Strange Little Funny Man Hits One Out of the Park...Again
Once you've heard the voice of David Sedaris, you can't unhear it.
The experience of reading anything he writes is only improved for it, too, because nobody reads David Sedaris like David Sedaris. Even in my own head.
I kept waiting to think that any of the essays in When You Are Engulfed In Flames was a party trick, or that he was going through the motions. But he wasn't. Dude's just strange and funny. Who else can get away with a description of his chaffed butt, post-foam butt enhancer use, as looking like a "rusted coin slot"?
The worst thing about this collection is that I had to read it in the living room instead of in bed at night because I would start snorting and laughing and then I couldn't stop and then I'd wake TWGH up and then he'd want to know what was so funny and you just can't explain these things, they have to be read and I didn't want to share.
The best thing about the stories is that they are not just funny bits. They are more like the product of sociological excavation - a little Japan, a little France, a little family - all through an honest, and funny, though arguably a little unusual, lens.
I'm not going to say much more. Just read it. In the living room.
The experience of reading anything he writes is only improved for it, too, because nobody reads David Sedaris like David Sedaris. Even in my own head.
I kept waiting to think that any of the essays in When You Are Engulfed In Flames was a party trick, or that he was going through the motions. But he wasn't. Dude's just strange and funny. Who else can get away with a description of his chaffed butt, post-foam butt enhancer use, as looking like a "rusted coin slot"?
The worst thing about this collection is that I had to read it in the living room instead of in bed at night because I would start snorting and laughing and then I couldn't stop and then I'd wake TWGH up and then he'd want to know what was so funny and you just can't explain these things, they have to be read and I didn't want to share.
The best thing about the stories is that they are not just funny bits. They are more like the product of sociological excavation - a little Japan, a little France, a little family - all through an honest, and funny, though arguably a little unusual, lens.
I'm not going to say much more. Just read it. In the living room.
The first time I read Naked, in 1998, I was in the midst of an engulfing depression. Seriously, I was approaching catatonia. But being that I worked in a bookstore and I heard such great things, I had to stretch out of my sadness and read. I read it in the airport on the way to a family trip to Ireland. He made me laugh out loud, so many times, that you would have thought I had been suddenly hooked up to an SSRI IV. He transported me out of my depression, for those brief shining moments. And when you know my history, it's pretty damn near miraculous. I'm looking forward to reading this one, too.
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