Literature review and analysis

¶ … Caribbean

Only Michener could so exquisitely bring the violent, exciting history of the attractive Caribbean to life. Swaying away from the European Courts of the 15th century that first claimed the area, to the Islands themselves, we lookout at the outburst of the magnificent sugar farm constructed on the backs of slaves, the bloodstained and triumphant revolt in Haiti in 1800.

And in recent times, the diffusion of the Rastafarian belief, the mass migration from Cuba ensuing the revolt and the general discontent of Caribbean people.

Strewn from beginning to end are engaging representation of historical heroes as they battle over against governmental, financial and ethnic persecution and cruelty.

In Caribbean, James A. Michener's engaging and interesting combination of truth and fantasy brings to life the imperious, unforgettable story of a land in search of its future.

Caribbean is a typical Michener book. He is the finest when it comes to narrate a story of a place, not of an individual.

Caribbean is a very lengthy book, elucidating roughly a millenium of history of one of the most engaging and charming places on Earth.

In this novel not only do we visit a wide array of islands, and other Caribbean location such as Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, Panama, and the coast of Colombia.

We also make widespread journey to such countries as Great Britain, Spain at the time of the Spanish Persecution, and France at the time of the French Revolution.

In the "Caribbean" Michener is able, through sixteen short stories, to hold forth what befall on the different islands and principal parts of the continent in places like northern Colombia and eastern Mexico, since the time of the pre-Colombian Indians, fleeting through Spanish rule, the attacks of English and French sea robbers and criminals, the mistreatment and indignation of the black people turned into slaves, till communism in the form of Castro in Cuba.

Moreover, he is able to narrate and relate all what was happening in the Caribbean connected to what was happening in the principal countries in Europe, and the mounting partaking of the United States in the worldwide scenario.

Altogether this was an engaging and informational book. Starting at a historical viewpoint Michener covers all of the bases in an exemplary style. While he makes history absorbing, his viewpoint comes into view as tampered with and centering towards Europe. The tongue he uses, when vocalizing for the native population, is clumsy and impractical.

The Caribbean is much more than just a chain of islands. Its discovery by Christopher Columbus set off an authentic land rush of opposing nations enthusiastic and zealous to gain authority over the fresh resources and vital strategic locations that these islands offered.

No one nation could take action fast enough to institute its authority over the entire region.

Michener does not coy away from this variance. He originates dominant characters from these entire region and more. Numerous British colonies, such as Jamaica, Barbados and an imaginary island titled All Saints also spring forth-family lines that in due time found themselves.

We are treated to the lives of the early native Arawaks early in the novel, and in another chapter a family from the passing away Mayan civilization.

Subsequently in the novel, as African captives from Africa are acquainted throughout the islands and develop the one major dominant authority, Michener furnishes us a number of characters from those setting. Still afterward, we become entrap in the backbreaking work of a young East Indian Hindu, as that civilization arrives on the scene.

Numerous more stories are notified over the course of this long novel, entailing both genuine and visualized characters.

A pleasant characteristic of this novel is a "Fact and Fiction" segment in the front, which bestow us a near chapter-by-chapter narration of who was genuine and who is imagined.

" The Caribbean, a name to conjure with, retains an allure that is half hype and half history. Michener's magnificent novel captures the area's magnetic attraction.

He begins his story long before Columbus. From earliest times, the Caribbean has been a crossroads of culture...from the conquest of peaceful Arawaks by their more powerful neighbors, from Columbus's arrival to the bloody revolt on Haiti, from slave trade and sugar plantations to the rise of Castro.

Michener gives us 700 dramatic years in a tale that teems with revolution and romance, slavery and superstition, vivid characters and dramatic destinies.

Remarkable and praiseworthy...he treats his chosen region with immense respect...utterly engaging, deserves our close attention. (The Washington Post)"

Reading Caribbean is an education in regard to the early days of America, buccaneer, the vendetta and hostilities in South America, England, Spain, and the life of islanders who share the blue sea.

It is shown in the novel that Caribbean has become a blanket of colonial states with each one's etiquette's and cultures in unmistakable comparison to its neighbor's. In the case of Hispaniola, one part Haiti fell under French command and the other the Dominican Republic became a Spanish colony.

Both parts of the island flourished to a reasonable degree, but right off its coast lay the island of Tortuga, which became a shelter for pirates surviving under the most severe of surroundings.