Michener’s Deluge

Centennial By James A. Michener Random House, 909 pp., $12.50

Like a modern Noah, James Michener has not so much written as constructed Centennial, a vast and overcrowded Ark of a book designed to preserve for posterity representative forms of life from the American past that Mr. Michener believes are worth saving. A commendable motive and especially welcome in an age devoted to perfecting disposability. The results are another matter, since Mr. Michener has felt compelled to supply not merely the Ark but the Deluge as well. Whatever strengths Centennial may have as a novel are washed away in a surging torrent of information and instruction which ultimately drowns the interest of even the most determined and sympathetic of readers.

RB

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Rene Kuhn Bryant

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Centennial By James A. Michener Random House, 909 pp., $12.50

Like a modern Noah, James Michener has not so much written as constructed Centennial, a vast and overcrowded Ark of a book designed to preserve for posterity representative forms of life from the American past that Mr. Michener believes are worth saving. A commendable motive and especially welcome in an age devoted to perfecting disposability. The results are another matter, since Mr. Michener has felt compelled to supply not merely the Ark but the Deluge as well. Whatever strengths Centennial may have as a novel are washed away in a surging torrent of information and instruction which ultimately drowns the interest of even the most determined and sympathetic of readers.