Return to Paradise [antikvár]

The Mighty Ocean IN 1948 I addressed some students at Washington and Lee University, and in the question-answer period one young man observed with asperity, "But it's easy for you to write. You've traveled." I became angry and replied that it was my intention never again to write about forei^ lands. I added, "The writer's job is to dig down where he is. He must write about the solid, simple things of his own land." I believed this when I spoke, and I believe it now. And yet less than a year after my public confession, I was on my way back to the South Pacific to write another book on that languid retreat. How did this happen? There was within me the abiding, deep and Rowing conviction that what happened in Asia was of sovereign importance to my country. I reasoned, "We understand the basic motivations of Europe. What takes place there may or may not please us, but at least we know how to interpret what does happen and how to build bulwarks against calamity. But in Asia most of what occurs we do not even vaguely understand, and what happens in Asia is vital." I was therefore eager to revisit Australia, New Zealand and New Guinea to find how things were going with our forward friends. If there is anything any of us can do to encourage an understanding of Asia and its Pacific approaches, we should do it. But not even my preoccupation with the Pacific could justify my returning merely to grind out another batch of stories upon the old theme. It is true that several immense talents spent large portions of their lives chronicling the Pacific, and no writer need be ashamed of punishing his legs while trying to reach the footsteps of Conrad, Melville, Maugham or James Norman Hall, But a writer's artistic life is a most delicate adjustment of many factors, and I simply refused to waste mine sailing after fresh Pacific yams. Then it occurred to me that the trip would be justified if I attempted to v^rite a kind of book that—so far as I knew—^had never been tried before. Such an adventure would make the return to the Pacific intellectually honorable. 1