This autobiography, alas, is incomplete. James Norman Hall died before he could finish it. Nonetheless, it contains a remarkable story, not just of a bestselling author but a war hero, adventurer, poet, and chronicler of Tahiti and the South Seas.

But first there is the person who emerges from behind the pen. In addition to My Island Home, I have read most of Hall's other biographically inspired work. And the remarkable thing is that I cannot think of a single instance in which he elevated himself through demeaning someone else or undercutting someone else's contributions. Whether because of his own sense of proper manners or inherent modesty, Hall never appears boastful or proud. Indeed, only through the intervention of the editor does the reader learn of Hall's numerous decorations as a fighter pilot in World War I. It leads you to believe that Hall must have been quite likable in person. Some 67 years after his death, he seems emblematic of a certain sort of mild mannered Americanism, now long out of fashion, possessed of humility, openness, and a sincere desire to experience exotic and remote places.

If Hall and his colleague, Charles B. Nordhoff are to be remembered in perpetuity, it will be because of their Bounty Trilogy, particularly Mutiny on the Bounty, which spawned two films, one of which--the 1935 version--is considered a film classic and another--the 1962 version--which remains severely underrated. Also underrated is Hall's and Nordhoff's other work, particularly The Hurricane and Faery Lands of the South Seas. Alone, Hall penned at least two other notable books, Kitchener's Mob, a unique view of life inside the British army in the trenches of World War I, and Lost Island, which describes the transformation of a South Pacific island and its people by the arrival of the US navy and army during World War II.

Hall, of course, was on to something. World War II obliterated the old way of life in the South Seas. More so than had been done in the preceding two centuries. But Hall, who died in 1951, did not have time to come to terms fully with his South Seas transformed. That task would fall to his successor in telling the tales of Polynesia and the South Pacific, James A. Michener. Michener was of another generation and another war. And his writing style also marks a point of departure from Hall's (and Nordhoff's) more mannered and steady style.

What a regret it is that Hall did not live to see another decade or more and write another novel or two. What a pity for all of us that he could not follow up on Lost Island and meet Michener's stories more head on. ( )

516. My Island Home: An Autobiography by James Norman Hall (read 10 July 1957) I was eager to read this autobiography since I much appreciated the Bounty trilogy, and since Hall was born in the same state (Iowa) as I was. ( )

I just like the way he thinks, I like the way he writes and I think I would have liked him a lot. This book pulls pieces of his life's story and presents vignettes of power and interest. I've read nearly all of his books now, many of them elaborate on parts of this story and I found it interesting that this book presented parts that hadn't been printed elsewhere that I know of. I would have liked, however, to have been told something of his wife and family. Somewhere in my library is a biography of Nordhoff and Hall; maybe that part of his life is in there. I hope so. Also, I would have liked to have seen more photographs or pictures, perhaps of his home in Arué or of his family. If I ever get the chance to visit Tahiti, I will "seek him out". ( )