Unfamiliar Fishes (Vowell)

Unfamiliar Fishes
Sarah Vowell, 2011
Penguin Group USA
256 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781594485640


Summary
From the bestselling author of The Wordy Shipmates, an examination of Hawaii, the place where Manifest Destiny got a sunburn.

Many think of 1776 as the defining year of American history, when we became a nation devoted to the pursuit of happiness through self- government. In Unfamiliar Fishes, Sarah Vowell argues that 1898 might be a year just as defining, when, in an orgy of imperialism, the United States annexed Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Guam, and invaded first Cuba, then the Philippines, becoming an international superpower practically overnight.

Among the developments in these outposts of 1898, Vowell considers the Americanization of Hawaii the most intriguing. From the arrival of New England missionaries in 1820, their goal to Christianize the local heathen, to the coup d'etat of the missionaries' sons in 1893, which overthrew the Hawaiian queen, the events leading up to American annexation feature a cast of beguiling, and often appealing or tragic, characters: whalers who fired cannons at the Bible-thumpers denying them their God-given right to whores, an incestuous princess pulled between her new god and her brother-husband, sugar barons, lepers, con men, Theodore Roosevelt, and the last Hawaiian queen, a songwriter whose sentimental ode "Aloha 'Oe" serenaded the first Hawaiian president of the United States during his 2009 inaugural parade.

With her trademark smart-alecky insights and reporting, Vowell lights out to discover the off, emblematic, and exceptional history of the fiftieth state, and in so doing finds America, warts and all. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—December 27, 1969
• Where—Muskogee, Oklahoma, USA
• Education—B.A., Montana State University; M.A.,
   School of the Art Institute of Chicago
• Currently—lives in New York, New York


Sarah Jane Vowell is an American author, journalist, essayist and social commentator. Often referred to as a "social observer," Vowell has written six nonfiction books on American history and culture, and was a contributing editor for the radio program This American Life on Public Radio International from 1996–2008, where she produced numerous commentaries and documentaries and toured the country in many of the program’s live shows. She was also the voice of Violet in the animated film The Incredibles.

Vowell was born in Muskogee, Oklahoma and moved to Bozeman, Montana with her family when she was 11. She has a fraternal twin sister, Amy. She earned a B.A. from Montana State University in 1993 in Modern Languages and Literatures and an M.A. in Art History at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1996. Vowell received the Music Journalism Award in 1996.

Writings
Vowell is a New York Times’ bestselling author of six nonfiction books on American history and culture. Her 2011 book, Unfamiliar Fishes, reviews the growing influence of American missionaries in Hawaii in the 1800s and the subsequent takeover of Hawaii's property and politics by American sugar plantation owners, eventually resulting in a coup d'état, restricted voting rights for nonwhites, and annexation by the United States. A particular focus is on 1898, when the U.S. "annexed Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Guam, and invaded Cuba, and then the Philippines, becoming a meddling, self-serving, militaristic international superpower practically overnight." [from the dust jacket] The title of the book is an allusion to a quotation from the aged David Malo, who had been the first Native Hawaiian ordained to preach and Hawaii's first superintendent of schools:

If a big wave comes in, large and unfamiliar fishes will come from the dark ocean, and when they see the small fishes of the shallows they will eat them up. The white man's ships have arrived with clever men from the big countries. They know our people are few in number and our country is small, they will devour us. [pp. 138-139]

Vowell's earlier book, The Wordy Shipmates (2008), examines the New England Puritans and their journey to and impact on America. She studies John Winthrop’s 1630 sermon “A Model of Christian Charity”—and the bloody story that resulted from American exceptionalism. And she also traces the relationship of Winthrop, Massachusetts’ first governor, and Roger Williams, the Calvinist minister who founded Rhode Island—an unlikely friendship that was emblematic of the polar extremes of the American foundation. Throughout, she reveals how American history can show up in the most unexpected places in modern American culture, often in unexpected ways.

Her book Assassination Vacation (2005) describes a road trip to tourist sites devoted to the murders of presidents Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley. Vowell examines what these acts of political violence reveal about American national character and contemporary society.

She is also the author of two essay collections, The Partly Cloudy Patriot (2002) and Take the Cannoli (2000). Her first book Radio On: A Listener's Diary (1997), is her year-long diary of listening to the radio in 1995.

Her writing has been published in the Village Voice, Esquire, GQ, Spin, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and the SF Weekly, and she has been a regular contributor to the online magazine Salon. She was one of the original contributors to McSweeney’s, also participating in many of the quarterly’s readings and shows.

In 2005, Vowell served as a guest columnist for the New York Times during several weeks in July, briefly filling in for Maureen Dowd. Vowell also served as a guest columnist in February 2006, and again in April 2006.

In 2008, Vowell contributed an essay about Montana to the book State by State: A Panoramic Portrait of America.

Appearances, voice and acting
Vowell has appeared on television shows such as Nightline, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, The Colbert Report, Jimmy Kimmel Live, and The Late Show with David Letterman. She also appeared several times on Late Night with Conan O'Brien.

In April 2006, Vowell served as the keynote speaker at the 27th Annual Kentucky Women Writers Conference. In August and September 2006, she toured the United States as part of the Revenge Of The Book Eaters national tour, which benefits the children's literacy centers 826NYC, 826CHI, 826 Valencia, 826LA, 826 Michigan, and 826 Seattle.

Vowell also provided commentary in Robert Wuhl's 2005 Assume the Position HBO specials.

Vowell's first book, which had radio as its central subject, caught the attention of This American Life host Ira Glass, and it led to Vowell's becoming a frequent contributor to the show. Many of Vowell's essays have had their genesis as segments on the show.

In 2004, Vowell provided the voice of Violet Parr, the shy teenager in the Brad Bird-directed Pixar animated film The Incredibles and reprised her role for the various related video games and Disney on Ice presentations featuring The Incredibles. The makers of The Incredibles discovered Vowell from episode 81 – "Guns" of This American Life, where she and her father fire a homemade cannon. Pixar made a test animation for Violet using audio from that sequence, which is included on the DVD version of The Incredibles. She also wrote and was featured in "Vowellet: An Essay by Sarah Vowell" included on the DVD version of I, where she reflects on the differences between being super hero Violet and being an author of history books on the subject of assassinated presidents, and what it means to her nephew Owen.

Vowell provided commentary in "Murder at the Fair: The Assassination of President McKinley", which is part of the History Channel miniseries, 10 Days That Unexpectedly Changed America.

She is featured prominently in the They Might Be Giants documentary Gigantic (A Tale of Two Johns). She also participated on the DVD commentary for the movie, along with the film's director and They Might Be Giants' John Linnell and John Flansburgh.

In September 2006, Vowell appeared as a minor character in the ABC drama Six Degrees. She appeared on an episode of HBO's Bored to Death, as an interviewer in a bar. In 2010, Vowell appeared briefly in the film Please Give, as a shopper.

On November 17, 2011, Vowell joined The Daily Show as the new Senior Historical Context Correspondent.

Personal life
Vowell is part Cherokee (about 1/8 on her mother’s side and 1/16 on her father’s side). According to Vowell, “Being at least a little Cherokee in northeastern Oklahoma is about as rare and remarkable as being a Michael Jordan fan in Chicago.” She retraced the path of the forced removal of the Cherokee from the southeastern United States to Oklahoma known as the Trail of Tears with her twin sister Amy. This American Life chronicled her story on July 3, 1998, devoting the entire hour to Sarah's work.

Vowell is the president of the board of 826NYC, a nonprofit tutoring and writing center for students aged 6–18 in Brooklyn. (From Wikipedia.)

Book Reviews
Its scintillating cast includes dour missionaries, genital-worshiping heathens, Teddy Roosevelt, incestuous royalty, a nutty Mormon, a much-too-­merry monarch, President Obama, sugar barons, an imprisoned queen and Vowell herself, in a kind of 50th-state variety show. It’s a fun book...[a] playful, provocative, stand-up approach to history.
Kaui Hart Hemmings - New York Times Book Review


[Vowell's] prose is conversational but clever, her anecdotes quirky yet highly crafted.... It's the kind of writing performed so well on National Public Radio, journalism as human interest, history as found poetry, monologue casting a spell of public intimacy...this is a book aimed at a wide audience, and Vowell tells a good tale. Forgive her journalistic excesses, consider her shrewd observations, and enjoy her comic turns of phrase. If you feel compelled after reading to journey to the Bishop Museum or devour the journals of Captain Cook or see some real hula, so much the better.
Allegra Goodman - Washington Post


Sarah Vowell is for my money, the best essayist/radio commentator/sit-down comic and pointy headed history geek in the business.
Seattle Times


Recounting the brief, remarkable history of a unified and independent Hawaii, Vowell, a public radio star and bestselling author (The Wordy Shipmates), retraces the impact of New England missionaries who began arriving in the early 1800s to remake the island paradise into a version of New England. In her usual wry tone, Vowell brings out the ironies of their efforts: while the missionaries tried to prevent prostitution with seamen and the resulting deadly diseases, the natives believed it was the missionaries who would kill them: "they will pray us all to death." Along the way, and with the best of intentions, the missionaries eradicated an environmentally friendly, laid-back native culture (although the Hawaiians did have taboos against women sharing a table with men, upon penalty of death, and a reverence for "royal incest"). Freely admitting her own prejudices, Vowell gives contemporary relevance to the past as she weaves in, for instance, Obama's boyhood memories. Outrageous and wise-cracking, educational but never dry, this book is a thought-provoking and entertaining glimpse into the U.S.'s most unusual state and its unanticipated twists on the familiar story of Americanization.
Publishers Weekly


(Audio version.) Displaying her trademark wry, smart-alecky style, author/historian Vowell (contributing editor, NPR's This American Life; The Wordy Shipmates) tells the story of the Americanization of the formerly independent nation of Hawaii, beginning in the early 1820s with the New England missionaries who remade the island paradise to conform to their own culture. The diverse characters about whom she writes include an incestuous princess torn between her new god and her brother-husband, sugar barons, lepers, con men, Theodore Roosevelt, and the last Hawaiian queen. Unfortunately, listeners' enjoyment of this otherwise compelling material is diminished by Vowell's staccato, monotone reading of it, and brief cameos by various entertainment industry personalities are not enough to recommend it over the print version. —Dale Farris, Groves, TX
Library Journal


[A] quick, idiosyncratic account of Hawaii from the time Capt. James Cook was dispatched to the then–Sandwich Islands to the end of the 19th century, when the United States annexed the islands. The author [is] especially sharp in her considerations of the baleful effect of imposed religion as missionaries tried to turn happy Polynesians into dour Yankees.... The author presents the views of the islanders as well as the invaders, as she delves into journals and narratives and takes field trips with local guides. Her characteristic light touch is evident throughout. Lively history and astute sociology make a sprightly chronicle of a gorgeous archipelago and its people.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Unfamiliar Fishes:

1. How does Sarah Vowell portray the missionaries and their efforts to convert Hawaiians to Christianity? Was their intervention into Hawaiian culture for the better or worse?

2. What about the whalers who appeared later? Vowell describes their clash with the missionaries as "representing opposing sides of America's schizophrenic divide—Bible-thumping prudes and sailors on leave." Is that an adequate description? Was that kind of "divide" endemic only to America...or did it exist elsewhere? Does Vowell's "schizophrenic divide" exist today?

3. Talk about this statement by Vowell in her book:

In America, on the ordinate plane of faith versus reason, the x axis of faith intersects with the y axis of reason at the zero point of 'I don't give a damn what you think.'"

What exactly does Vowell mean? Is this a fair assessment of the age-old argument of faith vs. reason? Does it hold true even today...or has the discussion changed?

4. Vowell writes that the missionaries "sort of kind of had a point. If Kalakaua had taken better care of his charge...then his enemies would have been unable to swaddle themselves...in the mantle of...1776." To what extent, then, does Vowell see Hawaii's history a result of poor governance by its ruling class? Or was its annexation by America inevitable given its location and geography.

5. Were you shocked...intrigued...or amused by some of the indigenous practices of incest, genital worship, and the taboos against women?

6. What do you think of Sarah Vowell's tone, which many find refreshingly funny and others find forced and tiresome. How would you describe her narrative voice?

7. What is the significance of the book's title, "Unfamiliar Fishes"?

8. What was "Manifest Destiny"? How does it tie into the belief in American exceptionalism?

9. Grover Cleveland called the Hawaiian affair "a miserable business" and said he was ashamed. His successors as president, William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt, were delighted. Where does your opinion fall—do you believe the United States had the right to Americanize and annex the Hawaiian Islands?

10. What have you learned about Hawaii after reading Unfamiliar Fishes? What surprised you most?

11. Are there any heroes in this story of the Hawaiian Islands? Any villains? Is the history of the Islands a tragic story...a redemptive one...or something else?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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