We just got home from a week on Oahu. My travel companions
are of the go-go-go variety, so there wasn’t much time for sitting on the beach
and reading. Fortunately, I started Sarah Vowell’s Unfamiliar Fishes before
leaving home, and I did manage to carve out some time in the sand to finish it.
I have loved Sarah Vowell since I first heard her weird
voice on NPR's "This American Life." Her deeply-curious-but-not-stuffy interest in
out-of-the-way history appeals to the part of me that insists on stopping at
historical markers or abandoned buildings in the middle of nowhere. In
Unfamiliar Fishes, she begins by looking at her “plate lunch,” in Honolulu,
which, when you think about it, is a strange blend of regional foods: barbequed
meat, macaroni salad, and Japanese rice. Why that odd mix of things? She goes
on to examine how Hawaii became a modern, multi-ethnic American state (and
military outpost and tropical tourist mecca).
The best part of Vowell’s writing is that she is willing to
acknowledge everybody’s craziness. Her telling of Hawaii’s evolution is not merely
a simple version of evangelism and colonialism, but, rather, a struggle between
and among a plate lunch of powerful (and often absurd) people – Native Hawaiian
and European and American alike. Of course, the result of this struggle WAS the
takeover of Hawaii (and all the bad that process entails). Vowell is asking us
to develop a greater consciousness about our own role in the ongoing Americanization
of Hawaii, even if we enjoy an extra-large shave ice while we’re doing so.
Unfamiliar Fishes does suffer a bit from its lack of clear
category. This is not scholarly history – you won’t find footnotes, and you
will find many irreverent asides and snarky editorial comments. But this isn’t
popular narrative history, either. Vowell gives us LOTS of detail about obscure
events, and it was frankly not an easy beach read. Her analysis requires
attention, especially with so many different “characters” vying for control. Still,
I am so glad I experienced this book, and I was able to note the irony of my
own participation as an “unfamiliar fish.”
You can listen to Vowell’s reports on "This American Life"
here. And here she is talking about the book on the Daily Show. And here’s an
interview she did with Goodreads readers.
3 comments:
Even before I read this review I suspected you would like this book because the author is high on the "snark" factor, in my opinion.
And there is was, you said she made "snarky editorial comments". You have some of the snark going on too, but how "snarky" is different from "smartass" (as you describe yourself) I do not know.
I would like to read this book, I love this sort of "nonfiction" and that interview was hilarious. And when you are sitting on the sand, it is best to just skip any part that seems like "analysis".
Did I say anything about the book? Did I use enough quotation marks? Does she explain about the macaroni salad? I get the meat and rice and the spam, but the macaroni always makes me wonder...
I think the macaroni salad came from people in Hawaii that were of European descent -- so plate lunch has Asian, native Hawaiian, and European elements to it. But we'd probably need someone from Hawaii to further clarify. I do have the book, so you can borrow it if you want (sand included).
And -- snarkiness might have a bit more bite than smartassery, but they are in the same family.
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