and events, but they've been carefully shaped to be extremely realistic stories. It's an amazing effect.
(Aside: Michener is probably responsible for naming more Asian restaurants in the US than anyone in history, by inventing the name Bali Hai for an imaginary island.)
Each of these tales is a little gem that captures the essence of humanity. If a Martian landed and wanted a summary of what people are like, I'd hand over this book. The stories are haunting and the characters unforgettable. There's the Australian pilot hundreds of miles from home, trying desperately to get any news about whether his homeland has been invaded, his wife and children put to the sword. The mysterious and cheerful voice on the radio from behind enemy lines, delivering perfect and valuable information about enemy airplane and ship movements, his listeners hanging on every word and wondering how many days, hours, or minutes this brave spy can elude capture, torture, and death. The beautiful young woman from the Midwest who falls in love with a local French plantation owner, but can't marry him because his illegitimate children aren't white. Even the trees are interesting: special trees of historical significance that must either be spared or mown down to make way for a bomber airstrip: every other page I changed my mind about which outcome I wanted, and I read hungrily, as if it were a mystery thriller, until I got to the end to find out.
There is a theme through all the stories of people in places they don't fit in. People from the temperate US in the smothering, maddening, and debilitating heat of the tropics. White people, from places where white people are the majority, in a place where they are a minority among Polynesians, Melanesians, Chinese, and a hundred varieties of "native". English-speaking people where English – and even European language – is rare. People accustomed to moral rules in a place where there are no rules or shockingly unfamiliar rules. People of peace thrust in the middle of a terrifying war.
The stories are interwoven. A main character of one may turn up as a minor character in another. I never quite worked out if the stories are logically chronological. They are more like a tapestry, all on the canvas at the same time, an interlocking whole picture.
There is also an "I" character in some of the stories. I don't know if this is Michener or some creation. If real, it's clear that Michener was in some dangerous situations, and witnessed some horrifying battles.
Looming over all is the enemy, ferociously hostile and inhumanly cruel. This was not one of those optional wars that you could decide to sit out. This was a desperate battle to save yourself and everyone you knew from certain slavery and death. Everyone knew what it meant, what failure meant, and what battle against such an enemy meant. Reading these stories, Hiroshima and Nagasaki are no surprise. What is a surprise is that the victors permitted Japan to continue existing.
These stories also clearly present the American character. Being Americans, we don't have a real sense of it, like fish about water. It combines volunteering, helping out, a sense of fair play, cleverness, optimism, playfulness, and determination. Of course, the author is American, so no big surprise if we come out looking okay. But he's careful to show all kinds of Americans, including the bigoted, nasty, evil, and despicable Americans. Even so, it's clear that these are deviations. You have to use special adjectives to describe those particular people: they aren't what being American means.
I can't imagine how Rodgers and Hammerstein thought this was a suitable book to base a musical on. Sure, there's a little romance in the stories, but almost none of the light and innocent hijinks of the movie. It's kind of like making a musical about the battle of Gettysburg. Still, the musical does share with the book a concern about race relations. This book was an early (1947) examination of how unfair and foolish racial prejudice is. The movie continued that then-controversial theme, to its credit.
"Tales of the South Pacific" won the Pulitzer Prize, and rightly so. I highly recommend it.
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