Book Talk: Me Talk Pretty by David Sedaris
By Anne Gudger
Sun, heat and my garden which bursts with cherry tomatoes and herbs. Summer! My favorite time of year. Just like I store my sweaters during BBQ season, I also tend to tuck away my heavier reading which means Marcel Proust's Swann's Way (a novel in 7 volumes) will have to wait for cooler, shorter days and shorter books take the stage.
Another joy of summer is that my my daughter is home from college and as soon as she was unpacked, we had a chance to swapped good summer books. As part of this exchange, she excavated Me Talk Pretty One Day from her room and handed it over. We both love David Sedaris for his wit, his sadness and his honesty. I love him so much, I've carried him on family vacations and read him out loud to my husband and kids. At Christmas one year my daughter read Holidays on Ice out loud and we laughed the whole way through. Something about Sedaris and his writing captures "family" for us. He tells the sad, funny and wicked truth.
If you are not familiar with him, Sedaris' books are collections of essays and some short stories. And, they're little glimpses into his life which ooze self-deprecation. He writes about his middle class upbringing, his Greek Heritage, his jobs, his education, his drug use, his homosexuality and all about life in France and London with his partner.
The man is damn funny. Not your Family Circus kind of ha-ha but the kind of humor you have to laugh with so you don't cry.
In Me Talk Pretty he writes:
For the first twenty years of my life, I rocked myself to sleep. It was a harmless enough hobby, but eventually, I had to give it up. Throughout the next twenty-two years I lay still and discovered that after a few minutes I could drop off with no problem. Follow seven beers with a couple of scotches and a thimble of good marijuana, and it's funny how sleep just sort of comes on its own. Often I never even made it to the bed. I'd squat down to pet the cat and wake up on the floor eight hours later, having lost a perfectly good excuse to change my clothes. I'm now told that this is not called 'going to sleep' but rather 'passing out,' a phrase that carries a distinct hint of judgment.
Or later he writes about learning French and via his honesty, I feel the reader gets a real person who messes around our with real language. It's easy to picture him asking the butcher for lamb chops:
On my fifth trip to France I limited myself to the words and phrases that people actually use. From the dog owners I learned 'Lie down,' 'Shut up,' and 'Who shit on this carpet?' The couple across the road taught me to ask questions correctly, and the grocer taught me to count. Things began to come together, and I went from speaking like an evil baby to speaking like a hillbilly. 'Is thems the thoughts of cows?' I'd ask the butcher, pointing to the calves' brains displayed in the front window. 'I want me some lamb chop with handles on 'em.'
Besides his humor, Sedaris is a fabulous storyteller. Read him for a laugh. Read him to see how he moves a piece along with strong dialogue. Read him to be reminded that if you survived your childhood, you have a ton of material to write about.
Sun, heat and my garden which bursts with cherry tomatoes and herbs. Summer! My favorite time of year. Just like I store my sweaters during BBQ season, I also tend to tuck away my heavier reading which means Marcel Proust's Swann's Way (a novel in 7 volumes) will have to wait for cooler, shorter days and shorter books take the stage.
Another joy of summer is that my my daughter is home from college and as soon as she was unpacked, we had a chance to swapped good summer books. As part of this exchange, she excavated Me Talk Pretty One Day from her room and handed it over. We both love David Sedaris for his wit, his sadness and his honesty. I love him so much, I've carried him on family vacations and read him out loud to my husband and kids. At Christmas one year my daughter read Holidays on Ice out loud and we laughed the whole way through. Something about Sedaris and his writing captures "family" for us. He tells the sad, funny and wicked truth. If you are not familiar with him, Sedaris' books are collections of essays and some short stories. And, they're little glimpses into his life which ooze self-deprecation. He writes about his middle class upbringing, his Greek Heritage, his jobs, his education, his drug use, his homosexuality and all about life in France and London with his partner.
The man is damn funny. Not your Family Circus kind of ha-ha but the kind of humor you have to laugh with so you don't cry.
In Me Talk Pretty he writes:
For the first twenty years of my life, I rocked myself to sleep. It was a harmless enough hobby, but eventually, I had to give it up. Throughout the next twenty-two years I lay still and discovered that after a few minutes I could drop off with no problem. Follow seven beers with a couple of scotches and a thimble of good marijuana, and it's funny how sleep just sort of comes on its own. Often I never even made it to the bed. I'd squat down to pet the cat and wake up on the floor eight hours later, having lost a perfectly good excuse to change my clothes. I'm now told that this is not called 'going to sleep' but rather 'passing out,' a phrase that carries a distinct hint of judgment.
Or later he writes about learning French and via his honesty, I feel the reader gets a real person who messes around our with real language. It's easy to picture him asking the butcher for lamb chops:On my fifth trip to France I limited myself to the words and phrases that people actually use. From the dog owners I learned 'Lie down,' 'Shut up,' and 'Who shit on this carpet?' The couple across the road taught me to ask questions correctly, and the grocer taught me to count. Things began to come together, and I went from speaking like an evil baby to speaking like a hillbilly. 'Is thems the thoughts of cows?' I'd ask the butcher, pointing to the calves' brains displayed in the front window. 'I want me some lamb chop with handles on 'em.'
Besides his humor, Sedaris is a fabulous storyteller. Read him for a laugh. Read him to see how he moves a piece along with strong dialogue. Read him to be reminded that if you survived your childhood, you have a ton of material to write about.
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