The Source: A Novel by James A. Michener Summary and Reviews
|
List Price: Our Price: $8.38 You Save: $8.62 (51%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $5.32 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of The Source: A Novel
Book Review: Still the greatest ater all these years
Summary: 5 Stars
Stationed in Turkey back in 1960, a buddy handed me this book and said to read it to pass the boredome. What a difference in a life!! I've read this book at least 25 times since, and never tire of it. Michener went on to become my favorite author, and his books have spawned a generation of new writers who emulated his style and his obsession with detail and historical fact, Edward Rutherfurd is a prime example. Not only that, reading "The Source" triggered the desire to pursue Archaeology in college, and a life-long love of the study of Classical Civilizations. All because of one book. To paraphrase Thoreau--how many a man's life has been changed by the reading of one book.--michener fanBook Review: The Source
Summary: 5 Stars
This is truly one of the best books I have ever read. It is historical, thought provoking, believable and gives me, the ordinary non religeous person a really balanced view of how things were/may well have been. A really remarkable author is James A Michener and a book that must be read.Book Review: The Source
Summary: 4 Stars
The architecture of the 900 page story is comprised with a current day story at the Tell, an archeological dig in Israel, where artifacts and maps are introduced with a brief interpretation that are then woven into a story in humanity that may have taken place at that period of time. He begins with the family of Ur living in a cave and a story on how a wife urges her husband to farm as it brings about a more stable life style with a higher degree of predictability in feeding their own. In their trial and error attempts at farming, using primitive scientific method, she draws errant conclusion that lead to rituals. As the chapters progress, moving time forward in quantum leaps chapter by chapter, Michener maintains the lineage of the family Ur and their desire to simply figure out the laws of the universe or in other words reality. The rituals turn in to religions and the mystery of faith, which eventually gains a name Yahweh, or God. With that name, man humanized god, which caused them to drift away from God or in other words reality, and render themselves dependent on interpreters of the mysteries of faith, or in other words not yet explained phenomena of our universe, God.
Before the Jews got the ultimate Roman boot from what was finally called Palestine, many laws were written to interpret Moses' original Torah. Jewish priests congregated and spent days ad nausium codifying day to day life with every attempt to build a fence around their faith in God. Circumcisions, cleanliness, health, marriage, and diet were some of the areas discussed in this book. Many of the laws would not pass the test of today's American justice system. What you learned was that the Jews take a degree of pleasure making life hard on themselves. They did this because of their feeling that strict obedience would be required to maintain a connection with God as opposed to the land, This inspired inappropriate rituals at times. Michener leaves the impression that Jews prompted their own exodus and built laws in anticipation of creating the mortar to hold them together as a people as they were cast to the wind.
In the course of the discovery of how things work Michener draws a parallel theme of the conquests of what we now know as Israel by the Egyptians, Babylonians, Romans, Muslims, Crusaders, Mamelukes, Turks, and the English. Yes believe it or not, the Jews fought against the Arabs and their English allies in 1948. I learn once again where our current Middle East problems lay at the hands of the colonists of the 19th century
To see the complete review do a keyword search on cigarroomofbooks
Book Review: The Source
Summary: 5 Stars
The book was just as represented, and arrived in a timely manner, well prepared for shipping.Book Review: The Source
Summary: 5 Stars
I haven't finished reading it so far, but am very much enjoying it. I have read most of James Michner's book and enjoyed every one of them very much.