As a result of recommendations from several people, over the past two months I have been reading The Source by James Michener. I finally finished it, but it was slow going.
Many years ago, I read Michener's The Bridge at Andau about the Hungarian uprising of 1956, and before going to the University of Hawaii on sabbatical I read Michener's Hawaii. I recall that both of those books provided me with a sense of what had happened in another part of the world, a sense that I had not picked up from other books or articles I had read. Michener's style, telling disjointed stories as a part of the whole, was somewhat frustrating early in both books, but over the course of the books, the stories helped to draw things together as he followed the different segments throughout the overall plot line. I am sure Hawaii helped me understand many of the nuances of life in Hawaii that would have puzzled me had I not read it.
The Source is about Israel from around 60,000 BC up to 1964. As with other Michener novels, it gave me a sense of a culture and a history of which I knew very little. That alone kept me reading the book.
Beyond that, The Source is a failure. Its fictional snippets through time are only loosely tied together (and then in ways that tax credulity more than usual). The writing style at times is good, but at other times is ponderous. I'm glad I struggled through it, but it was a long slog. I'm sure there are better ways to learn about Jews and Israel.
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