Tales Of the South Pacific

by James Michener
1947

Easily more than the sum of its parts, this collection of stories is an eye-opening account of life in wartime: not the horrors of war (though there’s a bit of that), but the waiting, the selfless heroism, the bottled-up passion, the thankless endless toil, the vast logistics of a campaign, the suddenness of death and loss and love. The omission of this work from the academic canon is utterly incomprehensible to me; it’s everything that All Quiet on the Western Front is said to be, and more. Michener is far more than a captivating storyteller, collector of colorful characters, painter of vivid natural imagery, and chronicler of the orchestrations of world warfare. Each of the "tales" comprising his carefully-constructed epic narrative is at once thematically and stylistically related to the other smaller narratives and at the same time artistically whole in itself. While he does have poetic phrases at his command, what he can say without saying it – a subtly omitted word or a hint - is breathtaking.

Michener impresses with his vast understanding of the scope of a military operation, as in the chapter “Alligator” (the codename for a fictitious invasion) – the planning, the estimated casualties, the men needed to build, the men needed simply to replace pencils and paper for plans, and on and on – and then he finishes with a few brief, poignant lines of a man who wrote to a plain woman – “who would never be married in a hundred years anyway” – a proposal: “You was very sweet to me and I want to tell you if I…” “But he didn’t. Some don’t.” But, Michener says, that letter plus the one from the chaplain was almost as good as being married. That talent of Michener’s, the ability to juggle the big picture with the little human details, the forgotten grunts, the KIA and the faceless laborers, just blows me away. With every paragraph he weaves a new story of heroism, or efficiency, or defiance, or laziness, or lust, or bravery, or shame, and every character is all too human and believable. It makes the climax of the book, the landing at the island of Kuralei, all the more moving, as his narrator surveys the littered beaches and mourns the dead. This book is quite simply a brilliant masterpiece that should be read by every student of American history; it may be fiction, but it shows more plainly how this was the “Greatest Generation” without hagiography or needless embellishment. The did what they were asked to do, and worked and died and complained and loved, and they weren’t saints or perfect soldiers. They were Americans, is all.

five stars