The book is divided into two sections, the first of which is more or less a continuation of Naked. Many of the pieces have previously appeared in Esquire or The New Yorker, and some of them surfaced last year in Sedaris’ touring one-man performance. Me Talk Pretty One Dayis something of a hybrid. In his follow-up, Naked, Sedaris narrowed his focus onto his own family, at once sending up the memoir craze of the late 90’s and crafting one of the most vivid, scathing and poignant examples of the genre. One of the latter, "The SantaLand Diaries," made the author’s reputation seemingly overnight after he read it on NPR’s Morning Edition, and has since been turned into a theatrical production (not involving Sedaris). Sedaris’ first collection, Barrel Fever, was a mix of short stories and autobiographical pieces. His stranger-in-a-strange-land approach succeeds without undue mean-spiritedness, because time and time again he proves more than willing to turn his spiky wit inward on himself. In his best writing, David Sedaris suggests a visiting anthropologist from a distant galaxy or some future civilization, observing and chronicling contemporary life with a mixture of curiosity, disgust, and outright befuddlement.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |