Although I think that most people believe that they have the powers within themselves to write a book, very few actually do. Do it, that is. It being taking the keyboard to the mattresses. I suppose I have a silly romantic notion of being all hermited-up and bound in a small cabin in some wild woods with nothing but my smith-corona and reams of paper and plenty of ribbon.
However, the likelihood of this happening is about as likely as me actually writing a book, which is to say not fucking likely. There are some people on the planet who manage to wrap words into sentences and paste those unto pages. Sarah Vowell seems to be of this ilk in spades.
I first encountered her on This American Life. This is probably a common experience. Once you have been exposed to the infectious voice and the powerful story-telling of her persona, well, let’s just say you will be word-nerd-crushed, too.
But her two books of that I have read, The Wordy Shipmates and Assassination Vacation, expose the historian in her. Which is to say that tweed jackets all over the East Coast are uncomfortably covering a rustling khaki embarrassment.
The greater portion of this lovely jaunt through 17th century Puritan New England focuses on a few different characters that I did not remember enough about from US history classes. Such as the anti-pragmatist Roger Williams, or the more level-headed yet misogynistic John Winthrop, or the Rev. John Cotton caught between the ecumenical battle for the beginning of the English colonies.
Vowell has a terrible streak of pop sensibilities mingled with a strong and natural prosaic style. Accordingly, I cannot seem to separate her unique voice from her written word. For better or for worse she is easily recognizable in radio and print.
But quickly rejoining the pop sensibilities comment; it drives me crazy through most of the book. What works so well on radio, the delineation of known but incorrect American historical bias coupled with short, contemporary pot-shots at the major sources of interest in the book … well … works damn well on the printed page, too. Although at times I am rather tongue-clickity at it.
But this works for effect and power throughout a majority of this book. Beginning the journey with Winthrop and Cotton and ending it with Anne Hutchinson and finally JFK is a lovely gesture. Vowell works endlessly for the reader to have a full house by the end of the story. And here she is exceedingly successful.
I knew I was in good hands after reading the following passage:
[...] there are actually a surprising number of sitcoms that have done episodes set in the seventeenth-century New England. (p 19)
Somewhere in the decrepitude of my tv-embroiled memory I knew this. But here she helps point out this fact that has rittled and rattled around my brain for at least thirty years. Social commentariat indeed.
The refreshing bits also revolve around Vowell’s dealing with religion and another main character in the book: God. God’s whole place in the matter reminds me of some sort of genetic re-fusion of Statler and Waldorf into one character and one hand peering down from heaven in vigil over the whole ordeal.
Mahna Mahna.
Vowell’s treatment of Cotton’s and William’s moral wood-pulp-based arguments is a lovely moment of humor. I will let her actual quote stand waiting in the text, but search around page one hundred and seventy something.
Certainly I had a qualm that wasn’t satisfied until the end of the book. Word nerd alert: I wish she would annotate her quotes with a greater degree of accomplishment rather than just a mild bibliography.
But the end does wrap up rather nicely. Anne Hutchinson’s appearance and coverage is somewhat lacking, but it is not difficult to find documentation for her life. John Winthrop seems to be the final motivation for writing this book.
This is a sappy way to put it, but the Winthrop who warns Williams is the Winthrop I fell in love with, the Winthrop Cotton Mather celebrates for sharing his firewood with the needy, the Winthrop who scolds Thomas Dudley for overcharging the poor, the Winthrop of “Christian Charity,” who called for “enlargement toward others” and “brotherly affection,” admonishing that “if thy brother be in want and thou canst help him … if thou lovest God thou must help him.” (p 145)
I’m not a Christian. I haven’t defected from being raised a Pentecostalist or a Protestant or Catholic. My folks raised me in the summer camp of existentialism. But here Vowell broke down a gate for me personally. I’m angry, mean-spirited and a believer of the Leaden Rule. But for a moment her laundry list of love and affection for this Puritan had me circumambulating Winthrop, too.
sources:
Vowell, Sarah. The Wordy Shipmates. New York: Riverhead Hardcover, 2008.