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    Unfamiliar Fishes
    Unfamiliar Fishes
    Unfamiliar Fishes
    Audiobook7 hours

    Unfamiliar Fishes

    Written by Sarah Vowell

    Narrated by Fred Armisen, Bill Hader, John Hodgman and

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Sarah Vowell thinks of Hawaii as the most American state. She argues that it’s “breathtaking in its beauty, sometimes hideously developed, overwhelmingly religious, impoverished (except for pockets of staggering wealth), crass and spiritual all at once.” In Unfamiliar Fishes, she will explore the exceptional history of Hawaii with her personal reporting and trademark smart-aleckiness to find out the odd and emblematic history of Hawaii, and how it got to be that way. She will explain how Hawaii is Manifest Destiny’s plate lunch.

    There will be cannibalism. There will be incest. There will massacres. There will be con men and dreamers. There will be racism. There will be Theodore Roosevelt. There will be history and Obama and America and opportunistic missionaries and warring whalers and kings and queens. And there will even be lepers. And therefore it will be a great and entertaining story of American history, told in Vowell’s inimitable voice and in her unconventional style.

    Unfamiliar Fishes is a vacation into a colorful and riveting period in history with America’s favorite historical travel companion, Sarah Vowell.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster Audio
    Release dateMar 22, 2011
    ISBN9781442337305
    Unfamiliar Fishes
    Author

    Sarah Vowell

    Sarah Vowell is a contributing editor for public radio's This American Life and has written for Time, Esquire, GQ, Spin, Salon, McSweeneys, The Village Voice, and the Los Angeles Times. She is the author of Radio On, Take the Cannoli, and The Partly Cloudy Patriot. She lives in New York City.

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    Reviews for Unfamiliar Fishes

    3.5/5

    516 ratings57 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Unfamiliar fishes is Sarah Vowell's history of Hawaii from its inhabitants' first contact with Anglos (Captain Cook met his end on a beach in Hawaii) up to the islands' current status as the birthplace of a sitting U.S. president. Vowell provides a roughly chronological history of the islands, although her sarcastic, know-it-all, strangely likable persona as a writer is essential to what makes this a Sarah Vowell book.

      She has clearly done her homework on Hawaii's history -- she provides the kind of details that bring the historical facts and personalities of her book to life. She relays this information in a casual, narrative style, periodically interjecting stories of her own research trips to Hawaii. Vowell does not attempt to hide her personal biases or to present her research as a neutral account of historical facts. In some ways, I feel like this is a more honest way to write about history, because the reader is clearly aware of the lens through which the writer is viewing historical events.

      And, of course, Vowell is funny, funny, funny, in a neurotic, geeky-girl way that kept making me think that I could totally envision this woman going to one of the most paradisical spots in America and staying focused on evil empiricism rather than on the mai thais and sunny beaches. Nevertheless, I highly recommend this book. You'll learn something, have a chance to feel smart by smirking at humorless Puritan missionaries and gain some insight into our country's history of foreign policy.
    • 4/5
      It is at no fault of their own, BUT, a narrator with a heavy lisp and annoying voice make for a very challenging listen. This is at the detriment of the great information that is being presented.
    • 3/5
      An entertaining audiobook with what appears to be a lot of slippers-on-the-ground research but it was marred by mispronunciations of names and other things which could have easily been avoided by hiring someone from Hawaii to be an editor. Reading the book probably would have been the better choice for me due to this. Also, a number of factual errors which I and others have pointed out on Goodreads. It would be nice if the author could put out a revision correcting the errors at least, or maybe she did but not on the audiobook yet.
    • 3/5
      I liked learning about Hawaii. America is a real jerk in this one.
    • 3/5
      audiobook - funny/quirky/interesting, though the various narrators were at times comparatively too quiet/too loud so it could've been mixed/produced better to even out the volume levels.
    • 3/5
      The day Unfamiliar Fishes came out, it was downloaded to my Kindle. I loved Sarah Vowell's previous books, especially Assassination Vacation. Sarah Vowell has turned into a sort of deep sticky underbelly of American History sort of historian whose books feel like long episodes of The American Life (and I love This American Life). I foist them on everyone I see -- "Want to learn bizarre facts of American History? Read these books!"

      I liked Unfamiliar Fishes, a book on the history of Hawai'i from 1778-1900, but the subject matter is so soul-crushingly depressing the upbeat sarcastic tone of the text clashed with the actual text at times. The narrative begins with the death of Captain Cook in 1778 at the then-named "Sandwich Islands" for doing horrible things to the local natives and then discusses what Hawai'i was like at that time: not a peaceful paradise. The islands had just been forged into a Kingdom after a bloody civil war. The society was highly stratified with bloodlines of chiefs and a feudalistic system of land division. Men and women were segregated from one another at meal times and women were forbidden to eat certain foods under kapu laws. They had their own Gods -- Ku the War God gets prominent mention for his prominent temple. Then the missionaries came with their Jesus and their Bibles in 1820 and everything changed.

      Everything would have changed anyway. Had it not been the missionaries it would have been someone else. The missionaries at least came with the printing press and a zeal for learning. They translated the Bible into a new written form of Hawai'ian and, from there, others wrote down all the chants and religion and myths and culture they could to preserve it. The missionaries came to save the Hawai'ians, which meant stamping out the local culture, shoving New England Protestantism on it, and persuading the high Chiefs to do away with various bits of their culture to make it more "modern." Granted, by the time the missionaries came, the Hawai'ians were starting to dismantle some of their culture anyway, so perhaps some of it is moot, but it would have taken a different course.

      Then the shipping came, and then the sugar plantations, and the imported workers, and the round trips from newly established and totally hot San Francisco, and then with it came the smallpox and the malaria and the dysentery and everything else that could wipe out a local population. In time, the US Navy started eying Hawai'i as a Pacific port, especially with the sexy Pearl Harbor. Enterprising grandchildren of the original missionaries decided to stage a coup, and then decided to get Hawai'i annexed to the US to avoid tariffs on sugar. When Congress voted against the treaty of annexation due to the protest of the islanders, Pres. William McKinley decided it was good old "American Manifest Destiny" and figured out a back door to get annexation through anyway.

      The sugar plantations are gone, now. And there's a huge revival of local culture -- a good thing.

      Why did I give this book 3 stars? Mostly because Goodreads won't allow me to set 3.5. This is a good book, but not a great book. It does feel like a long episode of This American Life, but not one that sticks in the memory. I also felt terrible and depressed at the end because it's a terrible and depressing subject, and no amount of sarcasm and no number of funny stories about insane Mormons who are trying to become King of the Pacific make up for how sad and depressing the story is. It reminded me strongly of George Carlin's bit, "Religious Lift." It goes like this:

      "Like I say, religion is a lift in your shoe, man. If you need it, cool. Just don't let me wear your shoes if I don't want 'em and we don't have to go down and nail lifts onto the native's feet!"
    • 3/5
      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.
    • 4/5
      A history of Hawaii's "annexation" interspersed with Vowell's sometimes snarky commentary. Her delivery on audio is distinctive and, for me at least, adds to the enjoyment. She always leaves me wanting to know more about the subjects she writes about.
    • 3/5
      Unfamiliar Fishes is about the history of Hawaii since Europeans and Americans arrived. In the first 50 pages I thought it was going to be great. Vowell does a good job explaining why we should care about this. She then goes into detail about the first missionaries. They are well-developed, and Vowell can be pretty humorous describing them. She also does a good job explaining the native Hawaiian culture prior to invasion. However, the book is only 235 pages so it suddenly becomes a “then this happened, and this person showed up, and 5000 people died from disease, and this treaty was signed” All of the detail from the beginning was completely gone. I tried keeping track of it all, but finally just skimmed 1/3 of the book.
    • 4/5
      As an East Coaster, my knowledge of Hawaiian history is close to nothing. And yet it was New Englander's like myself who initiated the process that transformed Hawaii into a United States territory. Well, maybe not entirely like myself as they were missionaries who insisted that the indigenous Hawaiians should become industrious Protestants. Arriving in the 1820s, the New England missionaries would be followed by the industrialist who sought to raise sugar and the imperialists who sought naval bases. If you know anything about how things works with Americans and native populations, the overthrow of Queen Liliʻuokalani in 1893 by a group of American business leaders seems inevitable. Vowell does an excellent job of piecing together the clashes of culture and swiftly changing alliances that occurred in this century of turbulent change that still leaves its mark on modern Hawaii. Like other Sarah Vowell audiobooks, the voices of historic figures are read by an all-star cast.
    • 4/5
      Sarah Vowell always manages to take what should be dry, boring sections of history and enliven therm far beyond what I could reasonably expect.

      This time the subject is the history of Hawaii, and I can confidently asset that prior to starting this book the extent of my knowledge in that area amounted to "it didn't used to be a state and now it is." I know much more about how all this came to be, and the only emotion I can muster is sadness.

      It's a tight narrative arc, the American interaction with the islands. It took less than a century to get from religious do-gooders genuinely concerned about the Hawaiians to a cabal of businessmen deciding their profits outweighed all other concerns and forcibly overthrew the elected government. I'm sure

      The more history I learn, the more I suspect that I don't (and, in many cases, can't) know about any given topic. There are so many layers, characters and narratives swirling around any event that to discover one only inevitably leads you to several more. This is not a reason to discourage such pursuits, merely a reminder about their ultimate lack of finality. Still, the best we can get is closer, and the only way to do that is to keep trying.
    • 3/5
      Loaded with information and humor, this one sometimes went off track and I sometimes got confused about who was who because of "reading" this on audio.
    • 4/5
      I lived in Hawaii for over 2 years back in the 70's and was fascinated about the history and cultural background that accompanied the beautiful and magical landscape. Sarah Vowell's well researched and organized story of the Hawaiian Islands presents the geography, history, the various ethnic groups, the food, the music, the poetry, the myths, the treachery and the language in a low-key but mesmerizing prose.I'm a definite fan of audio books, so chose to listen to this one. Sarah Vowell's quirky, fun delivery of her writing added a lot for me. She definitely helped us to understand where her humor was responsible for tongue-in-cheek asides, where the straight history was being presented, and where she was drawing inferences based on various bits of info, especially where one might not have normally drawn such conclusions.We are introduced to the various ethnic groups who populated the islands, the mythical and magical stories that form so much of the Hawaiian charm, and the unquenchably greedy grasping of big money big politicians in Washington whose quest for territory is one of our country's less than stellar moments in history.Altogether an enchanting read, and one which will appeal for a variety of reasons.
    • 4/5
      Starting to plan a trip to Hawaii later this year reminded me about this book, which I remembered hearing about when Sarah Vowell was making the publicity round of appearances on radio and TV. I like her quirky, irony-laden, style and nasal-deadpan delivery, so I went for the audio version -- which I would recommend. If, on the other hand, the sound of her voice makes you cringe (listen to the sample first!), then go for a print edition. If you're looking for a straight-forward narrative of Hawaiian history, this might not be the book for you. What she provides is a well-researched and thoughtful tale of the impacts on Hawaiian life of sailors, missionaries, and wealthy planters. Though told with a light hand and a sense of humor, the sources of lingering bitterness in some quarters are not hard to envision. Overall, the book succeeded in piquing my interest in Hawaiian history, and has a been a big help in planning my itinerary of "must see" sites while we're there.
    • 4/5
      This is a funny, highly readable overview of Hawaii's history.
    • 2/5
      This was my first foray into Sarah Vowell's stuff and, from the blurbs on the back of the book and the jacket description, it sounded like a great time.I enjoyed the first dozen or so asides, but found myself wishing she'd just get on with the story a few times. I'd never really thought about the history of Hawai'i all that much before -- I'd seen the Hawaiian independence folks before when we visited a few years ago, visited a few pre-missionary sites on the Big Island that we really enjoyed, the site when Captain Cook arrived, but didn't know much else of the recent history of the island.The book gave an interesting insight into where the tensions between the white missionaries (and their tourist ancestors/brethren) and the locals have arisen. But I found myself rushing through the book just to get it over with, at a certain point -- I think I just found asides like "a vessel so crappy it made the Mayflower look like the QE2" tedious, rather than amusing after a while, they broke up the flow of the story so many times that it became distracting.
    • 2/5
      I now know a significant amount about the process which resulted in Hawaii becoming a part of the US. Sarah Vowell was unquestionably and openly opinionated throughout the book, but she was also funny, interesting, and informative.
    • 5/5
      Sarah Vowell has a quirky style of humor which makes her take on history engaging. (I think a lot of high school students would enjoy history if they could read it through Vowell's witty words. However, her language and politics would prevent schools from ever adopting her works as texts.)This book tells how New England missionaries attempted to Christianize the paradise then known as the Sandwich Islands, now Hawaii, and make them into an uptight version of New England. The missionaries were horrified when they found half-naked women there. They strived to prevent the native women from having sex with seamen ---and thus prevent the obvious diseases they would contract ---yet the natives believed that it was the missionaries who would "pray us all to death."I have thoroughly enjoyed every one of Vowell's books that I've read. I sometimes listen to her audio books, which she reads herself. My husband finds her voice too annoying to listen to, but after a chapter or two, I become used to it and rather enjoy it. For those who find it annoying, the print versions are silent.An aside:Years ago, I visited Machu Picchu in Peru and became fascinated with Hiram Bingham III, a Yale professor who discovered the mountaintop ruins in 1911. (Well, he "discovered" them as much as Columbus "discovered" America, as if no one had ever been there before.) As soon as Vowell mentioned missionaries in the Sandwich Islands, I wondered if Hiram Bingham's grandfather (Hiram Bingham I) and father (Hiram Bingham II) would come up because I knew they had been missionaries in what we now call Hawaii ---and there they were. Hiram III was expected to become a missionary, too, but he had other plans. He married Alfreda Mitchell (of the Tiffany family) which allowed him to become an adventurer on his meager university salary and father 8 sons between expeditions. Some say he was one of the inspirations for the fictional Indiana Jones.
    • 4/5
      Started reading this in Hawaii when I became curious as to how it turned out that I was still in America after a 10 hour plane trip. I enjoyed it, she keeps the history rolling along. It was fun to read it after having read "Wordy Shipmates" and see how much was just a continuation. It didn't have as many screedy tangents as WS, though, which was nice.
    • 3/5
      Good solid work. Many reviews of this book state that this isn't as funny as her previous works. I agree - but I don't think it is the problem of the writing - but rather of the subject matter. In looking into the history of America's involvement in Hawaii, it just isn't as funny because the tale is so depressing and embarrassing as a descendent of said white people. It is added to this list in my mind of all the various tragedies and atrocities that we have perpetuated upon native peoples. So please forgive me if I don't laugh too hard. It is easier to laugh at the foibles of the early puritans because their crimes are so distant (geographically and historically). But Hawaii is a different story with its injusticess in recent historical memory. Still a good solid work and I have at least a basic knowledge of the last 200 years or so of America's "work" in Hawaii.
    • 2/5
      I listened to this book along with another on a long car ride over the pat weekend. Vowell, like always, is entertaining and the book is fairly interesting. If you are reading this review before picking up the book don't expect anything spectacular. It's just a solid middle of the road effort.

      Not factored into my rating: Vowell's voice gets to be a little much after listening for extended periods of time. I think I'll stick to reading Vowell from now on as opposed to listening to her.
    • 2/5
      2.5 stars. Great in bursts but overall very disappointing.
    • 4/5
      If only history books were more like Vowell's books. She's snarky, historically factual, and also aware of her biases without the need to defend them. For all things Hawaiian inquire within and you won't be disappointed.
    • 4/5
      The Secretary of the Navy during the Spanish-American War was George Dewey. Of his annihilation of the enemy's ships in the Philippines, Vowell writes, "Dewey decimated the navy." I cackled. So there, I admit it, even though I'm sure the destruction was more than 10%, I laughed like a monkey.
    • 4/5
      A history of Hawaii's "annexation" interspersed with Vowell's sometimes snarky commentary. Her delivery on audio is distinctive and, for me at least, adds to the enjoyment. She always leaves me wanting to know more about the subjects she writes about.
    • 2/5

      This was selected by our book club. Slight but unformative. Nothing much to recommend it from a literary standpoint. If collecting historical facts in a bloodless, sort of Rain Man-esque sort of way, this may be your bag.

      Relates the invasion of Hawaii by American missionaries, then businessmen, then the U.S. government.

      Two thumbs meh.
    • 3/5
      Unfamiliar Fishes is the fun, smart and entertaining history of Hawaii, the focus being on the nineteenth century when New England missionaries came to the islands and introduced Christianity, literacy, infectious diseases and, Western ideas like democracy, entrepreneurship and, marginalization. The topics may be heavy; but Sarah Vowell's wry style of delivery makes this a relatively digestible lesson in history that probably wasn't covered in your classroom.

      Ms Vowell herself is funny and smart; but the novelty of having her narrate her own book wears thin after a little while. Because she includes personal memories or thoughts in the book, she is perhaps the best narrator for her own material; but her shuttered, neurotic clip and even a mispronunciation ("forecastle" should be pronounced "FŌK-sull") may cause the listener to reflexively tune out as a defensive mechanism. The other voices listed as narrators occasionally pop in with a quote; but nothing substantive or consistent. Sometimes Sarah Vowell reads a quote, sometimes someone else. The celebrity guest roster of contributing narrators is impressive; but really no more than a gimmick and the intrusive edit-ins of their lines is disruptive to the listening experience, as is the music that signals the end of each chapter.

      These comments were redacted from a blog review originally posted at dogearedcopy on 03/30/2011
    • 4/5
      Not as good as her previous but I was interested in the topic very much after visiting Hawaii this last January and falling in love. Much like the missionaries Vowell writes about.
    • 4/5
      The history of Hawaii up to and including annexation by the United States with assorted asides and digressions along the way. Entertaining, informative idiosyncratic.
    • 3/5
      I love Sarah Vowell on the radio. I thought, hey, I bet she could do great things with an audiobook! Stands to reason, right? (Also, the paper copy I bought had to be sent on before I could finish it.) I have to say, I think I would have liked this book better had I read it instead.

      Live and learn.