The Wordy Shipmates
Sarah Vowell offers her witty take on the Puritans who settled the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630.
Sarah Vowell, a popular contributor to public radio鈥檚 鈥�This American Life,鈥� is an American-history buff with a self-proclaimed predilection for Puritan New England, the Civil War, and bloodbaths. Hers is emphatically not the history taught in high school 鈥� often a target of her sarcastic wit.
Her last book, 鈥淎ssassination Vacation,鈥� chronicled a quirky road trip stalking the murder sites 鈥� now tourist pit stops 鈥� of Presidents Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley.
Vowell is a master of the unexpected angle or pop-culture connection used to confer fresh relevance on often dowdy subjects.
In her new book, The Wordy Shipmates, one of her more outrageous parallels compares the Pequot war, in which 700 Indians were murdered in Mystic Fort, with a frustrated skateboarder鈥檚 鈥渄estructive tantrum.鈥�
Vowell鈥檚 eponymous shipmates are the Puritans who settled the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630 鈥� 10 years after the聽 Mayflower Pilgrims settled Plymouth.
Why should we be interested in Protestants who fled Charles I during the Great Migration? Because 鈥渢he country I live in is haunted by the Puritans鈥� vision of themselves as God鈥檚 chosen people, as a beacon of righteousness that all others are to admire,鈥� Vowell writes.
What Vowell finds worrisome is that we have lost the Puritans鈥� humility and fear of God, which kept their egotism and delusions of grandeur in check.聽 Even more troubling, we have also lost their respect for learning.聽 Vowell asserts that the United States has veered away from the original bookishness of the Bay Colony in favor of the anti-intellectual, more emotional religion now practiced in America.
She writes, 鈥淭he United States is often called a Puritan nation.聽 Well, here is one way in which it emphatically is not: Puritan lives were overwhelmingly, fantastically literary.聽 Their singleminded obsession with one book, the Bible, made words the center of their lives 鈥� not land, not money, not power, not fun. I swear on Peter Stuyvesant鈥檚 peg leg that the country that became the U.S. bears a closer family resemblance to the devil-may-care merchants of New Amsterdam than it does to Boston鈥檚 communitarian English majors.鈥�
How did this happen? Relying on the voluminous paper trail left by the 鈥渜uill-crazy New Englanders,鈥� 鈥淭he Wordy Shipmates鈥� traces the 鈥渕icroscopic theological differences鈥� among the Massachusetts Bay Colonists that led to 鈥渁 dangerous disregard for expertise鈥� in American society today.
Vowell鈥檚 fundamental concern in teasing out these nitpicky squabbles, as it has been in much of her writing, is what she characterized in her 2002 essay collection 鈥淭he Partly Cloudy Patriot鈥� as 鈥渢he conflict between freedom and community, between individual will and the public good.鈥�
No slouch in the verbiage department herself, Vowell spills much ink articulating both her admiration and approbation for such early Bay colonists as John Winthrop, Roger Williams, Henry Vane, and Anne Hutchinson.
She waxes ecstatic over Winthrop鈥檚 sermon, 鈥淎 Model of 海角大神 Charity,鈥� with its model of a 鈥渃ity on the hill鈥� (to which Ronald Reagan added the adjective 鈥渟hining鈥�).
All glibness dropped, she confesses movingly that in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, she found comfort in Winthrop鈥檚 words.
Roger Williams, whom Winthrop banished to Providence, is described as 鈥渢oo theologically intense鈥� even for Massachusetts Bay. He鈥檚 鈥渁 sort of proto-Thomas Jefferson鈥� or better, an 鈥渦n-Jefferson, a man who devotes his life to keeping government out of the church 鈥� not the other way around,鈥� a proponent of the First Amendment 156 years before it was ratified.
Vowell declares him 鈥渉ard to like, but easy to love,鈥� and adds, hilariously, 鈥淚 just feel sorry for him that he lived in an age before air quotes.鈥�
Fair warning: Lacking chapter divisions and filled with arcane, hairsplitting religious distinctions, 鈥淭he Wordy Shipmates鈥� is, despite Vowell鈥檚 lively, insightful prose, heavier navigating than her more personal essay collections.
That said, it is also a painfully relevant book, a passionate secularist鈥檚 argument for why the fine print matters.
As Vowell reminds us in her discussion of the Rev. John Cotton鈥檚 1630 send-off sermon to the Puritans, 鈥淸T]alk like this is the match still lighting the fuse of a thousand car bombs.鈥�
Heller McAlpin, a freelance critic in New York, is a regular contributor to the Monitor鈥檚 Book pages.