Ah, David Sedaris. I was thrilled to have Me Talk Pretty One Day come up in my book club’s rotation, because I originally read it back in 2001 during a self-imposed Sedaris marathon. Two of his other books have been reviewed by me already: Naked and Barrel Fever. I read Me Talk Pretty One Day in between those two. Reading it again 3 years later, after having figured out what great reading really is (At Swim, Two Boys and In The City of Shy Hunters), was a great opportunity to determine whether Sedaris held up next to the best authors or if he suffers over time like Dave Pallone.
In short, Sedaris holds up. This book’s 28 stories and 247 pages required about a day to re-read. It ranks higher than Barrel Fever but not as high as Naked. The book is split into two major sections; part one includes his signature material: autobiographical entries that more or less follow along in chronological order, bits plucked from the timeline of a most fascinating man raised from a most fascinating family. Unfortunately, the best character in this lineup—his mother—is almost absent, giving only minor quips where needed. Her absence is painful. Possibly because she was so well covered in Naked, there was nothing new to add. Too bad. Still, Dad and siblings Amy, Gretchen, and Paul make comebacks.
Part “deux” continues as an autobiography, but is very focused on his life in Paris and the buildup to getting there, including his learning of the French language. Sedaris is on his own now, and although the family fades away, his boyfriend Hugh, who was only merely hinted at in earlier works, is now getting quite a bit more coverage. Still, there are 9 months missing between their meeting and their living together, which irritates me, but then it is in keeping with the pattern I’ve seen from comic writers who avoid all of the honeymoon and first kiss business.
One may ask, however, if Sedaris really is a comic writer. I guess it depends. If I had read only “Jesus Shaves”, where Sedaris and the rest of his French class are trying to explain (in French but literally translated for us) the concept of Easter to a Moroccan student, I’d say he was a comic writer indeed. This was one of 3 or 4 stories that I found screamingly funny. Sedaris is a bit like Dave Barry: at first, the writing style itself is very ticklish, but after a while, you grow accustomed to it and expect it.
Some of these stories were certainly written to be funny, and most work. Some though, are not; they seem to be more “bully pulpit” exercises. Luckily, though, Sedaris is almost completely apolitical, so there is no sense at any time as to whether he’s conservative or liberal (although his fantasy about being an intern who’s slept with the President is pretty good stuff). Instead, Sedaris writes to lament the typewriter’s passing into oblivion, to resent the advance of technology, and to plead for people to stop suing each other because he’s tired of reading warnings wherever he goes: “It’s hard to explain a country whose motto has become You Can’t Claim I Didn’t Warn You.”
And, true to form, the person Sedaris is most hard on is David Sedaris. There appears to be almost no end to the material available here. Luckily, this does not grow tiresome. So despite the passage of time, I still find Me Talk Pretty One Day to be worthy of your collection.