It is a whopper of a novel - 935 pages - but one I keep returning to every five years or so. I love the ending, when people of all races mingle and work together. Then missionaries came, tried to get rid of the old gods, took over the land and brought in Japanese and Chinese laborers to work the pineapple and sugar cane fields. The Hawaiians came first in canoes, bringing their gods with them. Michener was one of the world’s most popular writers, the author of more than forty books of fiction and nonfiction, including the Pulitzer Prizewinning Tales of the South Pacific. Then the author devoted sections of the book to each race of people who came to Hawaii, in great detail. Most people found this part exceedingly tedious, but I was fascinated. The first part of the book describes how the islands were built - volcanoes erupting at the bottom of the ocean and gradually building lava until it broke the surface of the water. A lot of the action took place on Maui, so I was able to visit the actual places Michener talked about. I first read it in 1960 when I had the opportunity to live on Maui for a year. Why it matters: I have a few books that I reread from time to time, and my all time favorite is probably “Hawaii.”
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