- Mass Market Paperback: 384 pages
- Publisher: Fawcett; 1st Ballantine Books Ed edition (25 Oct 1994)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0449206521
- ISBN-13: 978-0449206522
- Product Dimensions: 10.5 x 2.7 x 17.5 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 83,054 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
"Truly one of the most remarkable books to come out of the war. Mr. Michener is a born story-teller."
THE NEW YORK TIMES
Winner of the 1948 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
Enter the exotic world of the South Pacific, meet the men and women caught up in the drama of a big war. The young Marine who falls madly in love with a beautiful Tonkinese girl. Nurse Nellie and her French planter, Emile De Becque. The soldiers, sailors, and nurses playing at war and waiting for love in a tropic paradise.
THE NEW YORK TIMES
Winner of the 1948 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
Enter the exotic world of the South Pacific, meet the men and women caught up in the drama of a big war. The young Marine who falls madly in love with a beautiful Tonkinese girl. Nurse Nellie and her French planter, Emile De Becque. The soldiers, sailors, and nurses playing at war and waiting for love in a tropic paradise.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
I wish I could tell you about the South Pacific. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
I wish I could tell you about the South Pacific. Read the first page
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Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Mass Market Paperback
A stunning, descriptive book with tales of highs and lows, extremes and questions by normal characters in abnormal wartime situations. A book once started not to be put down.
James A. Michener’s' first novel of 18 short stories loosely strung together exploiting his wartime experiences in the Pacific theatre brought him a well deserved Pulitzer Prize. 12 years later the book was adapted into the Rodgers & Hammerstien musical "South Pacific".
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Mass Market Paperback
I always knew that the lovely musical 'South Pacific' was based on a story by James A. Michener. I loved the film since about 49 years. Then I bought the book, but - being Austrian - in the German translation - and was disappointed, for almost no allusion was made to the story the film was based on and it did not help me to understand more.
Many years later I saw the musical again in one of Vienna's Opera houses and this time I bought the original book, edited in 1947 and oh!! what a lot of enlightening stories emerged! Suddenly I understood the whole of the plot of the film, up to why they changed the colors of the picture in the song about Bali-ha'i, John Cable's love to Liat and the problems he got with his feelings, Nellie's wish to break out of the confines of Little Rock and therefore falling in love with Emile De Becque and so much where I just had an inkling what it meant.
So this really makes sure that I will never again buy a book in a translation if I am able to read the original! The book is very good and tells so much about what happened during this war to the American soldiers and the people they came to know then...
Many years later I saw the musical again in one of Vienna's Opera houses and this time I bought the original book, edited in 1947 and oh!! what a lot of enlightening stories emerged! Suddenly I understood the whole of the plot of the film, up to why they changed the colors of the picture in the song about Bali-ha'i, John Cable's love to Liat and the problems he got with his feelings, Nellie's wish to break out of the confines of Little Rock and therefore falling in love with Emile De Becque and so much where I just had an inkling what it meant.
So this really makes sure that I will never again buy a book in a translation if I am able to read the original! The book is very good and tells so much about what happened during this war to the American soldiers and the people they came to know then...
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Mass Market Paperback
The book: a series of nineteen separate stories, loosely linked by recurrent figures, of US Navy personnel in 1942 and early '43, working their way from Guadalcanal north against fierce Japanese opposition; sometimes about the fighting, sometimes about the waiting, and sometimes about the preparation. Not so much a war book (though it is) but more of a people book, people under stress. About their feelings for the people they left behind in the States, but more so about the people they work with, or meet, in Noumea, Vanicoro, Santo or even Bali-ha'i; and Kuralei: nurses, SeaBees, officers, planters and their daughters, Australian coastwatchers, missionaries...
The writer: James Michener (1907-1997) wrote 'Tales of the South Pacific' in 1948, and won the Pulitzer Prize with it. In World War II he was a US Navy lieutenant, stationed in the South Pacific. He went on to write another 40 or so books.
My opinion: not a war history; not a musical, either! A series of loosely connected tales, adding up to a satisfying whole; well-written and felt from the heart in places, sometimes sentimental and purple prose. Overall a good book about pretty real people, and one I will keep for re-reading.
The writer: James Michener (1907-1997) wrote 'Tales of the South Pacific' in 1948, and won the Pulitzer Prize with it. In World War II he was a US Navy lieutenant, stationed in the South Pacific. He went on to write another 40 or so books.
My opinion: not a war history; not a musical, either! A series of loosely connected tales, adding up to a satisfying whole; well-written and felt from the heart in places, sometimes sentimental and purple prose. Overall a good book about pretty real people, and one I will keep for re-reading.
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