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This was a great book, but it had my eternal problem with Michener. The modern stuff is just so much more boring than the older stuff, and it goes off on ridiculous tangents that go nowhere. It is especially frustrating here, because the core story is wonderful. Each chapter, of the first four, is great, the first deals with the Polynesians, then the Missionaries, then the Chinese, then Japanese. Each focuses primarily on one family, with other characters woven in, and he has such a knack for creating people. It's easy to get caught up in these people and their lives. And it's admirable how fair he is with each ethnic group, he treats each one equally, doesn't claim that anyone is perfect, everyone has their faults, and their skills, and each is a vital part of the big picture. But once he gets to the end, and people have to start representing things, he loses it. All of a sudden characters appear out of nowhere to illuminate something supposedly profound, and then, whoops, there was a tidal wave and that one dies. No harm, no foul, the important character got to have some soul searching and then he and the readers conveniently don't have to deal with this extra character. The worst is an extended digression in which an old patrician white character learns valuable lessons (about something...sex? women? cooking with coconuts?) by sleeping with a 15 year old Polynesian girl. She's happy about it all though, because he's a good dancer and because he needs to learn...things.
And then Michener waits until the very end of the book to spring this incredible groaner of a surprise, where we learn that this book has been narrarated by one of the main characters, even though this was never even hinted at before, and even though this ruins the attitude that each primary family is to be taken as equal to the others. Bah! I'm sure he was delighted with his little literary trick and excited by the equally crummy fake nararration that he gave to "Centennial" later. Boy, I wish this guy hadn't won a pulitzer for his first book, because I'll bet he never had to listen to an editor again, and it would have helped.
However, I stand by the four stars. 90% of the time, the book is terrific.