By John Michael Thornton
Unfamiliar Fishes, the latest by Gen-X history pixie Sarah Vowell, is about Hawaii’s haole invasion—haole being Hawaiian “for all the pale-faced explorers, Bible thumpers, whalers, tycoons, con men, soldiers, and vacationers, who have washed ashore since Captain Cook.” The tide of sunburned humanity transformed the islands, and quickly, too: Between 1778 and 1898, Hawaii went from a piebald collection of fiefdoms, to a unified kingdom under a musket-wielding warrior king, and finally a floating sugar factory in service to America’s sweet tooth. In that time the native population shrank from 300,000 to just 30,000.
So Unfamiliar Fishes isn’t a paean to assimilation; but neither is it another New World despoliation story—things are more nuanced than that. Missionaries may have introduced the concept of hell, half-starved their students, and thought that wearing black wool in the tropics was a good idea, but they also invented a written version of Hawaiian which saved a culture that was probably doomed from Cook’s first contact. Compared to their grandkids who staged a revolution and the whalers who only brought the clap, that first group of missionaries come across as—saints. When Vowell describes the Western presence on Hawaii, saying, “Imagine if the Hawaii Convention Center…hosted the Values Voter Summit and the Adult Entertainment Expo simultaneously—for forty years,” it’s clear Hawaii would have been even worse off it had just had spring break without the Sabbath.
Interwoven with this story are Vowell’s own adventures hiking to remote historical sites with her eight-year-old nephew, Owen, and her interactions with modern Hawaiians. We meet Laurel, “the worst blackjack dealer in Reno,” a descendent of the missionaries, who became a family historian to soil her family’s good name; Hawaiian separatists that trace their lineage to the beginning of time; and average citizens still struggling to make sense of the people that at once brought them religion, and yet stole (albeit legally) their land.
These poignant interactions elevate Unfamiliar Fishes. When Owen says, “If I could marry Hawaii, I would do it immediately,” the line sticks because it articulates what makes Vowell’s histories worth reading. She loves history, in a way that I could imagine her blushing if someone teased, “then why don’t you marry it?”
Vowell comes off as the best tour guide you’ve ever had, but a tour guide nonetheless. She sacrifices depth and context. This isn’t a criticism; if you expect a comprehensive history from a book called Unfamiliar Fishes, you’re not playing fair. For starters, buy a book with an index.
Vowell accomplishes all of her goals, and, yet, I feel a wanting. I always expect there to be more funny, which isn’t fair. She’s not a standup working history, but a historian with a hip sense of humor. Like David Sedaris and Mike Birbiglia, Vowell’s writing can’t live up to its live performance. One knows that what one is reading could be funnier if it was delivered in Vowell’s pseudo-adolescent imitation of Doris Kearns Goodwin.
As a popular history, however, Unfamiliar Fishes is plenty amusing and plenty informative, and popular history is something we need more of judging by the fact that the only thing about Hawaii most American’s know is that President Obama was born there, and only half of Americans believe it to be true. Unfamiliar Fishes is an amusing, informative, and even wise little book, shot through with the humor and pathos that is human affairs. When Vowell first mentions the hula praising the Chief’s genitals, it’s funny; 200 pages later, when sung to the last king, it’s beyond tragic.
You can purchase Unfamiliar Fishes here.
And you can listen to Sarah Vowell being interviewed about Unfamiliar Fishes by Jesse Thorn on The Sound of Young America here.Â
