false 4 2 false false Tue Jul 08 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sat Jun 07 04:12:05 -0700 2008 Tue Jul 08 16:53:47 -0700 2008
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 personal werk for him, that he's a bit more exposed and vulnerable in those essays.

Thematically, When You Are Engulfed In Flames is a reprise of Me Talk Pretty One Day -- highly focused on language and style, on the humanity of humiliation and (to echo some other reviewers) those dark places where our sentimentality tends to get the best of us. But it's a counterpoint melody to Me Talk Pretty One Day -- arrogant where the other was modest, chagrined where the other took delight.

Structurally, this collection is an echo of Naked, though a bit more mature. As I wrote of DFW's Consider the Lobster, the essays are arranged well, jokes from earlier essays recurring, serving to inform your tittering later on. That said, the individual essays seem to follow a rhythm that is new for Sedaris. If this were an elementary school music class, I would say that his earlier essays have a rhyme scheme that goes ABAB, these are turned more toward ABCA.

But if you're reading this, it's probably because you were curious what I thought of When You Are Engulfed In Flames. By now, you (dear reader) have already made up your mind about David Sedaris and have either worked your way through this collection or else long ago discarded him, irrelevant as an expended filter tip.]]>