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3.57 AVERAGE
3.57 AVERAGE
Vowell's disjointed narrative might have been easier to follow if I knew something of the history of Hawaii but as it was I spent quite a bit of time trying to sort out who was who. A timeline or genealogy of Hawaiian monarchs & missionary families might have helped. Although I do enjoy her dry sense of humor.
Really interesting material and good writing, but I had a hard time getting through it. Could've been the lack of chapter breaks. Still enjoyed it, though!
I've been rating a lot of 4's lately. Consistency like that makes me nervous, but I do think that's what they've all deserved. They've been very good books, but not great ones that make me really sit up and think about them after they're done. Unfamiliar Fishes is a good history of the US annexation of Hawaii and the history behind why it happened when and how it did, but it's not a great Sarah Vowell book. The kind of commentary I expect from her was a bit lacking, especially in the middle third of the book, which was much drier and played much more straight than the opening and ending. Again, very good, but short of great.
A look at the Americanization and eventual annexation of Hawaii. As well-written as all of her books, but the subject matter wasn't as engaging to me as that of her past books.
A wry and self-deprecating tone belies the serious research, perception and passion that Vowell brings to this slight, mournful tale of Hawaii's descent into annexation by the United States.
Vowell's huge strength, aside from her readability, is how skillfully the book brings to life the personas principal, Hawaiian royalty, the missonaries and sugar farmers, who battle to create a future for these islands in a suddenly globalised world. Vowell's interest lies in how people struggle with their own fallibility, their ideals rubbing tensely against humanity and personality, and the book manages to weave a tale of change led by uncertain pioneers. She also manages the art of complex structure, that pretends to be artless, with such charm that the reader doesn't mind how clearly we can see the etched spiderweb of its construction.
Despite references to the "plate lunch" president at the beginning, Vowell never really succeeds in giving this contemporary relevance, the way she seems to want too. Maybe it is because Hawaii comes across as an afterthought to the US, almost accidentally annexed, never taken as seriously as the rich and intricate culture it hosts deserves.
Vowell's huge strength, aside from her readability, is how skillfully the book brings to life the personas principal, Hawaiian royalty, the missonaries and sugar farmers, who battle to create a future for these islands in a suddenly globalised world. Vowell's interest lies in how people struggle with their own fallibility, their ideals rubbing tensely against humanity and personality, and the book manages to weave a tale of change led by uncertain pioneers. She also manages the art of complex structure, that pretends to be artless, with such charm that the reader doesn't mind how clearly we can see the etched spiderweb of its construction.
Despite references to the "plate lunch" president at the beginning, Vowell never really succeeds in giving this contemporary relevance, the way she seems to want too. Maybe it is because Hawaii comes across as an afterthought to the US, almost accidentally annexed, never taken as seriously as the rich and intricate culture it hosts deserves.
Well, I picked this up as an audio book because of all of the celebrity guest readers. I really was not terribly interested in the topic, but am glad I listened to it because I did learn something about our country's history. Nothing really was all that shocking I must say. History is full of stories of countries that have been shaped in similar ways. I will say, I will miss Sarah's unique way of reading on my way in to work. You really don't hear much from those celebrity readers. They have pretty small parts.
This was the first audiobook I ever read and the first Sarah Vowell, though I had heard some of her short stories on NPR. It's not a subject I am generally interested in but she really got me into it.
(copied from my blog)
I’ve never cared about Hawaii. Like…ever. They were the 50th state brought into the Union, that’s all I knew. And a Brady Bunch movie had been set there. And its people liked to surf. Oh! and Dog the Bounty Hunter lives there, which is awesome.
I was vaguely aware that we’d overthrown their queen, Liliuokalani, but I never really thought about it, or about what the people of Hawaii felt about that.
I was a bit uncertain as to how I felt about this book until the end. I’m generally a big fan of tangents, but Sarah Vowell seemed to go off on so many that I was struggling with the chronology of events (I’m big on chronology). Somehow, though, in the last few pages, she pulled it together and I felt like it had been a truly worthwhile reading experience.
That’s the brief summary. Now for some specific thoughts.
The nice thing about really liking a certain author and being willing to read whatever she writes is that you can be exposed to things you wouldn’t have searched out on your own. So when I found out Sarah Vowell was writing a book on Hawaii I thought ‘Oh. Okay. I’ll read that, and I’m sure it’ll be at least kind of funny.’ Which it was, with lines like “Expecting capitalists to refrain from gobbling up the earth is like blaming Pac-Man for gulping down pac-dots.”
She covers the history of the missionaries coming from Boston in 1820, to annexation in 1898 under that bastard McKinley. Captain Cooke is covered a little, since his initial trip to Hawaii in 1778 is what eventually led to the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (the ABCFM, which gets referenced a lot in the book) sending its missionaries there.
What I found most surprising is how quickly Hawaii changed in 78 years. In 1820, Kamehameha I had just died, leaving his son in charge, who radically changed the system of laws before the missionaries even got there. Then, due to the missionaries, Hawaiian became a written language, and the majority of the country learned to read it. Then they changed from an absolute to a constitutional monarchy. And then the grandchildren of the original missionaries had a coup d’etat and overthrew the monarch, installing themselves as the heads of the new government. These grandchildren, by the way, included Sanford Dole, who I realized partway through the book is probably the pineapple dude. Boo.
Basically, our country sucks.
New opinions I have garnered from this book: McKinley was a douchebag, Roosevelt was maybe not as wonderful as I have thought, Grover Cleveland was surprisingly cool, mayyybe Hawaii shouldn’t be a state since we pretty much stole it, and Sarah Vowell isn’t always antagonistic towards Christianity (although I learned that in The Wordy Shipmates). She was generally okay about the way the missionaries handled things, or at least appreciative of some of the contributions they made. It was their children and grandchildren who mucked up everything.
McKinley didn’t have the votes to pass a treaty of annexation, so instead, in the month that all the major battles were happening in the Spanish-American War, he had Congress pass a joint resolution to annex Hawaii. As a dude in the book says, “A joint resolution is normally what the Congress of the United States does to say, ‘We recognize this day is Joe Blow Day.’” But that time they decided to use it to annex a nation and its people (and its sugar! its wonderful, wonderful sugar). You suck, McKinley.
Grover Cleveland was awesome, by the way, because after President Harrison put forward the treaty of annexation in the Senate, when Cleveland became president he withdrew it. And after McKinley used his lame, shady tactics to annex it anyway, he said “as I contemplate the means used to complete this outrage, I am ashamed of the whole affair.”
Tangents aside, I learned a lot about Hawaii’s 19th century history in 233 pages, which is pretty good. I developed some interest in it, which is better than no interest at all, and I want to try poi, despite being informed it’s “pretty much just paste.” Good job, Sarah Vowell.
I’ve never cared about Hawaii. Like…ever. They were the 50th state brought into the Union, that’s all I knew. And a Brady Bunch movie had been set there. And its people liked to surf. Oh! and Dog the Bounty Hunter lives there, which is awesome.
I was vaguely aware that we’d overthrown their queen, Liliuokalani, but I never really thought about it, or about what the people of Hawaii felt about that.
I was a bit uncertain as to how I felt about this book until the end. I’m generally a big fan of tangents, but Sarah Vowell seemed to go off on so many that I was struggling with the chronology of events (I’m big on chronology). Somehow, though, in the last few pages, she pulled it together and I felt like it had been a truly worthwhile reading experience.
That’s the brief summary. Now for some specific thoughts.
The nice thing about really liking a certain author and being willing to read whatever she writes is that you can be exposed to things you wouldn’t have searched out on your own. So when I found out Sarah Vowell was writing a book on Hawaii I thought ‘Oh. Okay. I’ll read that, and I’m sure it’ll be at least kind of funny.’ Which it was, with lines like “Expecting capitalists to refrain from gobbling up the earth is like blaming Pac-Man for gulping down pac-dots.”
She covers the history of the missionaries coming from Boston in 1820, to annexation in 1898 under that bastard McKinley. Captain Cooke is covered a little, since his initial trip to Hawaii in 1778 is what eventually led to the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (the ABCFM, which gets referenced a lot in the book) sending its missionaries there.
What I found most surprising is how quickly Hawaii changed in 78 years. In 1820, Kamehameha I had just died, leaving his son in charge, who radically changed the system of laws before the missionaries even got there. Then, due to the missionaries, Hawaiian became a written language, and the majority of the country learned to read it. Then they changed from an absolute to a constitutional monarchy. And then the grandchildren of the original missionaries had a coup d’etat and overthrew the monarch, installing themselves as the heads of the new government. These grandchildren, by the way, included Sanford Dole, who I realized partway through the book is probably the pineapple dude. Boo.
Basically, our country sucks.
New opinions I have garnered from this book: McKinley was a douchebag, Roosevelt was maybe not as wonderful as I have thought, Grover Cleveland was surprisingly cool, mayyybe Hawaii shouldn’t be a state since we pretty much stole it, and Sarah Vowell isn’t always antagonistic towards Christianity (although I learned that in The Wordy Shipmates). She was generally okay about the way the missionaries handled things, or at least appreciative of some of the contributions they made. It was their children and grandchildren who mucked up everything.
McKinley didn’t have the votes to pass a treaty of annexation, so instead, in the month that all the major battles were happening in the Spanish-American War, he had Congress pass a joint resolution to annex Hawaii. As a dude in the book says, “A joint resolution is normally what the Congress of the United States does to say, ‘We recognize this day is Joe Blow Day.’” But that time they decided to use it to annex a nation and its people (and its sugar! its wonderful, wonderful sugar). You suck, McKinley.
Grover Cleveland was awesome, by the way, because after President Harrison put forward the treaty of annexation in the Senate, when Cleveland became president he withdrew it. And after McKinley used his lame, shady tactics to annex it anyway, he said “as I contemplate the means used to complete this outrage, I am ashamed of the whole affair.”
Tangents aside, I learned a lot about Hawaii’s 19th century history in 233 pages, which is pretty good. I developed some interest in it, which is better than no interest at all, and I want to try poi, despite being informed it’s “pretty much just paste.” Good job, Sarah Vowell.
DNF'd on: December 4th, 2020
DNF'd on: Page 71 (28%)
I gave Unfamiliar Fishes the good ol' college try, but even the pressures of having to discuss it at length in seminars couldn't drive me further along. It wasn't horrible, Vowell is actually a pretty witty writer, but the inescapable sense that this wasn't her story to tell was a real presence in the short amount of time I spent reading it.
I also took umbrage with the form of storytelling utilized by Vowell throughout. This could just be my bias as a history student, but the conversational tone that heavily mixed a recounting of history with Vowell's personal thoughts was grating, to say the least. Her constant presence in the book felt distracting. But, I can see how this form would make what's normally seen as a dry history accessible to the layman.
If you're looking for a conversational, memoir-esque history of the annexation of Hawai'i this wouldn't be a terrible place to start, but I have no interest and no obligation to finishing this one so I'm tapping out.
DNF'd on: Page 71 (28%)
I gave Unfamiliar Fishes the good ol' college try, but even the pressures of having to discuss it at length in seminars couldn't drive me further along. It wasn't horrible, Vowell is actually a pretty witty writer, but the inescapable sense that this wasn't her story to tell was a real presence in the short amount of time I spent reading it.
I also took umbrage with the form of storytelling utilized by Vowell throughout. This could just be my bias as a history student, but the conversational tone that heavily mixed a recounting of history with Vowell's personal thoughts was grating, to say the least. Her constant presence in the book felt distracting. But, I can see how this form would make what's normally seen as a dry history accessible to the layman.
If you're looking for a conversational, memoir-esque history of the annexation of Hawai'i this wouldn't be a terrible place to start, but I have no interest and no obligation to finishing this one so I'm tapping out.