Unfamiliar Fishes

By: Sarah Vowell / Narrated By: Sarah Vowell, Fred Armisen, Bill Hader, John Hodgman, Catherine Keener, Edward Norton, Keanu Reeves, Paul Rudd, Maya Rudolph, John Slattery

Length: 7 hrs and 28 mins

“Caustic rhetoric”?!? Yesssss!!!

I’ve done it yet again: Another Sarah Vowell audiobook means I HAVE to dash over to read the negative reviews, this time for Unfamiliar Fishes, wherein we’re all given the true history of Hawaii.

Oh my, how I dooo enjoy a review written all in CAPS!!! Slanted! Anti American-Imperialism! And the worst: She’s sooo NPR!!!

Once again I’m going to reach out and ask them: You doooo know you’ve just picked up an S. Vowell book, don’t you? Even better: One where of COURSE she narrates her own work, so that nails on a chalkboard thing? Dude! it’s sooo de rigueur! I know! I know! Sceeeeechy, but ain’t she so goshdanged adorable?!

This time a trip to Hawaii has Sarah pondering, looking into the actual history of Hawaii, that paradise that sooo did NOT wanna become a state of America. Missionaries? Agriculture, emphasis on CULTURE? whereby gallons of water, oodles of gallons of water to produce one pound of cane sugar have to be transported from impossibly far away places? Overthrowing Hawaiian royalty in favor of sons of missionaries, and other truly pugnacious and avaricious creatures? The death of so very many Hawaiians via imported diseases? Forced annexation? Aaaallll covered here, and all pissing off so very many 1-star reviewers.

I mean, I’ll admit it: This ain’t her finest work. It’s a trifle too fragmented, and her exquisitely adorable nephew Owen get’s far too little airtime, but it’s in-depth, and it’s compelling as all get-out, if somewhat appalling. M’ husband went to Punahou in the 70s cuz his mom moved the family back to Hawaii after her divorce, and I do know that President Obama went there as well. I did NOT know the prep school started as a slummed-down place to send increasingly rare Hawaiian royal children, where floors slanted down, uneven and falling apart. I DID know that it became a place for mostly white elites, sooo unlike its origins.

And ya gotta admit: This sounds sooo familiar to the way white elites/politicians treated Indigenous populations since the dawn of American settlements. Not only that, but Vowell makes the correlation between the aggressive promoters of the annexation of Hawaii and the first settlers/leaders of New England. Both colonized with religious zeal, and flogging was the name of the day. Can all of this, these outrages piling up on top of outrages, be funny?

You betcha! But, as this isn’t the best of her work, it’s not evenly written. It starts with her usual flair for finding the Humor in the Absolutely Appalling, but as the work progresses, things start looking pretty dire for our history as Americans. I know, I know, there’s plenty to be proud of in being born American, but dang! do we come off as turds for the way we shaped our nation via Manifest Destiny. Original dwellers of those lands, beware! cuz we’re out to expand our way over your lives. So, what starts off as funny, increasingly becomes exhaustingly depLORable. Thank GOSH for the trademarked S. Vowell Zingers that round off pretty much each paragraph. PHEW!

The usual Cast o’ Thousands (Uhm, well, not thousands but PLENTY!) of narrators for her work are back for Unfamiliar Fishes. Once again I’m going to ding Catherine Keener (Who was a lamentably flat-toned Museum Director in Assassination Vacation) for her unenthusiastic “lines” here. I kinda sorta am not a fan of the Line Here, Line There form of narration, as it interrupts Vowell’s sarcastic flow. It’s odd, really: Famed actors and actresses toss off but a line or two of direct quote and then it’s back to Vowell for her musings and observations. So none of the narrators stand out cuz they’re baaarely there… uhm, except for Keener. Yes, she does a bland, un-lively missionary’s wife with perfect blandness… but seriously! PERFECT blandness! I admire her as an actress, but narrator? Not so much. -Still- the majority of narration is of course Vowell, and that’s just peachy keen to me. Yup, never woulda thunk it for a MILLION years that such a warbly, scraggly voice would charm the socks offa me, but there you are.

Wickedly funny with her One-Line Paragraph Wrap-Ups, wildly talented in her ability to frame History in a manner that peeves off many a Right-Winger (Which is to say: TOTALLY, unABASHedly from the Left, like, from an honest—from the Left’s—perspective), this offering is sure to either cause guffaws or boos.

I dunno, me? I think we all could use a little honesty in our lives… Anything that makes us kinder to our fellow man, ya know?!