Jason Furman's Reviews > Hawaii

A completely absorbing historical saga of Hawaii that manages to build slowly but relentlessly forward while also mixing multiple story lines and perspectives. I last read Michener as a teenager and although I enjoyed him then I thought I had grown out of it. That was a mistake.

It begins with a chapter on the geological formation of Hawaii. Then there are four chapters that focus on four of the major groups that arrived in Hawaii: the Polynesians around 800, the missionaries around 1920, Chinese laborers around 1865, and Japanese laborers somewhat after then. The final chapter is about the "Golden Men" who combine East and West in a unique way. Each of the chapters describes the sea voyage to Hawaii with the Polynesian, missionary and Chinese voyages described in minute and painful detail.

The book has its flaws. The women are mostly saints or agency-less sex objects. It depicts enormous and epic suffering but almost all of it is redeemed with some enormous success. It has a complex portrait of the pros and cons of missionaries, the oligarchs that ran Hawaii, racism against Japanese people, and more. But it also mostly always has good intentions, it working out in the end for the better. And it veers between an outdated account of "blood" and lineages and a rejection and critique of these as all being more mixed than people believe and regardless everyone being the same.

But it is a really, really good story with some memorable characters and an amazing sweep of history in what in many ways is a really unique place. I'm glad I took the plunge.