Hawaiian Punch

Book Quarterly Reviews

by Lee Stabert

"Why is there a glop of macaroni salad next to the Japanese chicken in my lunch plate?" asks Sarah Vowell as an entrée to her latest, Unfamiliar Fishes, an examination of the colonial history of Hawaii and how it led to the archipelago's complex and occasionally incongruous melting pot of cultures.

A frequent contributor to This American Life and Public Radio International, Vowell is more of an essayist than a straight historian. With this book, you could even say she's a tour guide — a great one, armed with an engaging personality, razor wit and hordes of carefully considered research. People who like their nonfiction more fact-focused and less colorful won't find much to love in this meandering narrative (haters of ribbing Protestant prudishness need not apply). But for those who appreciate a little levity with their accounts of crushing cultural hegemony and destruction, Vowell's voice sings.

It helps to have such well-chosen subject matter. Vowell reminds us (more than once) that we now have a Hawaiian-born president — a fact that becomes more and more impressive as she details the transition of the island chain from trade station to missionary outpost to imperial object of desire. Along the way, traditional Hawaiian culture rubs up against the cultural ideals (and various diseases) of waves of sea-worthy Americans and Europeans. Some things survive the contact; others not so much.

The history itself is engrossing, replete with misbegotten monarchies, shocking political maneuvers, premature deaths and a whole lot of incest (in traditional Hawaiian culture, the highest kings were the result of couplings between siblings). There remains something astounding about the changes global trade and imperialism brought to societies that had remained relatively stable for hundreds or even thousands of years. The impacts of war and disease were staggering. Consider this: By 1890, there were only 40,000 pure-blood Hawaiian natives left, compared to a minimum of 300,000 upon the arrival of Captain Cook in 1778.

Vowell isn't shy about integrating the story of her own sojourn on the islands into the narrative: treacherous hikes, illuminating interviews, her young nephew's amusing observations, that delicious and curious lunch plate. She also delves a bit into her personal history (she is part Cherokee), connecting the parallel — some might even say universal — plight of native people under the duress of missionary zeal and manifest destiny.

(editorial@citypaper.net)

Riverhead, 256 pp., $25.95, March 22.