This book has been sitting on my shelf for so long that I
can’t recall its origins. I assume I picked
it up in a used book store when I was killing time some Saturday
afternoon. It inevitably would have
attracted me with its vaguely artistic-looking cover with plain white boxer
shorts laid over a dark red background and the simple letters spelling out a
word at once suggestive and mysterious: Naked.
And the ever-touted "New York Times Bestseller" stamped across the top would
have helped me decide that David Sedaris (a name I’d heard of but new nothing
about) was definitely the sort-of person who should be on my bookshelf.
And on my bookshelf he was- for years. Sitting there amongst Dave Barry and Hunter
S. Thompson- between comedy and surreal journalism- it did little other than
make my shelf sag. I decided it was
high-time I do something to change that in September. It is now December and the reason it took me
so absurdly long to finish the damned thing is the main crux of my review: I
couldn’t get into it.
Let me first acknowledge that David Sedaris is as great of
a writer as you’ve heard he is. He is a
master of description and painted some of the most vibrant characters I’ve ever
seen in literature. From the way that
certain people pronounce words of choice to the color and texture of their skin
Sedaris paints a canvas that is both vibrant and vividly real- reminding you of
people you’re sure you’ve met before and will meet in your travels throughout
life. The bulk of the highlighted
passages (because I obsessively highlight the passages I really like) in my copy are
physical descriptions or lines of dialogue that have the tell-tale signs of
real life in every word. And the way
that people speak- for example: “She spat the word out of her mouth as if it
were a worm she had discovered nesting beneath her tongue.” Brilliant, right?
And there’s no lack of complex emotions in these characters,
either. Their prejudices, their loves,
their obsessive habits and tendencies are all painfully real. Especially the stories of Sedaris' family- the complicated politics of a family's identity have never been so clearly displayed. I spent much of the book thinking that if
someone were to ask me to describe an event in my life- even one that was hugely
significant in my timeline- I couldn’t possibility do it with this much detail.
Every now and again he comes right out with his conclusions about people and the world we live in and they can pretty profound. The fact that "everything we buy has been poked or packaged by some unfortunate nitwit with a hairnet and a wad of cotton stuffed into his ears." or the truth that "people aren't as foolish as much as they are kind". So yeah, Sedaris is an amazing writer.
But an amazing writer does not a fantastic book make. And that brings me back to my first point: I
could not get into this book. Perhaps it’s
because of the varied nature of the essays- they hopscotch around his life,
stopping at points throughout childhood and adulthood the way a kid with ADD
might tell a story. Some are poignant
and display rich emotions and character-enriching events while others are
seemingly meaningless and leave you wondering exactly what the point was.
And the way they are lined up is sometimes jarring. An essay on the death of Sedaris’ mother- which
is by far the most emotionally telling and memorable of the book- is found
directly before an essay about an inconsequential visit to a nudist
colony (the book’s title piece). The one
essay made me feel terribly vulnerable while the next left me wondering why I’d
read it at all. Not a fun experience for
me as a reader.
Perhaps that is why I found myself finishing en essay and
wanting to put the book down and move on to something that would reliably
produce the desired response- like eating a sandwich so as to no longer be
hungry or taking the dog for a walk so that he could relieve himself. Productive activities that led to a small but
important sense of accomplishment which this book constantly failed to deliver. Honestly, the only thing that kept me coming
back to it was my sheer stubborn desire to finish the thing and not return it
to my shelf in half-read defeat.
So in the end I am left with a grudging respect for
Sedaris. This kind of irreverent humor
in memoir most certainly has a place in the world and I have no doubt that
Sedaris deserves all the praise he has garnered over the years. And there are certainly people who would
undoubtedly love this kind-of book. I’m
just not sure I can call myself one of them.
