Low Altitude

By Patricia Blake

by James A. Michener

Random House; 556 pages; $17.95

"You can't go out and just whomp it up. You have to be prepared," says James A. Michener, by way of explaining how he produces his blockbuster historical novels. In preparing for Poland, his 31st book, he has applied the formula that served him well in previous novels about the 50th state (Hawaii), Palestine (The Source) and South Africa (The Covenant). True, he was not permitted to spend a year or two, as he usually does, at the site of his new novel, but he did visit Poland twelve times. Once, he says, he flew all over the country in a helicopter "at a very low altitude." He seems to have landed on a mountain of historical research commissioned from "local authorities" in Poland.

His 700-year saga is a collage of the most dismal events in Polish history, including invasions by Tatars, Cossacks and Turks; partitioning by Russia, Austria and Germany; and the Nazi occupation during World War II. Michener attempts to impose an artificial symmetry upon these events by telling the stories of three fictional families who do battle through the centuries against the country's successive despoilers. Each family represents a different stratum of society. The Lubonskis are nobles, the Bukowskis are members of the gentry, and the Buks are peasants. To keep the scions of these families rushing forth to affront Cossacks in 1648 and Germans in 1939, Michener has had to rely on a series of coincidences that strain credulity as each new era unfolds.

Poland is scarcely more convincing as history than it is as fiction. Oversimplifications and omissions abound. Clearly, the research received from the local authorities suffers from the twin failings of modern Polish historiography: Communist rewriting of history and nationalist bias. Michener all but ignores the division of Poland between Stalin and Hitler in 1939. And he does not mention the Nazi slaughter of Polish underground forces and civilians during the 1944 Warsaw uprising, as the Red Army stood by across the river from the capital.

Another gap in the record seems to have been designed to cosmeticize Polish antiSemitism. The country's once vast Jewish community is neglected, except for brief mentions that downgrade its economic and cultural contributions. Jews are usually characterized as moneylenders or itinerant musicians, although they were the bulwark of the country's middle class during the 16th and part of the 17th centuries. The harsh restrictions on Jews and the frequent pogroms from the mid-17th century onward are summarized in four words: "Animosities did sometimes flare." Allowances are made for a German SS officer: "In his favor, it should be said that he himself never tortured a prisoner, not even a Jew."

Michener and his researchers have also underplayed the crucial role of the Roman Catholic Church in Poland. The author may have been "allowed to see the workings of a church within a Communist country," but he seems to regard the institution as essentially irrelevant. In fact, the church has given Poles a sense of national pride rare in Eastern Europe, as well as the solidarity--in every sense of the word--to fight their oppressors. Any historical novel depends on credible and impartial sources. But here, Michener's informants have played him false, and he has taken them at their word. It is a mistake no reader need repeat. --By Patricia Blake This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.