My wife and I have been listening to audiobooks during our commute and I got Sarah Vowell’s The Wordy Shipmates, which is about the New England Puritans. Wife is descended from Pilgrims on one side, via the One-D Adamses (her mother is a dead ringer for John Adams without the male-pattern baldness and her aunt completed the John Alden-Priscilla Mullins-Miles Standish triangle by marrying Miles the XVII, or so) but is unfamiliar with Ms Vowell’s oeuvre and we listened to it for a while until I got tired of its Puritan theology and dearth of snark. I said, “I’m not used to that woman with a little-girl voice…”
Wife interrupted, “Being thoughtful and erudite?”
“No. Being nice.”
I next got Vowell’s Assassination Vacation, which is more up my alley. In it she visits sites associated with the deaths of Presidents Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley. At one point she said,
As I drove I watched from the corner of my eye mine goodwife nodding with understanding and approval and thought about our own daughters, especially the one who went Goth in second grade and graduated to Pink Goth by high school.
I asked, “We don’t have any daughters you haven’t told me about, do we?”
It turns out Vowell was born several years before Goody zone and I met, so I’m relieved of any responsibility, and she denies having been in Muskogee in 1969, but young Ms Vowell has a masters in art history (not-quite-as-young Ms zone has a bachelors in art history) and a distinctive nose, though not the Adams Nose, from which Wife was also spared (though not her sister), so the jury’s still out. Whatever; I think she’s ready for This American Life podcasts and David Sedaris. Actually, she’s always been ready for them to fill holes in her soul she didn’t know were there, and I’m simply God’s instrument to fill them. And maybe we can go back to the Pilgrims; I know she thinks it would do me some good. But first, SantaLand Diaries!
I’m a huge history buff and Sarah Vowell is probably my favorite author. Her sense of humor closely matches mine. She basically has my dream job - traveling around, visiting various historical museums and sites and writing snarky things about them. But she also has a way of making history extremely relatable and accessible to young people without dumbing it down too much.
I didn’t enjoy her book about the Puritans so much, but the one about Hawaii was very good.
I was about to say: Unfamiliar Fishes, her book about Hawaii, was great. I think it’s her most recent. It tells a fascinating story about a part of American history most people probably are unaware of.
Huh, I had the exact opposite reaction. Assassination Vacation was great, as was Take the Cannoli. I was very excited for Unfamiliar Fishes but was surprised to find much of it a slog. It’s a shame, because it’s a perfect topic for her.
All her audiobooks are excellent (though I remember at least one Doper who can’t stand her voice) but I’d definitely recommend a hard or electronic copy of Unfamiliar Fishes to read along with. The Hawaiian names eventually get really confusing if you just go audio on that one.
Unfamiliar Fishes and Assassination Vacation tie for my favorite of her books. Hawaiian history is a pretty esoteric subject but it’s actually fascinating stuff.
I find as she progresses in her career she’s turning more into a legitimate historian - not that she hasn’t always been “legitimate” - just that her percentage of pure clever snark for snarks sake is diminishing - she is maturing, yah?
Noooooooo! Mature historians, like snarky teenagers, are a dime a dozen. Sarah, please, if you read this or hear my thoughts through the Collective Unconscious, pay no attention to those who say you need to “mature.” It takes decades of experience to build a Queen Bitch of the Universe. Forget using David McCullough and Shelby Foote as your guides because you have Phyllis Diller and Joan Rivers leading the way.
While I can see how Sarah and her friend got lost looking for Dr Mudd’s house (yeah, she’s right: guilty as hell) I would think that planning your route your own self would be half the fun. But then, as a supposed engineer, I use the drawing process as a way to perfect the thing inside my head and consider the finished product boring and inconsequential. I mean, I already knew what it would look like and that it would work, so I’m a “getting there is all of the fun” kinda guy.
And maybe we can go back to the Pilgrims; I know she thinks it would do me some good. But first, SantaLand Diaries!