SAYONARA (243 pp.)James Michener Random House ($3.50).
In Sayonara, James (tales of the South Pacific} Michener mounts a soap opera on a soapbox. Placing his latest novel in Japan, he has rescored Puccini's Madame Butterfly for strings, brass, airplanes, and a social conscience. His latter-day Lieut.
Pinkerton, U.S.N., is Major Lloyd Gruver, Air Force jet ace; his Butterfly. Hana-ogi, a dancer. Gruver and Hana-ogi love and lose each other at the color line. With many an audible aside, Author Michener labors the worthy moral of their story: U.S. color snobbery will unfailingly lose friends and alienate people in the Far East.
Brusque, 28-year-old Lloyd...
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