Dave Barry Slept Here - Dave Barry

   1989; 192 pages.  Full Title: Dave Barry Slept Here: A Sort of History of the United States.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Historical Humor; Parody; Political Humor.  Overall Rating : 7½*/10.

 

    Here’s a little history question for you: name the three ships that comprised Columbus’s fleet when he sailed west to discover the New World in 1492.

 

    If you answered “who’s Columbus?”, your knowledge of American history is, sadly, probably about average.

 

    If you answered “the Good Ship Lollipop, HMS Pinafore, and the Starship Enterprise”, you’ve been watching too much TV.

 

    If you answered “the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria”, you are absolutely correct.  Give yourself a pat on the back.

 

    And if you answered “the Ninja, the Pina Colada, and the Heidy-Ho III, you’ve read Dave Barry’s book Dave Barry Slept Here, and you’re to be commended for your excellent literary tastes.

 

What’s To Like...

    Dave Barry turns his witty and comedic eye on your old and boring American History class in Dave Barry Slept Here, using 21 chapters (plus a great introduction wherein you will learn the significance of October 8th) to cover a timeline starting with the original settlers coming across the land bridge from Asia during the last Ice Age all the way up to the present day, which in this case, since this book was published in 1989, was the 1988 presidential election.

 

    The emphasis here is on silliness and humor; if you have a history exam tomorrow, you really shouldn’t use this book as your pseudo “Cliff Notes”.  There’s a smattering of maps and graphs, and a whole bunch of footnotes, the latter of which would make even the late, great Terry Pratchett proud.  Each chapter closes with a couple of “Discussion Questions” which are much more interesting than those that were in your musty old history textbook.

 

    I liked the attention given to “historical details” even if they are mostly figments of the author's imagination.  The Bill of Rights is presented in easy-to-understand lingo.  Light is shed on the sex scene between James Madison and the Federalist Papers, which might motivate me to read that tome.  It was nice to see e.e. “buster” cummings get mentioned; ditto for “Senator Sam” Ervin (D – Okeefenokee) of Watergate fame.  It was enlightening to learn about the British (and factual) “cock-a-leeky-soup” and the translation of the Spanish name “Juan Ponce de Leon”, which in English we are assured is “John punched the Lion”.  Finally, we would be remiss if we didn’t point out the special attention the book gives to the contributions of women and minority groups.

 

    Interwoven among all the fun-&-games are some subtle political jibes, including some eerie prescience about someone who would become president long after this book was published.  Nevertheless, the amount of enjoyment you get from reading Dave Barry Slept Here will most likely depend on how much interest you have in American History and to what degree your sense of humor can tolerate pure silliness.  

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.3/5 based on 258 ratings.

    Goodreads: 3.90/5 based on 5,568 ratings and 238 reviews

 

Excerpts...

    This book does not waste the reader’s valuable brain cells with such trivial details as when various events actually occurred.  Oh, sure, it contains many exact dates – it is, after all, a history book – but you will notice that we have tried to make these dates as easy as possible to remember by making them all start with “October 8”, as in “October 8, 1729” or “October 8, 1953”.  We chose this particular date after carefully weighing a number of important historical criteria, such as (a) it is our son’s birthday.  (loc. 99)

 

    The first major president to be elected after the War of 1812 was President Monroe Doctrine, who became famous by developing the policy for which he is named.  This policy, which is still in effect today, states that:

    1. Other nations are not allowed to mess around with the internal affairs of nations in this hemisphere.

    2. But we are.

    3. Ha-ha-ha.  (loc. 746)

 

“Ask not what your country cannot do that you cannot do, nor what cannot be done by neither you nor your country, whichever is greater.”  (loc. 1600)

    I can’t find much to quibble about in Dave Barry Slept Here.  There’s only a smidgen of cusswords in the book (16 in the first 50%, of which a dozen were the rather mild “hell”), but even that surprised me a bit, since I don’t recall his newspaper columns containing any.

 

    Dave Barry pokes fun at politicians of both parties, but if you happen to tilt towards the right, I predict you’ll take umbrage at some of his points, particularly the utterly senseless invasion of Grenada, which at the time of the book’s publication was a recent event.

 

    Finally, the book skips over the details of all the wars in United States’ history because, let’s face it, there’s nothing funny about killing and shooting.  Still, learning about wars happened to be the favorite part of my American History classes, much more interesting than studying things like stock market crashes the invention of the cotton gin.

 

    Dave Barry Slept Here is a short (192 pages), fast, easy, and delightfully funny read.  It may be unsuitable for your history class, but if it’s 8 o’clock at night and you have a book report due tomorrow, and you haven’t even started reading something yet, this book may be a GPA-saver for you.

 

    7½ Stars.  This madcap approach to spoofing history has been done before, by an author I thoroughly enjoyed in my teenage days, Richard Armour.  A few years back I reread the book he wrote about US history, It All Started With Columbus, and I've reviewed it here.  If Dave Barry Slept Here tickles your fancy, you might go looking for some of Armour’s books.  Be forewarned though, they seem to be few and far between in used-book stores.