2000: Me Talk Pretty One Day, David Sedaris

For 2000 I read Me Talk Pretty One Day, by David Sedaris, a work of humor mostly in the modern observational style (by the end of the book, think a gay Greek Seinfeld raised in North Carolina but self-exiled to Paris).

The book is (deeply?) divided into two sections, One and Deux. Part One is a series of anecdotes describing his upbringing in North Carolina, his family members' quirks, but most of all his various inabilities to fit into society's expectations--of masculinity, proper speech (he receives speech therapy from a woman "for whom the word 'pen' had two syllables", and even his own views of himself as a sensitive and creative artist. I think his account of his meth-fueled descent from traditional art school, where he had no talent, into more and more surreal forms of Dadaist-type 'art', are the most reflective and show the power of satire to attack even more devastatingly than a perfectly-formed logical argument. Light accounts of his various odd jobs in recovery from this low point chronicle his adoption, via a Communist furniture-moving collective, as an urbane New Yorker.

Part Deux, on the other hand, seems to descend into pettier stabs at American and French society. Sedaris moves with his partner Hugh to France and finds himself unable to grasp French well enough to communicate (the source of the title); but while his adept avoidance of his speech impediment as a child, using large, impressive words to avoid the letter s, was endearing, his avoidance of French conversation and culture seems tiringly juvenile. His observations seem to lose their reflective layer, which was disappointing as I was looking forward to his observations on the difficulties of comparative language. I am, however, willing to admit that I read Part Deux in a fairly different mood than the first section, which may have contributed as much as any slide on the author's part.

When Sedaris is on top of his game, he reads a modern Twain of sorts--it's that good, that enjoyable, that funny.