When You Are Engulfed in Flames

by David Sedaris

book data

16,964 ratings, 3.87 average rating, 4,234 reviews (more data...)

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5		24%
4		44%
3		25%
2		4%
1		0%

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published

June 3rd 2008 by Little Brown and Company

binding

Hardcover, 323 pages

isbn

0316143472 (isbn13: 9780316143479)

description

"David Sedaris's ability to transform the mortification of everyday life into wildly entertaining art," (The Christian Science Monitor) is e...more

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07/11/08

Dusty rated it:

Read in July, 2008

Here's my take on Sedaris, or maybe my take on Sedaris before I listened to this book: Naked is easily his best work because it's his most thorough, his most unencumbered by his own fame. If we were to compare his oeuvre to MTV's The Real World, Naked is the original New York season (despite not being Sedaris's first book). In New York, the cast members were people already living in the city (with the Alabama exception) and trying to make a living; the whole "be on TV" part of it was ...more Here's my take on Sedaris, or maybe my take on Sedaris before I listened to this book: Naked is easily his best work because it's his most thorough, his most unencumbered by his own fame. If we were to compare his oeuvre to MTV's The Real World, Naked is the original New York season (despite not being Sedaris's first book). In New York, the cast members were people already living in the city (with the Alabama exception) and trying to make a living; the whole "be on TV" part of it was something they dealt with in the name of free housing. Now, of course, teens run at the chance to go live in some other city just to "have their lives taped," just for the fame it might bring, and what they actually do on the show is dull as a result. Naked is the masterpiece because the essays therein are longer and more satisfying; the whole thing is memoir in its finest form of sifting through the past to let someone understand how life (or maybe just a life) gets lived.

Then he got wildly famous and was able to publish any old essay in any old magazine. This, I recognize, is a factor of his talent both as a writer and a humorist, not a factor of his name. Still, even as "far back" as Me Talk Pretty One Day, I left much of the essays with a sense of incompletion. "Picka Pocketoni"? Why wasn't this narrator doing anything? It wasn't enough just to stand there and report, I felt.

A lot of WYAEiF is about how wealthy and glamorous Sedaris's life is, and how wealthy he was growing up, which is something I'd never really sensed before. He talks about the cork-lined dining room at his parents' house with the (at the time) contemporary Danish modern furniture. He talks about the $20K he spent to quit smoking by moving to Tokyo for three months. He mentions an $8K first-class ticket he bought. He mentions a lot of airplane rides; I think at least three of the essays have their roots in something that happened to D.S. while flying across the Atlantic. This smacks to me of a writer who's run out of things to write about; and yet there are essays about old neighbors ("That's Amore", one of the collection's best), so it seems Sedaris still has enough memories to last a few more books.

I heard that in some interview somewhere, Sedaris confessed that he was getting to the point in his life where he'd act in a scene explicitly for the purposes of creating something to write about. Maybe Sedaris has a history of this (I can't imagine he just wanted to up and go to a nudist colony on his own; clearly, he saw great material in the exercise) but something about the heft of those earlier essays ("Santaland Diaries", too) makes them seem more honest. In the interview, Sedaris was talking specifically about the decision to cough so hard on a plane that his throat lozenge would be expelled from his mouth. He thought, Let's see what happens, and coughed. This action begins one of the essays in this book, and it's never revealed as constructed.

I'm not aligning myself with that camp of Memoir Exposers For The Truth. My complaint isn't that Sedaris makes things up. It's that at one time, behind the essays, was this guy David Sedaris, or as close to the guy as we could get, and now it seems that behind all these essays lies "The Writer David Sedaris". I'm not making myself clear.

(Which, incidentally, is one thing I can't fault Sedaris for. His timing in writing is impeccable and his descriptions apt and lovely in places. Oh and funny. The book in just incredibly, unendingly funny. In short: get the audiobook.)(less)

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06/23/08

James rated it:

Read in July, 2008

Eh.

That’s my review: eh.

With maybe a shoulder shrug.

Someone better read than I recently remarked something to the effect of, “Once you’ve read one David Sedaris book, haven’t you read them all?”

Yes.

And Kurt Vonnegut.

And several others. But that’s neither here nor there.

Sedaris’s recent book makes such a dismissive comment truer than ever. For readers familiar with Holidays on Ice, Dress Your Family ...more Eh.

That’s my review: eh.

With maybe a shoulder shrug.

Someone better read than I recently remarked something to the effect of, “Once you’ve read one David Sedaris book, haven’t you read them all?”

Yes.

And Kurt Vonnegut.

And several others. But that’s neither here nor there.

Sedaris’s recent book makes such a dismissive comment truer than ever. For readers familiar with Holidays on Ice, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, and Me Talk Pretty One Day, there is little Funny and Original to enjoy from When You Are Engulfed in Flames. And especially for readers of The New Yorker like myself, where most of the essays in this publication were initially published, there is a lot to be desired.

A few highlights include an explanation for why Sedaris does not believe in God: “Because I have hair on my back, and a lot of other people, people who kill and rob and make life miserable, don’t. A real God wouldn’t let that happen.” And his prediction that, “It’s safe to assume that by 2025, guns will be sold in vending machines, but you won’t be able to smoke anywhere in America.” With the Supreme Court’s recent ruling on D.C’s gun ban, Sedaris’s prescience is foreboding.

But what I found most interesting about When You Are Engulfed in Flames was the About the Author: “David Sedaris’s half-dozen books have been translated into twenty-five languages, including Estonian, Greek, and Bahasa. His essays appear frequently in The New Yorker and are heard on Public Radio International’s This American Life.”

It was the first sentence that intrigued me. There’s a good David Sedaris essay to be had from that line. Did David Sedaris himself write it? If not, but the editor did, why the importance on Estonian, Greek, and Bahasa and not the other 22 languages? Does translation into these three languages indicate a literary achievement of some sort? Is it a big deal for Estonians, Greeks, and Indonesians to be reading David Sedaris? While Microsoft Word’s spell check wants Bahasa to be Bahamas, Bahaman, Batas, Balas, or Banana, Bahasa is in fact spelled correctly. It is the native language of Indonesia, the world’s fourth most populous nation, and therefore one of the most widely spoken languages in the world. So for David Sedaris to be available in this language is no small feat. Why then Estonian and Greek? And what are the other 22 neglected languages? Why are they less special?(less)

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6 comments

10/24/08

Randomanthony rated it:

You know, Montambo is right, this is Sedaris' best book. While earlier in his career the author seemed go for easy laughs (Look at my brother! What an ass!) or convenient self-loathing something seems to have clicked this time around that transforms the work from magazine article quality to literature. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Sedaris sounds like a real writer in this book; the essays flow unforced and genuine insight accompanies the punch lines. Sedaris doesn't seem to be writing for p...more

Like this review? yes (12 people liked it)

14 comments

06/11/08

brian tanabe rated it:

Read in June, 2008

When I first saw this in a bookstore I thought to myself, can he do it again? Is there more scrapable hilarity clinging to the walls of his interesting life, fit to amuse and entertain his many fans? Sedaris does in fact do it again and apparently there's an endless well of funny stuffy, a font of hilarity, within this man.

This is another great collection, on par with his other works for all the Sedaris fans out there. There is one story in particular (“That's Amore”) -- or rathe...more

Like this review? yes (7 people liked it)

17 comments

06/12/08

Alana rated it:

bookshelves: 2008june, reviewed

Read in June, 2008

While I certainly won't call this the best David Sedaris collection that you can purchase for yourself, I will say that any David Sedaris is worth reading -- and thus, my star rating. It would probably be more like three and a half if Goodreads did half stars the way LibraryThing does, but ah well.
The observation I have for this collection is that with Mr. Sedaris giving up drinking, drugs, and smoking... his stories seem to be a bit more tame. Much more focus on his boyfriend Hugh or st...more While I certainly won't call this the best David Sedaris collection that you can purchase for yourself, I will say that any David Sedaris is worth reading -- and thus, my star rating. It would probably be more like three and a half if Goodreads did half stars the way LibraryThing does, but ah well.
The observation I have for this collection is that with Mr. Sedaris giving up drinking, drugs, and smoking... his stories seem to be a bit more tame. Much more focus on his boyfriend Hugh or stories tinged with a bit of melancholy. The NY Times mentioned the story about his parents' art collection, which is perhaps one of the better crafted stories. My favorite, however, is called "Keeping Up" -- which talks about couples arguing on vacation and features Mr. Sedaris rehearsing his "I'm leaving you" speech to his boyfriend after Hugh's fast walking leaves Sedaris lost and alone in a zoo in Sydney.
In general, it's nice to see Hugh making more of an appearance in Sedaris' stories. Sedaris' previous volumes have focused so much on his siblings that when you realize how long he and Hugh have been together, you're a bit surprised that it's taken Sedaris this long to mine his significant other for material. In the past, he's popped up every now and then, but he's a much more substantial figure in this collection. As with Sedaris' other works, though, one can't help but wonder how his friends and relatives deal with having details of their lives published and sold. Unlike his parents and sisters, though, Sedaris consistently paints Hugh in a good light and one can't help but wonder how Sedaris can function without Hugh at times in this collection.
In any case, while you might want to wait to purchase a paperback version, this collection does have several good chuckles. I might not have been struggling for breath as I have once or twice in the past ("Six to Eight Black Men" comes to mind), but I still think that anyone who enjoys Sedaris should not miss this most recent offering.(less)

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04/26/08

Valerie rated it:

bookshelves: short-stories

Read in August, 2008

When I first started reading this book, I found myself disappointedly thinking that it was just more of the same from David Sedaris - stories that either make you laugh out loud or make you cringe (or more often both). Don't get me wrong - he's still funny - but I was expecting more from this one... some evolution in style or content. I liked his earlier books because they were more raw, the stories a bit more unexpected. The beginning of this one felt a little recycled, and I was ready to be do...more

Like this review? yes (5 people liked it)

11 comments

06/10/08

Imogen rated it:

Read in June, 2008

When I am not reading David Sedaris, I am thinking: David Sedaris, man, there is a popular guy whose books are kind of just always around and not very interesting. But when I *am* reading him, I'm always like, there are five or six absolutely brilliant punchlines in every one of this guy's books, and the other parts are, y'know, enjoyable enough.

I think it's a testament to my always forgetting how much I like him that I guess I've read all his stuff, but I absolutely never think of ...more

Like this review? yes (4 people liked it)

2 comments

06/04/08

Montambo rated it:

bookshelves: bio-memoir-diary, covers-i-love, essays-or-shorts, funny, so-this-is-love

Read in June, 2008

Dang, I was a bit trepedatious going into this, and why? Has he ever let me down? Well, OK, "Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim" was a bit of a letdown, and not just the cover, which was really a letdown on Chip Kidd's part. Kidd completely redeemed himself with this cover, though, which is a thing of beauty.

The thing is, I was scared of not loving this because:
a) I didn't love Lynda Barry's latest, and I thought that was impossible.
and
b)I had read s...more

Like this review? yes (6 people liked it)

27 comments

05/31/08

Brian rated it:

bookshelves: autobiography

Read in June, 2008

After reading Sedaris' previous collection, I began to suspect that he had mined all of the material he could from his family and the earlier hard times he experienced. It appeared he was now left with the task of finding hilarity and poignancy in the life of a rich, celebrated author. "When You Are Engulfed in Flames" confirms that his days of dressing as an elf, picking apples, and hitch-hiking cross country with an incomplete quadriplegic are long gone. In their place we are left...more

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05/12/08

Nate rated it:

bookshelves: glbtfriendly, traveltales

Read in June, 2008

recommends it for: Sedarians

I didn't care much for Sedaris' last book, Dress your family in corduroy and denim. It felt forced, his embellishments more absurd to the point where I felt it was obvious which events actually happened and which were invented to make the story more interesting.

When You Are Engulfed in Flames was calmer in tone, more believable and felt less deadline inspired. Most of the stories revolve around the author and his partner, as opposed to the Sedaris brood - Gretchen, Lisa, the Chicken...more

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04/26/08

Shannon rated it:

bookshelves: lulz

Read in February, 2009

I don't quite get the people who say this isn't as funny as his other books- I thought it was plenty funny. The comment about having a 400 dollar sweater that looked like it had been thrown to a tiger and thus was already ruined and incapable of being further ruined.. that made me laugh. And saying a cracker tasted like penis. And lots of little one-liners. But what's really awesome about his stuff is that it's MORE than just a bunch of one-liners. He really is a very observant, intelligent, hil...more

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07/17/08

Laura rated it:

Read in July, 2008

recommended to Laura by: all with the last name, "Reznick"

This was my first time reading a book of his. Upon finding myself curled up in what can only be described as a painful, repressed laughter spasm on the subway (this, after reading about the downside to recreational catheters), I realized that perhaps Sedaris is more appropriate for at-home reading. You can be sure I'll be reading more, as I'm told this isn't even his best.

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08/12/08

Erin rated it:

Read in August, 2008

Some people find that after reading one or two of Sedaris's books, he becomes less ha-ha funny. Maybe they get used to his style of humour. Maybe there's a golden order in which to read them (personally, I find chronologically by publishing date works well). Maybe there is a slight advantage to hearing him speak in person. I tend to read him while imagining how he'd say it, and immediately a dry sentence comes to life.

I could go on about the maturation I see happening in his work, ...more

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06/20/08

Joe rated it:

Before picking this book up at an airport newsstand, knew nothing of David Sedaris except that his name is mentioned constantly as being popular and I see his books everywhere. I guessed it was time to check into something current and popular to see what I was missing. Plus this book had Van Gogh's "Skeleton with Cigarette" as its cover, so how could you go wrong? The cover was designed by Chip Kidd, and I suspect his other ones were as well. I think a sharp cover goes a long way towar...more Before picking this book up at an airport newsstand, knew nothing of David Sedaris except that his name is mentioned constantly as being popular and I see his books everywhere. I guessed it was time to check into something current and popular to see what I was missing. Plus this book had Van Gogh's "Skeleton with Cigarette" as its cover, so how could you go wrong? The cover was designed by Chip Kidd, and I suspect his other ones were as well. I think a sharp cover goes a long way towards book sells.

As it turns out, David Sedaris is a essayist who got his start by reading his diaries aloud on NPR. His niche is comical autobiographical accounts of the world. This basically means that he is a blogger, but with a writer's sensibility.
While the book did have some interesting points, some witty observations, and a few laugh out loud moments, I was surprised at how much of it leaned towards nostalgia or explorations of the mundane.
One chapter was about clothes he's learned to stop wearing such as the time he decided he couldn't pull off the bow-tie look. Another chapter was about how his house in Normandy France had spiders in it and he decided to give them all names and watch them to see how their lives played out. The last quarter of the book explores, in detail, his relationship with cigarettes from the start of his habit to the long process of finally quitting.
He talks in a self-depreciating manner about how he is too gay, too short, getting too old, and how he has too many bad habits. He has six other books that were wildly successful all over the world. Are they all based around the same concept? I found out later that, yes, they were. If anything they were fresher though, as he may be running out of things to talk about as he goes along. One thing that you can tell from reading his stuff is that this approach has landed him a lot of success. He lives all over the world with an apartment in Pars, cottage in Normandy, a place in New York and frequent recreational trips to countries such as Japan that are separate from the long tours he does for readings and book signings.
There's no question that he crafts his stories well, with very clear, crisp sentences and a sharp, observant sense of humor, but is it really that incredibly difficult? Nothing here screamed "genius" to me. I started to wonder what it would be like if he wrote a long form novel. Could he put an interesting plot together with compelling characters?

After being home for a day, I decided to check out more of Sedaris' work to see what it was all about. A wiki biography pointed me in the direction of his first big story, "SantaLand Diaries". I downloaded a NPR reading of it and found it to be truly funny and lighthearted stuff.
The first thing that struck me however was that his voice was a nasal whine fitting a Christmas elf.... almost exactly like Truman Capote's.
(less)

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06/15/08

Schmacko rated it:

Read in June, 2008

I just finished the new David Sedaris book When You are Engulfed in Flames. Isn’t that his snappiest title yet?

This very funny man’s book of personal essays only sporadically reaches the wacky heights of his other book. I laughed quite a few times, but there were very few stories I wanted to read to my friends over the phone (a mark of distinction I’ve held for his earlier books)

There are a few stand-out, hilarious stories here. One about Sedaris’ neighbor in N...more I just finished the new David Sedaris book When You are Engulfed in Flames. Isn’t that his snappiest title yet?

This very funny man’s book of personal essays only sporadically reaches the wacky heights of his other book. I laughed quite a few times, but there were very few stories I wanted to read to my friends over the phone (a mark of distinction I’ve held for his earlier books)

There are a few stand-out, hilarious stories here. One about Sedaris’ neighbor in NYC will surely be added to the pantheon of “Wacky People David has Met.” Her name is Helen, and this octogenarian curses like a sailor, cooks disgusting food that she presents as a prize to only certain neighbors, and basically belittles and insults everyone.

And Sedaris certainly has a gift for turning a funny phrase, calling Scandinavia “a cold and forsaken place where people stay indoors and plot the death of knobs.”

What seems to often be missing here are Sedaris’ wild flights of panic, paranoia, and fancy we’ve witnessed in the past. When the author’s in top form, he can throw out the most outrageous and unorthodox views of the world and then tightly pull them back together into a single, hilarious yet honest picture. Instead we get charming stories of losing his lover in a foreign zoo, or of that same lover proving his love by lancing David’s boil (this latter story has all the possibility of a great Sedaris yarn, but he misses the chance to panic and become all hypochondriac and run to the library and then comically explain the medical phenomenon of a boil to us. Instead, Sedaris describes the smell – gross- and then waxes poetic about his boyfriend’s offer to lance it.)

The last story of the book – a longer tale of Sedaris quitting smoking – has its moments but is largely all over the place; a trip to Tokyo, language classes, Japanese sight-seeing, and tricks on avoiding the cancer stick. It never adds up, and coincidentally, it’s probably the worst thing Sedaris has written. It’s still intermittently funny, but it doesn’t through me into a fit of paroxysms, which I know Sedaris is capable of.

He’s still a good writer, better than almost everyone else out there, but this isn’t his best material.

(less)

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06/07/08

Rob rated it:

bookshelves: 2008, anthology, bedside, own, vermont

Read in July, 2008

recommends it for: if you thought "Dress Your Family..." was a misstep for Mr. Sedaris (or his publisher)

A solid ★★★★ and damn near close to ★★★★★ that we'll settle for ★★★★½. But then again, I'm a serious Sedaris fiend.

When You Are Engulfed In Flames makes Sedaris' previous collection, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, seem like a disaster, a complete train wreck. Which is unfair because I think that Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim is a strong collection with some exemplary essays. And also because I get the feeling that it was a more person...more

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06/27/08

Signe rated it:

bookshelves: nonfiction

Read in July, 2008

Can I give the book 3.5 stars? 3 isn't enough, but 4 is too many. Anyway...

David Sedaris didn't charm me with this one, possibly because most of the material wasn't new to me. I'd read many of the essays in previous collections or in The New Yorker, and had heard him read some of the pieces on his book tour. So...maybe that was the trouble.

Or maybe I'm finally sick of the formula: Start with something quirky, move into another story or observation, and bring it back a...more

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10/31/08

David rated it:

bookshelves: disappointing, read-in-2008

Read in October, 2008

This new collection of essays by David Sedaris is unobjectionable, but fails to come anywhere near the hilarity of his best effort, "Me Talk Pretty Some Day". Most of the pieces remind one of "Seinfeld", being about nothing but the author's particular neuroses. Which range from being moderately entertaining ("Memento Mori", buying a human skeleton and its aftermath) to weirdly offputting ("April in Paris", in which the author's fascination with spiders is ...more

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06/05/08

Debbie rated it:

Read in September, 2008

I really like this collection of stories. David Sedaris has quit drinking and smoking, which I thought would be the kiss of death, but the new calmer voice is still entertaining. As I have found with all of his books, some essays have parts that made me laugh out loud or giggle helplessly in public and others left me unmoved. I enjoyed the Helen story and the chance to get to know Hugh better and see how their relationship works. There is something about Sedaris' observations and descriptions th...more

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07/18/08

Linda rated it:

Read in July, 2008

OK, I like David Sedaris again. I thought his last couple of books were disappointing. I felt that he had gone from laughing at himself to looking down his nose (at his family mostly and I'm sure they can take a joke, but I didn't like it so much) and making fun of everybody else. This is not so "funny" as some of his earlier work (as his father might say -- "this is work?") but they were fun to read.
But what is this suddenly so popular "genre"? Shooting...more

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