The late James Michener once wrote a novel called THE SOURCE, which told the story of a single piece of land in Israel. The metaphor of the story was an archeological dig: the reader went back in time, as if removing layer after layer of soil, uncovering a different story with each stratum. I could never finish the book, to tell the truth: The writing was dry, and the book was a bit of a doorstop. Still, I admired the conceit that any given piece of ground had a good story to tell, or indeed many storie...
