Mr.Admin
07-15-2003, 03:57 AM
Book Review by Gerard Brown:
Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
Little Brown and Company, 2000, 272 pp., $22.95.
With his fourth book, Me Talk Pretty One Day, essayist and frequent NPR contributor David Sedaris cements the title of man-you'd-least-want-to-invite-to-dinner. Who would willingly try to make cocktail party banter with anyone so insightful or incisive? Got a funny family story? Sedaris has dozens. Pithy travel anecdote? Don't go there. Droll comment on the state of contemporary education? Forget it. On a bewildering array of subjects, Sedaris again and again proves himself to be a curmudgeon for a new generation.
What's interesting about the book is the way it circles around the loss of language and the question of Sedaris' own facility with writing. He begins with an essay about expanding his vocabulary as a means of thwarting a speech therapist. To avoid having his lisping "s" corrected, Sedaris builds a precocious vocabulary of synonyms (or equally evocative alternative terminology, he might say.) He writes about his brother and the curious terms of endearment which have evolved between him and their father, clearly relishing the challenge of punctuating such dialog as; "Certain motherfuckers think they can fuck with my shit, but you can't kill the Rooster. You might can fuck him up sometimes, but, bitch, nobody kills the motherfucking Rooster. You know what I'm saying?" From its first pages, the book proposes language as a marker and suggests that the inability to express oneself articulately is tantamount to idiocy.
http://www.uturn.org/Reviews/brwnrv2.htm
Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
Little Brown and Company, 2000, 272 pp., $22.95.
With his fourth book, Me Talk Pretty One Day, essayist and frequent NPR contributor David Sedaris cements the title of man-you'd-least-want-to-invite-to-dinner. Who would willingly try to make cocktail party banter with anyone so insightful or incisive? Got a funny family story? Sedaris has dozens. Pithy travel anecdote? Don't go there. Droll comment on the state of contemporary education? Forget it. On a bewildering array of subjects, Sedaris again and again proves himself to be a curmudgeon for a new generation.
What's interesting about the book is the way it circles around the loss of language and the question of Sedaris' own facility with writing. He begins with an essay about expanding his vocabulary as a means of thwarting a speech therapist. To avoid having his lisping "s" corrected, Sedaris builds a precocious vocabulary of synonyms (or equally evocative alternative terminology, he might say.) He writes about his brother and the curious terms of endearment which have evolved between him and their father, clearly relishing the challenge of punctuating such dialog as; "Certain motherfuckers think they can fuck with my shit, but you can't kill the Rooster. You might can fuck him up sometimes, but, bitch, nobody kills the motherfucking Rooster. You know what I'm saying?" From its first pages, the book proposes language as a marker and suggests that the inability to express oneself articulately is tantamount to idiocy.
http://www.uturn.org/Reviews/brwnrv2.htm