Now I can resume life. I finished James A. Michener's The Source. I've been reading it for about 3 weeks. Yesterday and today the weather was too cold to leave the house. The wind chill factor brought the temperature to below zero. I welcomed the chance to stay in, nice and cozy, with a cup of tea and The Source. I finished it today. I feel a loss, now. I want to go back to the dig in Israel with the characters I've grown to love.
sigh...
Michener has the usual "This is a work of historical fiction...any semblance to current events or locales, or to living persons, is entirely coincidental." But imagination being what it is, belies that statement. The story begins with Ur, an early man or prototype of what man will be. We read about the beginnings of mankind. We read what man worshipped. We see how religion developed.
Then we begin another section of the novel where we find ourselves at an archaeological dig. As the archaeologists dig down level by level and find artifacts from different civilizations, another story develops among the archaeologists. They discuss and argue religion and politics and of course there's the tension of love hovering over the team.
I can't summarize this saga. Michener wrote over a thousand pages. It encompasses mankind from the beginning to about 1970. Some might say, it's dated, but I disagree. The story helped me understand the Israeli/Palestine conflict, a little better. As Michener warned, this is a work of fiction and not to be taken as sacred scripture. But it sure as hell is better than the ideas I had before I read The Source.
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