Sarah Vowell fills history with zingers
Sarah Vowell writes history without being a historian and makes you laugh without being a humorist. She is, by her own description, "just a writer" - a statement that shortchanges her notable contributions to public radio's This American Life and her distinctive voice, which sounds like a teenage slacker trapped inside the body of a 38-year-old.
In her five books, she has taken on her share of bleak subjects, such as the history of presidential assassinations, and infuses them with humor, yet her writing comes across more fresh than disrespectful.
Her new book, The Wordy Shipmates, is about the Puritans. She talked to us from her home in New York in advance of her appearance in Denver next week.
What interested you in the Puritans?
Hmmm. That's always the first question, and I answer it differently every time. I always loved to read their sermons, and so it was always in the back of mind that I'd like to write about them. A few events made me keep thinking of John Winthrop's sermon, "A Model of Christian Charity," the one we all know that gave us the image of the city on the hill.
The first event was the terrorist attacks in New York. My favorite part of Winthrop's sermon was the call for brotherhood when he asked his fellow colonists that we should be as members of the same body and mourn together and suffer together and rejoice together. In New York (after 9/11) it was unspeakably horrifying, but there was also this real kinship and, literally, we were breathing in the air that contained pieces of our fellow citizens, and it was just so strangely special because of the brotherly love at street level. And I turned to that sermon then because that part of it seemed so beautiful.
And then came the war and I was reminded of the idea of American exceptionalism, this idea that we are superior to other peoples and nations, and that the Indians wanted us to come over and help them. And that's fairly laughable because in the Pequot War, Massachusetts troops literally burned people alive. So this idea that we're here to help whether anybody wants our help or not really crystallized for me after Ronald Reagan's funeral and watching the association Reagan had with Winthrop's sermon because of the association with Winthrop's image of the "city on the hill" and the part of the sermon about how all eyes are upon us. It was a couple of weeks after the Abu Ghraib photos came out, and it was just so strange. It all just came crashing in on me at that moment....
Read entire article at Rocky Mountain News
In her five books, she has taken on her share of bleak subjects, such as the history of presidential assassinations, and infuses them with humor, yet her writing comes across more fresh than disrespectful.
Her new book, The Wordy Shipmates, is about the Puritans. She talked to us from her home in New York in advance of her appearance in Denver next week.
What interested you in the Puritans?
Hmmm. That's always the first question, and I answer it differently every time. I always loved to read their sermons, and so it was always in the back of mind that I'd like to write about them. A few events made me keep thinking of John Winthrop's sermon, "A Model of Christian Charity," the one we all know that gave us the image of the city on the hill.
The first event was the terrorist attacks in New York. My favorite part of Winthrop's sermon was the call for brotherhood when he asked his fellow colonists that we should be as members of the same body and mourn together and suffer together and rejoice together. In New York (after 9/11) it was unspeakably horrifying, but there was also this real kinship and, literally, we were breathing in the air that contained pieces of our fellow citizens, and it was just so strangely special because of the brotherly love at street level. And I turned to that sermon then because that part of it seemed so beautiful.
And then came the war and I was reminded of the idea of American exceptionalism, this idea that we are superior to other peoples and nations, and that the Indians wanted us to come over and help them. And that's fairly laughable because in the Pequot War, Massachusetts troops literally burned people alive. So this idea that we're here to help whether anybody wants our help or not really crystallized for me after Ronald Reagan's funeral and watching the association Reagan had with Winthrop's sermon because of the association with Winthrop's image of the "city on the hill" and the part of the sermon about how all eyes are upon us. It was a couple of weeks after the Abu Ghraib photos came out, and it was just so strange. It all just came crashing in on me at that moment....