Take the Cannoli

My introduction to Sarah Vowell's work was kind of like when a friend of yours ("A") introduces you to another friend of theirs ("B") whom you've never met before, but A thinks you and B will get along splendidly. Such was my mindset in approaching this book: my dad, who gave me this book for Christmas, thought I would appreciate Sarah's insights and the way she writes. She is said to have a sharp, wry sense of humour, but not without a sympathetic side. I would tend to place myself in that kind of camp, so I had reasonably elevated expectations for this book, and happily my expectations were met. This is a great book.

The stories in this collection cover a wide variety of topics: Sarah shooting cannons with her dad, travelling the Trail show more of Tears with her sister, musing about the appeal of Frank Sinatra, exploring Goth culture, and recounting her obsession with The Godfather. Sarah writes very well, with very smooth sentences that flow by so quickly you don't realize you've read 100 pages already until you're interrupted. She's funny, but not often laugh-out-loud funny. Actually, I found myself nodding in agreement much more often than I laughed. I was enjoying the book perfectly well, but what really sold me on Sarah's work was the essay entitled "Drive Through Please".

This essay is about Sarah's fear of driving, and how it took her until the age of 28 to even contemplate learning how to drive properly. I too am terrified of the idea of driving, but Sarah expresses it far better than I could, especially when she talks about the contempt that people in our car-obsessed culture often display toward those of us who choose not to drive:

In the United States of America, ... if you have reached the age of seventeen without obtaining a driver's licence, you get used to The Look. Once a new acquaintance watches you buy beer with a passport, that person will ogle you with the kind of condescending, frightened glance usually reserved for unwed pregnant teenagers. Like you're not a person but instead a kind of sociological statistic, sucking the taxpayers with your moochy demands of food stamps and public transportation. I have seen that look. And, walking home from the grocery store laden with plastic bags, I have heard the voice, too, the voice screaming from the window of a Honda, graciously advising me to "get a f*cking car".

Later on, when she was finally learning how to drive, the part where she first encountered other cars on the road reminded me of my own aborted attempts at driving. "I have problems of my own without worrying about the other drivers," she says, and that pretty much sums up how I felt those few times I did actually drive a car. It sounds kind of trite to say, but Sarah really did speak to me with that piece.

Anyway, I shall conclude by saying that with the variety of topics Sarah covers in this book, there's bound to be something you identify with or at least feel strongly about, even if it comes in the form of disagreement. As for me, I've made a new literary friend and will happily spend more time with her work in future. show less

Take the Cannoli: Stories From the New World - Sarah Vowell   I can already tell I'm going to want to read this again. Essays, I love them. Plus, in my mind, I can hear Vowell as she must have sounded on This American Life, which is where most of these began. There's a few bits of growing-up interspersed throughout, a lot of history, the blackest of humor. Great stuff, perhaps especially on the Trail of Tears and how many different emotions that trip spawned.
So much humor, though.
On the one hand, I think Vowell would be an awesome friend to hang with, laughing at Choo-Choo and working it into every comment because of the way it sounds ("spleen" is a personal fave) on the other, she would someday drag me along on the least appealing show more road trip ever. Hotspots of the Teapot Dome scandal? Tippecanoe? Some other phrase I only dimly recall from American history, but can't actually place in time or space? She's already done The Hall of Presidents, so I'd be clear of that one. Yet no matter how little the idea would appeal to me, she'd make it fascinating: full of humor and humanity. Maybe we can just get her and Kate Beaton and Bill Bryson to filter all of history for us?
Library copy show less

I have been a fan of Sarah Vowell since hearing her little girl fights squeaky door voice on NPR a decade ago or more. Upon hearing her voice delivering one of her essays, it is virtually impossible not to hear it as you read her. While the voice is unique, it is the flow that really stays with you. As a reader, you know where the pauses fit and why and where to rush ahead a little before catching your breathe again after a well delivered punch line. Essays about her childhood invariably touch on some aspect of American history, while her essays about history reveal that America is a family that we are all a part of for better or ill. She has a great way to sum up the often conflicting emotions we have about families and history in her show more essay about the forced Indian migration known as The Trail of Tears: "When I think about my relationship with America, I feel like a battered wife. Yeah, he knocks me around a lot, but boy, he sure can dance." This book TAKE THE CANNOLI is a collection of her earlier works. Some I had heard on the radio but I did not mind visiting them again. Though the work is often topical, it does not suffer with the passing of time or the passing away of cultural reference points. This is a testament to the precision of her prose. She stays with the humorous marrow even when the flesh has been gleaned from the historical bones. Highly recommend anything she has written though this is probably more accessible than some of her more history centric works like THE PARTLY CLOUDY PATRIOT and THE WORDY SHIPMATES--both of which I love. show less

Reading Sarah Vowell always inspires in me the same reaction as watching/listening to a really cool kid did in high school (or, okay, now): I desperately want to *hang* with her. (Especially because she's also friends with fellow essayist David Rakoff, whom I adore; one of the pieces in this collection is about the two of them going to DisneyWorld, and I had resist the temptation to leap up from my couch, waving my hand and crying: 'Ooh, take me! Take me, too!') In these essays about growing up/living in America and trying to make sense of American history and culture, Vowell captures the spirit and soul of (this often impossibly fucked up) country in a way that's remarkably close to the way I see it—remarkable, among other reasons, show more because Vowell's experiences are mostly based around living in Oklahoma, Montana, and Chicago, and mine around Vermont and California. It's nice to think that there are still some aspects of American life that can be seen as inclusive, red state or blue, and though Vowell (quite rightly) doesn't gloss over any of the nation's nastier aspects, she treats all her subjects with respect and humor—qualities we could certainly use more of. show less

A collection of autobiographical essays about eulogizing Frank Sinatra, following the Trail of Tears, The Godfather, insomnia, the art of making mix tapes, and loads more besides. It's very much about life as an American but with neither the fawning grandiosity nor the abject scorn so common in other essays of this type. I'm a tad jealous of her opportunities to travel to interesting places, but I am (mostly) content to visit them vicariously. There were a few times when I wondered how an essay would have gone had it been written today (specifically post-9/11, but in other ways too). I enjoy Vowell's style of writing and will have to pick up her other books at some point.

Solid essay collection with the candor & snark I love from Vowell. Seems I just prefer her longer form books on singular themes/topics over the grab-bag.

A collection of Vowell's essays culled from several magazine/newspaper columns and This American Life, this is one of those books that is difficult for me to rate.

On the one hand, I found her dry humour entertaining, but on the other, I'm not a fan of cynicism in general, and Vowell's weaponised form often taxed my patience.

She and I are the same age, but our childhoods did not share much in the way of common experiences, and we definitely don't share a common political view. I was, in fact, incredulous that she referred to perjury on the part of a president as a "fib". But we do share a deep, abiding love for our country even when it disappoints and horrifies us.

The essays I connected with, or enjoyed most were the ones where she show more was able to put her disaffected persona to the side (or at least mute it) and talk about those experiences common to most everybody: battles with insomnia, her experiences at the rock and roll camp, learning to drive. There's an essay about Chicago that is brilliant and even though I think she let herself get in her own way, her piece on the Trail of Tears was devastating and moving.

So even though I can't say I loved this work, it's only because I was unable to find enough common ground to do so. But I do think Vowell is an excellent writer and I'd happily read more of her work; she has a book on famous assassinations I've had my eye on for some time now that I'm definitely going to hunt down.

I read this book for my final Free Friday read; it was 209 pages. show less