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MICHENER: Returning in the dark from a routine mission my pilot kept missing the poorly lit New Caledonia air strip. We braced for a crash landing, just made it, and were badly shaken. If I had died, I would have left nothing behind. I was approaching 40, mind you. That near crash prompted me to draft South Pacific stories running through my mind. QUESTIONER: Your first draft was written on the island of Espiritu Santo, New Hebrides, south of Guadalcanal, in a Quonset hut, by pecking at a typewriter with your two index fingers. What was the story line? MICHENER: Tales of the South Pacific consisted of 18 loosely connected stories about the comedy, boredom, shenanigans of Navy life on a Pacific island between military battles. The stories showed the interplay of Navy men, Navy nurses, and conniving natives; the funny aspects of military planes, jeeps, bulldozers, canned goods imposed on simple people living on beautiful islands. |
Comedy and Boredom —
Shenanigans —
