The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Wordy Shipmates
Book Review: History made easy
Summary: 4 Stars
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
What you were taught in school about the Puritans and the settling of the Massachusetts Bay Colony is mostly bunk. There's a grain of truth in the "fled England to escape religious persecution", but only a grain. They believed in religious freedom - if you believed as they did. They were a bunch of contrary, ornery, fascinating folk.
Vowell's book brings to life these people who live in dry and dusty textbooks, warts and all. She does so with style and mordant humor. An excellent and enjoyable read.
Book Review: History with a twist
Summary: 4 Stars
Sarah Vowell has a great grasp of the fine details of our first Puritan leaders. She presents them with wit and often interjects modern day leaders and their philosophical relationship to these early colonists. One gets real insight into what those ancient folks believed and how our early history actually unfolded. A very interesting book!
Book Review: I liked it, but this book has flaws
Summary: 4 Stars
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
The Wordy Shipmates is my first Sarah Vowell book. To be perfectly honest, I have never heard of her before. Therefore, I was in for a surprise. I assumed I was going to get a straight, scholarship-filled book about the Massachusetts Bay Puritans (as opposed to the more famous Plymouth ones). Instead, I found myself in the midst of an amusing armchair history with an interest in linking the past with the present.
Vowell takes us on an amusing, yet literate, journey through the first decade or so of the Colony's first years, focusing on politics, ego and struggle. John Winthrop, the first governor of the Colony, is the central historical figure of the book. His vision of a magnificent Puritan "city upon a hill" is the central metaphor of the book, and one which Ronald Reagan exploited while he was president of the United States. Winthrop's chief adversaries are Roger Williams, the banished theologian who founded the Rhode Island Colony, Anne Hutchinson, a housewife turned unauthorized Puritan minister (also banished), and the Pequot Indians (mostly destroyed).
While amusing and informative, The Wordy Shipmates fails when it attempts to link the present with the past. Vowell succeeds at first: her initial focus on religion and strict mores strikes a powerful chord between our post-September 11th world and Puritan fanaticism. But Vowell only makes the connection briefly and fails to link the two eras passed that, save the aforementioned Reagan. This weakness becomes quite obvious in the final pages of the book. Vowell suddenly calls upon the ghost of JFK, who also used the "city upon the hill" metaphor, and then suddenly ends the book. It is almost as if Vowell was tired of trying to link her beloved Pilgrims with the present and decided to hand in her manuscript and grab some chai.
This weakness, however, did not limit my enjoyment of the book. I found the story of the Colony and its characters fascinating, and Vowell successfully brought their world to life in our own.
Book Review: Interesting history, but a bit too "wordy"
Summary: 3 Stars
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
I've been a longtime fan of Sarah Vowell. Unfortunately, this isn't my favorite book of hers. What I really love about her other books is that I can pick them up, read a chapter or two, put it down and come back to it a couple of weeks or months later and read a little more. The chapters tend to be self-contained little stories. She dives in for a little taste of something, explores it, add some anecdotes and then moves on. This book is different in that it's all one in depth look at the Massachusetts Bay Puritans, well, more specifically, one of those Puritans (Winthrop).
Before this book, I was not very familiar with the subject, but I love history so I enjoyed learning more about the Puritans. It's just that it's a little too much. This would have been better as a shorter piece in one of her books covering several subjects. It's great history, it's just a little more in depth than I really needed.
Book Review: Interesting, Insightful and Sometimes Humorous Book about Puritans
Summary: 4 Stars
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
First of all, I have not read any Sarah Vowell before, although I would definitely like to read more after reading this book. I am familiar with her from NPR and other programs, so I had an idea what to expect. Overall, Vowell does not disappoint, and I learned a lot about some of the lesser-known Puritans of our country's past.
This non-fiction book focuses on the Puritans who left England under the leadership of John Winthrop to found the Massachusetts Bay Colony and what would become Boston. (These aren't your Thanksgiving/Plymouth Puritans.) Vowell's main "character" is John Winthrop, and most of what she discusses has a connection with him. She covers a lot of territory, from the departure from England to the first tough year to the colony's struggle with people on the fringe (such as Anne Hutchinson and Roger Williams, Puritans with views too extreme to stay in the colony) to complicated relations with Native Americans (including a very disturbing massacre).
The book is chock full of information, but is not too wordy (ironically enough). Vowell exercises her sense of humor and sarcasm expertly, and it really kept the narrative interesting and engaging. I could hear her voice in my head as I read it. As other readers pointed out, Vowell does connect events and ideas in the book with modern times, but I did not find this approach overly anti-religious or anti-conservative. It is clear what side of the line Vowell falls on, but I don't think it tainted the book in any way, and I really found the connections and implications of our history very interesting. My one point of criticism, and this may have been corrected once the book was edited for final printing, was that there were no chapters or sections. The narrative was kind of chunked together, and although it flowed well, I think I would have liked to see things separated by chapters or sections, just to be able to organize what I was reading better in my mind. That's really a pretty minor criticism.
I was very impressed with this book and enjoyed it a lot. I have a feeling that some of Vowell's other books may be even better, and I can't wait to check them out.