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She tells us the history of a street corner in Chicago and then explains the lessons she learned from taking band in high school and from watching the movie the "Godfather."The end result is a very enjoyable series of essays that hold up even though they are 10 years old. She heads to Hoboken to discover the town where Frank Sinatra grew up. She spends a few days at the Chelsea Hotel where Sid Vicious might have killed Nancy Spungen.
You would expect that so much has changed that a book like this would be more like a history lesson than a view into America. The best part of that book is Vowell taking us on a tour of America and making the history she finds relevant to today. You would think that reading and reviewing a book written ten years ago about American culture might be tricky.
This is a gift that she carries into these short essays.Vowell takes us on a journey along the "Trail of Tears," as she travels the same path which her Cherokee ancestors were forced to travel when they were driven from their homes by Americans. If you have enjoyed reading Vowell's other books then I can heartily recommend this one. But surprisingly, in spite of all that has happened since the turn of the century, Vowell's essays are as true and as a vibrant as when she wrote them.
I have to admit that I am a fan of Vowell ever since I read her book Assassination Vacation.
Still, though, Sarah is a great writer, and her commentary is amusing and endearing at the same time. They're all very entertaining pieces, but I believe most of them were adapted from radio bits, and they aren't as deep or emotional as they could be. This book was a very enjoyable read. "Take the Cannoli" consists of a number of witty essays written by Sarah Vowell, who grew up in the middle of nowhere and went on to build a life for herself as a writer living in one of America's largest cities. These stories are largely autobiographical and chronicle Sarah's life and family, with some history lessons woven in as well.
She makes you think, laugh and enjoy yourself with introspection mixed in.well done Vowell. Even if you don't share her opinions, you understand her point without feeling like you are sacrificing your own. Vowell's book is definately a clever and witty delivery of truth. Some of it is her own truth through life experience.
It's also a bit dated, although that's entirely my fault for taking so long to discover Vowell. "I have intimate knowledge of what it was like to be young and uneasy and outraged under Reagan. When traveling on a road near her hometown, she relates that "only I know its topography with the intimacy that comes from leaning over every inch of it, carsick. I became a fan of Sarah Vowell after reading Assassination Vacation, and decided to go back and read her early works. I can't help but wonder if the grass grows so close to the shoulder because of my personal fertilizer crusade: I was a little Lady Bird Johnson of puke." I wish that Vowell wrote books a little quicker, but in the meantime, I'll have to content myself with reading her earlier works. In high school, Vowell wasn't exactly your average high school student.
She writes of being born in Oklahoma and raised in Montana, her twin sister and her parents, her education and her background (she's part Cherokee), her political beliefs and her interest in history, and especially her travels. But even The Trail of Tears is good for a few chuckles, at Vowell's expense. While her reflections on her Disney trip were funny, her take on The Trail of Tears poignant, sad and reflective. Many of them are downright funny, and Vowell has a wicked, self-deprecating wit. And if you didn't, you learned to seek relief where you could find it--and for me, that relief was with other black-clad malcontents who could quote defense-spending statistics even though we were barely passing algebra." Vowell is at her best when she chronicles her travels and two that I enjoyed were her trip to Disney World and her tracing the Cherokee Trail of Tears.
Take the Cannoli: Stories from the New World is very good although a bit short. My high school was 1980s in miniature--you either belonged or you didn't. I also enjoyed her escapes as a band geek. Take the Cannoli is a compilation of short stories that mostly deal with the author's life. The chapter on her trying to alter her appearance to become a "Goth" was a scream.
I love how she loves America, clear-eyed but without apology. While her most recent work, ASSASSINATION VACATION, has her at the top of her powers, this collection, interesting in itself, shows her getting there.Vowell begins by peeling back her youth as the liberal daughter of a Second Amendment gunsmith in Oklahoma and Montana; her life in high school band; and finally, growing up under the threat of doom held over her head by her family's Pentacostal religion and the Reagan administration's imagery of the evil empire and nuclear war. The strongest piece is the trip she takes with her twin sister Amy tracing the Trail of Tears their Cherokee ancestors were forced to march when President Andrew Jackson banished them from their own property. There a hilarious episode in which the creator of "This American Life," Ira Glass, tries to teach Vowell to drive.
Writer Sarah Vowell established a following on NPR's "This American Life" in explorations of the byroads of American culture as well as her own life. This collection of essays is often topical and thus some of them are a little dated, or at least ironic given more recent events. In that, you see Vowell learning to wrangle the kind of ambiguities that usually stop others in their tracks. Many of those pieces appear in TAKE THE CANNOLI in essay form alongside articles that originally appeared in print and online.
The second strongest piece in the collection is the essay from which she takes her title, an account of watching "The Godfather" religiously in college, hanging onto its simple imperatives in defense against the uncertain waves of diverse philosophy that swirl in academe. I'd really like to sit down with Vowell, to see what she thinks now. The collection reveals the growth of the writer, from insightful young talent to a person shedding the edges of youth for a mature perspective on herself and, especially, her relationship as an American with this world. She moves onto tours of Frank Sinatra's hometown, Hoboken, New Jersey; Disney World and Celebration, Florida; New York's infamous Chelsea Hotel; Rock and Roll Fantasy Camp; and Goth culture.
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