Tales of the South Pacific reads like a novel, with its strong unity of mood and background and with its reappearing characters, notably Bus Adams and Tony Fry. It is a wide-ranging book—ranging over the whole strange and beautiful world of the South Pacific and over a gallery of characters that include pompous naval commanders and tattooed Seabees, aloof French planters and raffish Tonkinese. It ranges also in emotion, from tedium to the fury of battle on coral beaches, from broad comedy to loneliness, homesickness, and grief. The Tales are not equally effective, but they are all as fresh as a tropical daybreak, and they are all alive. Mr. Michener's first book was the work of a mature writer; he appeared in full stature. (p. 2)

The Tales contain four distinct levels of experience and observation: (1) Navy life, with its boredom and comedy, its service jealousies and antagonisms...