![]() ![]() (She might feel a kinship with them the life of a researcher is much like that of an ascetic.) But toward the end of the book, as the missionaries are pushed from the narrative by larger forces of politics and commerce, she loses some enthusiasm, and lapses into standard "This, then That" historical narrative. And yet at the same time she admires the courage that sent them around the globe to re-create Connecticut in Honolulu. Vowell seems horrified by the zeal of the American missionaries, who repressed all worldly pleasure in themselves - and others - in exchange for God's glory to come. ![]() We talk about a "writer's voice," but in Vowell's case, that seems literal - not only because we know the sound of hers so well, but because her writing seems like a transcript of a breathless report on her latest research, delivered over coffee, funny and opinionated and spackled with fascinating facts - did you know whale oil was used in the Apollo spacecrafts? She does. ![]()
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