It is not difficult to comprehend why Sarah Vowell chose to title her book The Wordy Shipmates. There were a whole lot of people who came over to America on ships together; that's the shipmates part. From the beginning, Vowell stresses their fervor for reading and writing. "Quill-crazy New Englanders," she calls them on page 13. However appropriate the title may be, I found it very off-putting. It gives the impression that the book is going to be dry and boring. A wordy book? God forbid!
I soon found myself to be mistaken. Vowell made her writing as engaging as she possibly could, like one of those wonderful sorts of teachers who can make the most boring of lessons into an adventure. Now, that's not to say that I liked it. I personally do not have an enormous issue with reading things which initially seem boring, because once the first hundred pages are past it's often difficult to put the book down. This book was not like that. While Vowell wrote well, I found myself laying my copy down with a feeling almost like disgust, until about 75 pages in when I began to get used to it. It didn't feel like she was taking herself seriously enough. It was clear that Vowell was an expert on the subject, but her work did not come out scholarly. Not Cadwellian enough. She jumped around too much and made pop culture references that not everyone would get, causing a fairly simple history-line to become confusing. It felt like she was trying too hard, and dumbing things down.
It's something that a lot of people do these days: make themselves seem a lot less intelligent than they really are in order to be more liked by people. The thing is, the sort of people that you should really want to be liked by are those who would admire that intelligence in its full form. Vowell seems to have written her book in the former style. Who was Vowell even writing this book for, anyway? Was it some weird memoir-slash-history lesson? Was it for adults who feel a dearth of knowledge about the early white settlers and wish to brush up? Was it for history-resistant teens who would be intrigued by outdated pop culture and some lady's opinions? It is hard to say.
My analysis sounds harsh, but for the most part I did end up getting over my negative feelings towards the book. From some people I've heard that it's terrible, but I fall into the category of people who think it isn't all that bad, especially for a school book. I would not recommend it, but I do feel like it was worth my time for the most part, and the informational content was eye-opening -- but that's for another post.
Anna, I absolutely love your post (especially the reference to Ms. Cadwell). Your use of humor and your writing style make it flow as if we were having a conversation. What you said about Vowell "dumbing things down" is true. The thought hadn't really passed beyond my subconscious before, but now that you've said it, it makes sense. Who exactly is Sarah Vowell writing this book for? The writing style suggests teens or people who enjoy a good laugh along with some light reading, but neither of those exactly fit the subject of the book. We read it because it was assigned for school, but if I had seen The Wordy Shipmates in a bookstore the most I would have done is picked it up to read the back, then hastily return it to its place. I'm sure she was trying to make the material more relatable by adding humor and modern day references, but by doing so she lost sophistication and like you said, made the book less scholarly.
ReplyDeleteAnna,
ReplyDeletei appreciate you comment about Vowell "dumbing things down" while not entirely agreeing with it. Sarah Vowell has a very iconoclastic view of the world, but there is a keen intelligence behind it all. I think.
By the way, power to you for being willing to give a book the benefit of doubt for 100 pages