The World Is My Home: A Memoir

by James A. Michener

  I have constantly received suggestions that I work in some foreign land that merits attention, and certain foreign governments have invited me, sometimes with tempting inducements, to work in their countries. Every suggestion has been intellectually defensible in that I had already done much work in that particular area. The rationale has been: ‘If you could make Poland so interesting with so little to work upon, think what you could do for us!’ But the most telling invitation came from a Turkish diplomat who visited me when I was working in Israel. He said: ‘It is quite painful, Mr. Michener, to be a Turkish intellectual and realize that when you go to Paris to address an international group and stand before the audience, not one person in that well-educated group has ever read any book about Turkey except The Forty Days of Musa Dagh. Come and do for us what you did for Israel.’

  The correspondence that has meant most to me has been with great scholars in various countries who write to me about something I have said regarding their fields, and often they tell me further things I did not know when I wrote but should have. They form a network of active minds throughout the world, and when, as sometimes happens, they point to errors in what I have said or important aspects that I have overlooked, I feel ashamed at having let them down.

  In 1968 I was in Venezuela as a cultural ambassador to the university in Caracas, but the Communist student body threatened to shoot me if I stepped on campus, so I was whisked far west to Maracaibo to address students there. My speech, which I had carefully prepared, was to have been delivered at eleven in the morning, but at ten the local Communists burned down the assembly hall, and for the rest of that eventful day my wife and I were spirited about the city from one safe hiding place to another. When night fell we were hustled to a forbidding dock on the shore of Lake Maracaibo, where a small boat waited to ferry us to the eastern shore. It was a dramatic ride—when the moon appeared we could see above us, rising from the middle of the lake, the derricks of great oil wells.

  When the radio told of my seeking refuge at the headquarters of an oil-drilling company, in succeeding days some hundred people streamed in from as far as a hundred miles away with copies of my books to ask for autographs. Most, of course, were American oilfield workers stationed in remote areas where books were essential for sanity, and mine were there perhaps because they were so long and gave such good return for their cost. But a surprising number were Venezuelans who had bought the books because their North American co-workers had recommended them as a good way to learn English, others were ordinary citizens of half a dozen different nationalities, and as in all countries wherever I go, a few were Hungarians whom I had led to safety across the bridge at Andau. Every person whose book I signed in that informal literary festival had a special story, and taken together they explained something about books that even professionals connected with the industry forget: books are bridges between people, and when the author is respected as someone who has made a valued contribution to one’s life, a journey of a hundred miles from a jungle station in Venezuela to an oil field near Maracaibo is not considered excessive. It took me a long time to sign those books, because I wanted to hear the story of everyone who stood before my writing desk.

  More dramatic in some ways was the day in Sheridan, Wyoming, when at ten in the morning I learned that a plane I had expected would not arrive and that I would have to stay where I was. The town librarian, hearing of my plight, asked whether I would meet that evening with a few local people who liked books, and when I agreed, she got on the telephone and radio to alert people in distant towns that I would be in her library that night at seven. Free from responsibilities till then, I spent the afternoon visiting the Little Bighorn to see where General Custer had led his cavalry into disaster, and when we returned after sunset we found the library absolutely jammed with families that had driven tremendous distances in response to the radio messages in their little towns announcing the improvised meeting. Carloads of enthusiasts had driven down from Billings, 128 miles away; others had come two by two from remote settlements; and a surprising number had brought their children to share in an experience that would not often be repeated. It was an amazing audience, because anyone who was present was there because he or she liked books, and as always at such occasions we talked not only about my books but about books in general: Which is most important, characters, theme or plot? How difficult would it be for a young person in Billings to find a New York publisher? Does a writer have to have a big staff to do research? Is there still a market for children’s books? Do you go to Hollywood when they make a picture from one of your stories? Is the writer obligated to provide a psychological profile of each character? The meeting lasted two hours, and for an excited few it could have continued till dawn.

  There remains a major mystery about my selection of subjects. Why, if I had such a deprived childhood, and such a dramatic adolescence, with hitchhiking trips up and down the continent and work in the amusement park, followed by the grave dislocation about my parentage, my adventures with radical ideas in Europe and then two painful divorces, why have I not treated that darker kind of material in my novels and how can I possibly be what so many have called me, the incorrigible optimist?

  There are two answers to the question. First, looking at the way in which good luck seemed determined to seek me out, with one scholarship after another, a series of good jobs plus a Pulitzer for my first book and a subsequent glorious Broadway musical, and with one best-seller after another, who should be optimistic if not I? Second, if I survived three major airplane crashes, revolutions and several major health problems, why would I not conclude that I was being kept alive in order to tackle some challenging job?

  When I was fifteen, hiking westward from Detroit with thirty-five cents in my pockets and a thousand miles from home, I was convinced that I would complete my journey safely, for I was as optimistic then with untested life before me as I was at sixty with so many challenges behind me. It seems that I was born to smile at the world, and such men do not write tragedies.

  I have consistently dealt with several themes: Man as a six-decade actor in the unbroken chain of human experiences. Man as a resident of a physical world that he shares with all other living creatures and forms. Man as an economic being who is forced to earn a living. Man as a brother to all other men. Man as a questioning human being who strives to understand his relationship to an unknown spiritual world. And man as an arrogant tyrant who loves to victimize the helpless. This somewhat restricted focus has meant that I have never dealt with nor desired to deal with some of the great themes that have been the mainstays of other writers: Man as an essentially tragic figure. Man as the victim of hubris. Man in violent personal and social revolution against his society. Man as a vulnerable figure losing control over his mental and emotional powers. And man as totally confused in his relations to the opposite sex. If I were a young writer today starting over, I would focus my attention on the changing relationships between the sexes; despite my age I am fascinated by this and the other subjects but do not feel myself qualified to write about them.

  If I have consciously cut myself off from many of the most rewarding literary subjects and forms, what accounts for the fact that my books remain so vigorously in print so long after original publication? It stems, I suppose, from my ability to take an ordinary subject—the most ordinary in the world like a dust storm or a wild bird defending its young on the tundra—and give it a vivid reality that engages the reader’s interest. I can take the most insignificant piece of land and people it with ordinary citizens undergoing ordinary experiences and command attention. I can tell the story of a mound of dirt in Israel and illuminate an entire religion. And I can go to the very depths of the Pacific and explain how tiny corals can build great islands and even greater volcanoes and make readers who originally had no conceivable interest in such arcane material send me hundreds of letters telling me that this was one of the most moving bits of writing they had ever read. In short, I can take ordinary things an
d ordinary people and make them extraordinary, and I have proved it repeatedly.

  Not long ago a scholar who was primarily interested in current events said in introducing me: ‘There are many areas in the world of riveting interest. Afghanistan stands at the center of world attention. So does Poland, with its remarkable semirevolution. The Near East is always in ferment, and South Africa has yet to find a resolution to its problems. We are reassured by Japan’s spectacular recovery from her misguided war and Spain’s return from dictatorship. The tragedy in space commands our attention. Amazing things are happening in Hungary. Michener wrote full-length books about all of these areas long before they emerged into headlines.’ I was not clairvoyant; I was merely a man whose education and background had alerted him to history’s inevitables. In every case cited by the scholar I had gone to the areas long in advance of their explosion into headlines, and I did so because I knew they must sooner or later merit world attention. I did the same when I perceived that Hawaii must soon become a state, when I guessed that Spain was about to escape from its long imprisonment under dictatorship, and that Russia and the United States must meet in friendship in the Arctic while Cuba and our nation must do the same in the Caribbean. I gambled long years of my life in my belief that sensible readers would want to know about these peoples, cultures and problems. Was the commitment worth the effort?

  As I entered my seventies and began to speculate on whether I had succeeded or failed, an event occurred that threw some light on the matter. On a day of blizzards in January 1977 President Ford, upon advice of his counselors, invited me to the White House, where he awarded me our nation’s highest civilian honor, the Medal of Freedom, in recognition of various civic contributions.

  A few evenings later my wife and I dined with the British ambassador, who excited Mari by saying: ‘What happened in the White House the other day is your American equivalent to our Queen’s honors list announced each New Year’s. In our country it would mean that your husband is now Sir James and you are Lady Mari.’ While she was preening in her new title another Englishman really stunned her: ‘In such lists, now and then, the Queen may spot a knight to whom she will give the next higher rank, and several times it has fallen to artist types like Laurence, Lord Olivier or Alfred, Lord Tennyson. One of your men heard that your husband stood high on the list, so if you wish you can make believe he’s now James, Lord Michener.’

  ‘And what would my title be?’ Mari asked, and he replied: ‘Still Lady Mari. With women that covers everything from the wife of a knight to a baron,’ and she said: ‘Discrimination at its worst,’ and I thought: ‘Dreams of glory.’

  I have always wanted the areas, nations and states about which I have written to receive my books dispassionately and to acknowledge that I had written with fairness if not total accuracy, but that has rarely happened. Hungary, Spain and South Africa banned my books; Indonesian and Afghan officials threatened to beat me up if I ever again set foot in their territories; Israel, Hawaii and Texas abused my work. But I was especially grieved when Poland, a land in which I had toiled with diligence and affection, not only banned my novel but also let it be known that I would not be allowed back in the country. I must admit, however, that my castigation of Communist rule in Poland did give its leaders ample cause to reject me. But in late 1988, when the spirit of glasnost was emanating from the Soviet Union, I received cryptic word that I would be granted a visa if I wished to return to renew my acquaintance with the brave members of the writers’ union I had known in the old days.

  Eager to see a land I loved, I slipped into Warsaw, and on my second night in the city it was arranged that I would meet the writers. It was a snowy, sleety night, the kind I remembered well as we drove to the meeting hall, but as we approached it I thought: Mistake. This has got to be Warsaw Castle. But before I could ask what was happening I was whisked inside, down corridors and into a meeting room.

  It was not the writers’ union hall. It was the grand ballroom of the castle, a great gold-and-silver reception hall filled with flowers and some five hundred leading Polish artists and government officials. Before I could catch my breath, Mieczyslaw Rakowski, the prime minister of the country, with the prior approval of General Jaruzelski, the Communist dictator who had banned the book, came forward, embraced me and pinned on my chest the highest medal that Poland can award a citizen. Later I was told: ‘We still don’t like certain passages in your book, but we realize that people throughout the world are reading about our nation in a way they never did before. You have proved you were an honest friend.’

  Writers should write what they feel has to be written and trust that with the passing years those who did not like the book originally will see that sub specie aeternitatis it was a truthful effort. Writers can afford to wait. I treasure my Polish medal.

  · · ·

  In the summer of 1989, when this manuscript was completed, I had an experience that demonstrated how groups of citizens will sometimes react to writing that has treated them with respect. On the sailing ship Wind Song I visited the remote Marquesas Islands, haunt of Melville and Gauguin, and the captain, without telling me, wired ahead to inform the people of Bora Bora that at sunrise on the morrow he would bring me to visit them.

  Eager to see again the island on which I’d had such dreamlike experiences during World War II, I was on deck in predawn darkness to see the magnificent volcano rise from the waves. When we slipped into the flawless lagoon I was astounded to see a flotilla of eleven ancient canoes approaching us, each with flowers, fruit and musicians and manned by half-naked warriors in traditional costume as in the old days.

  Then from the very large lead canoe, which contained a dozen men and an empty throne came via the megaphone the deep-throated announcement: ‘James Michener! Come home to your island!’ Sailors led me down an improvised gangway and into the ceremonial canoe, where I was placed upon the throne, my wife beside me. Flowered leis were heaped around my neck till I could scarcely see, music played, men cheered, and in this stately manner I approached the island on which I had worked so intimately with the Polynesians I had grown to love.

  Waiting on shore were hundreds of people, a band, dancers, a score of flower women laden with leis, and many of the people I had known in the war days, older now but still stately in bearing.

  All that day, as I moved about the island from one celebration to the next, islanders came to tell me: ‘You were good to us in uniform but even better in your books. You wrote of us as we are, and the entire island wants to celebrate your return.’

  Alas, I could not determine where our vast naval establishment had been; the buildings had vanished, tropical plants had taken over. However I did meet several Bora Borans in their mid-forties who let me know that their fathers had been American sailors, but I could not detect the Caucasian strain in their appearance. I also met two vahines, now in their late sixties, who had attended with me those numerous showings of Flying Down to Rio, and one showed me where the huge movie theater had been. I remembered her and her sailor, but not the theater’s location.

  Much later, when I had returned to the States, friends on the island sent me a copy of an article celebrating that day of remembrance: ‘He was greeted by a magnificent escort of authentic pirogues, double pirogues, pirogues under sail, and simple pirogues, all decorated with the crowns, flowers and fruits of our island. The people of Bora Bora accorded him a reception traditionally reserved for a head of state.’ They did so because in war I had treated their island with dignity, in peace I had written of it with affection, and it was appropriate that when I entered the lagoon that morning the man with the megaphone should have welcomed me home.

  I would hope there might be other spots, widely scattered, to which I could return to similar receptions.

  How would I like to be remembered? Because I am not a true Michener, I have no desire to have that name affixed to anything, and I have frequently perplexed well-wishers by sticking to this resolve. But when friends wanted to
name fine libraries after me I had to consent, because such institutions are a noble symbol of the writer’s trade and I feel honored by the association. The same has happened with art museums, and one of the acts about which I am proudest is that I helped transform our old jail in Doylestown into a center for the arts. I am more pleased, however, that three great universities now have training programs for young writers that I either started or assisted in starting and I find quiet pleasure in knowing that three hotels in which I spent many fruitful hours now have rooms bearing my name: Aggie Grey’s in Samoa; historic Raffles in Singapore; and the one judged by many to be the best in the world, the Oriental in Bangkok. In the next century young travelers who aspire to be writers will hear someone explain: ‘Years ago an American much like you who occupied this room fell in love with our land and heard the stories he later put into a book,’‖ and that might give them encouragement.

  But mostly I would want to be remembered by that row of solid books that rest on library shelves throughout the world.

  During my years as a writer I have never once defended either myself or my books when criticism was lodged against me. But I would like to say now that I am enormously proud of that long shelf of books that bear my name, and consider myself one of the ablest storytellers of my generation. Unobtrusively I have lived by my own rules, obedient to my own purposes. I have written a series of books which, without bizarre excesses, wild sex or savage violence, have captured the minds and loyalties of many readers who have found them richly rewarding. Within the guidelines I developed for myself and with an unruffled equanimity, I have dedicated myself to the task of writing books the way I want them to be; the miracle is that in all countries readers have ringingly endorsed what I have produced. The explanation must be that they trusted me to write of important matters in a manner that promised both delight and instruction. The director of one of the world’s premier libraries said the other day: ‘You’ve been educator to the world.’