Fires of Spring

Rating:
Summary: Poorhouse boy discovers heartache...
Review: A young man reflects on his childhood as an orphan raised in a Pennsylvania poorhouse. He ventures out into the world to learn about love and change. Along the way, he recalls the sage advice of his poorhouse neighbors, the unfortunate men who were forced to resign themselves to living in an institutional charity. New life and the capacity for change never begin in the cold winter months of January. It seems to occur naturally in spring. It is springtime when flowers blossom, plans change and love blooms ever so naturally. This change can rage like a fire, given all the right elements of heat.

Dear reader may get the impression that Michener is telling us something about himself in what is understood to be his first major writing attempt. The story meanders, the author points out some very prolific views and we are caught off guard by Michener's occasional bouts of clever, dry-witted humor. Surely, this is a well-written story that many will appreciate in some form.

Rating:
Summary: Poorhouse boy discovers heartache...
Review: A young man reflects on his childhood as an orphan raised in a Pennsylvania poorhouse. He ventures out into the world to learn about love and change. Along the way, he recalls the sage advice of his poorhouse neighbors, the unfortunate men who were forced to resign themselves to living in an institutional charity. New life and the capacity for change never begin in the cold winter months of January. It seems to occur naturally in spring. It is springtime when flowers blossom, plans change and love blooms ever so naturally. This change can rage like a fire, given all the right elements of heat.

Dear reader may get the impression that Michener is telling us something about himself in what is understood to be his first major writing attempt. The story meanders, the author points out some very prolific views and we are caught off guard by Michener's occasional bouts of clever, dry-witted humor. Surely, this is a well-written story that many will appreciate in some form.

Rating:
Summary: Priapic Vision of a Young Man
Review: Even though Michener wasn't exactly young when he wrote THE FIRES OF SPRING, he could remember very vividly what it had been like, and nowhere in all his succeeding work was he able to recapture the first ferment of youth as he did here. The book also takes us back to pre-war times, to the early part of the American century, the part that was stifled due to depression and national disunity.

David is a great character and, like many of Dickens' heroes, he's born in an orphanage and raised in the poorhouse. Like 30s social realism, we discover that actually life raised communally isn't all that bad (see the kibbutz lifestyle promoted by Michener's contemporary, Leon Uris, in EXODUS) because of the parade of colorful characters, some nasty, mostly loveable, that people David's life with wisdom.

And then when he reaches puberty, his body awakens, and between his legs burn the fires of spring! And here Michener brings us a gallery of different kinds of women with different attitudes towards the body and towards sexuality. In some places rather risque, even by today's standards, THE FIRES OF SPRING is an astonishing and heartrending book. One of Jim's best.

Rating:
Summary: A Rare Find
Review: I have long been a fan of Michener's, particularly the way he brings an area to life. I picked up Fires of Spring almost as an after-thought and was completely mesmerized. It really brought home the locale (I am from the area) and kept me thoroughly entertained throughout the entire book. I could visualize exactly the life and atmosphere even though I was born much later. My copy is much dog-eared as it is one of the few books interesting enough to hold my interest again and again.

Rating:
Summary: A Rare Find
Review: I have long been a fan of Michener's, particularly the way he brings an area to life. I picked up Fires of Spring almost as an after-thought and was completely mesmerized. It really brought home the locale (I am from the area) and kept me thoroughly entertained throughout the entire book. I could visualize exactly the life and atmosphere even though I was born much later. My copy is much dog-eared as it is one of the few books interesting enough to hold my interest again and again.

Rating:
Summary: A classic among classics
Review: One of the finest books ever written. I would like for all readers to know about this book, because this book has the kind of depth that readers long for and cannot find amid the formulaic installment writers of this era. What is amazing is how this novel remains so vibrant 50 plus years after its release. The human interest aspect is still so poignant. The cast of characters are among the most interesting ever created and Mr. Michener does such a great job of bringing the time and place alive that you can smell it. I can't see how this was never made into a movie. From the poorhouse where he was raised by his aunt that ran the place to the funhouse where he meets a tragic prostitute that he falls in love with, David's story is a wonderful odyssey. The scene where the indigent members of the of the poorhouse pool their pennies to buy David clothing remains one of the classic moments in literature. I wish that today's writers would pick this book up before they pick up a pen and learn how to create this kind of chemistry in their books rather than just applying their formula. The only knock I have on this book, is that it lured me to read other Michener works that I found boring and longwinded. But I treasure this novel and so will you..

Rating:
Summary: Fires of Spring
Review: This book was enjoyable to read. I was just reading it for an english assignment first, but I started to enjoy the book. I liked how Michener set up the whole story. Seeing what happened to David Harper was quite interesting. I would recommend this book to anybody who likes life stories because that's basically what this is about. I guess the thing i like the most is all the girls David goes through in the novel... all of them are different characters.