Yarn spinning is an art, and James Michener excels gracefully in using his art to keep the readers mind engrossed. Here is a book that will make you think about life, as life being a repository of experiences, and the role these experiences play in figuring out the answer to the ultimate question- ’’What am I looking for here?’’ This is the story of a boy born into rancid poverty of a ’poorhouse’, rancid because the author makes it a point to describe it in such a way. He is surrounded by misery, hopelessness and death. But this is his first school, and he learns about the world through the eyes of some of the residents of the poorhouse. The author uses characters in the way masons build a house- every material that is used has a purpose, and each is extremely important for the final result to fructify.
The protagonist of the book (I am making it a point not to use names here, because I strongly believe that a book review should make people want to read the book, and not make them feel as if they have read the book already), and his passage through life in America of the late 19th and early 20th century captivates the reader for several reasons, the most important being that it gives us a picture of that period- a period of struggle, distress, frequent failure, and exhilerating success. The journey of our hero is fraught with risk and danger, not only of the physical kind, but also psychological and moral. Again we are given the glimpse of America in Brownian motion, a vast melting pot of culture and morals, both fascinating and frightening. In his travails through life, our hero is able to pinpoint his failings, along with incapacities of those surrounding him, but his lust for life, and him wanting to make something of his existence comes across very strongly, and this is why you should read this book- it really has no concrete ending, and gives no advice, because there really is no answer, and there may be more than one correct answer to any question.