A Paradise Lost - KOPS - Universität Konstanz

His admiration of the physical abilities of Polynesians does not render them as human
beings but as remote figures of a Golden Age, turning surfers into “bronze gods of the
sea, brown Mercurys with winged heels.” 232 It is important to stress that the stories have
something in common beyond scenery, myths, and other obvious Hawaiian traits: they all
point backwards, into the past, reminiscing and nostalgic. The prevalent motive of
looking back, recalling, and remembering conveys the impression that London was
another one who knew that his paradise was already lost, that it had perhaps never existed
as such. Like Stevenson he was ill, the admired physical was failing him, and he had but a
short time to live when he left Hawai’i.
There were other authors who let themselves be inspired by the lore of the islands.
Whoever visited or stayed and happened to be a writer inevitably had something to say
about Hawai’i: William Somerset Maugham, for example, after passing through during
his World War I occupation as British secret agent. Clifford Gessler, who came as a
newspaper editor, or John Phillips Marquand, creating the famous detective Mr. Moto
when residing in Honolulu. 233 Many of them simply exploited Hawai’i as a color- and
beautiful background for their plots, a tropical theater stage. The next one to forcefully
draw the world’s attention to the islands was James Jones, author of 1951’s best-selling
novel From Here to Eternity. The 800-page army epic had already sold 6.5 million
hardcover copies when it was published in paperback in 1975, and the 1953 star-studded
motion picture added immensely to its popularity. However, Jones also used Hawai’i as a
mere backdrop, a hot and exotic place in which tempers are bound to flare. What lingers
in the minds of readers and moviegoers are the barracks lined with palm trees, a trumpet-
playing Frank Sinatra, and the lonely beach that was witness to the secret love affair of
Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr. Nevertheless, one has to acknowledge the immense
effect of both novel and film on the American public: Hawai’i was made the scene of an
American military and human drama, turning it into an American place in the minds of
the audience. On this level, the novel seems to mark the final step in the gradual
appropriation of the foreign and exotic place into American dominion, although statehood
was still some years ahead.
232 See Day 1965: 265-6.
233 Excerpts of their works are also found in the two Hawaiian Readers, edited by Day and Stroven.
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