Not much new in Sedaris' new book
June 15, 2008
It's the general rule of thumb that the kiss of death for a comedian or humorist's career comes with contentment.
It's that old idea that the best and most stinging material comes from being pissed off — at anything. Politics. Gender roles. Authority. Airline food. And when humorist David Sedaris jokes in his prose, it's about being pissed off or confused: the French language, foreign versions of Santa Claus, new wave hippie artists and his (very) documented battle with smoking. But this latest book of 22 essays, When You Are Engulfed in Flames throws loyal fans a bit of a curveball. But just a little one.
Documenting in previous books and essays his struggles with nailing the French language and coping with his newfound locale after shipping off to France, Sedaris seems — God forbid — kinda content.
Loyal fans don't want Sedaris to become perfectly adjusted to life in Normandy. We don't want to hear about how things with his partner, Hugh, are peaches and cream.
After reading about his adventures as a hired elf at Macy's during the holiday season, it's natural to crave a certain degree of lunacy, surprise and the shamelessly admitted exaggerations for the sake of humor for which Sedaris is so well known.
But in his latest, it's as if Sedaris just rehashed some of his old running plots. He's still trying to kick the habit. He's still gay. His brother still says 'fuck' a lot. His sister is still that crazy actress from "Strangers with Candy." There isn't much original content here. And then there's that contentment thing — he seems pretty all right with the way things are going. There's not even one mention of airline food (but a lot of strange, spontaneous references to our closest cousin, the monkey, fill the void).
This time around, there's yet another big move, this time to Japan. And surprise, he enrolls in a Japanese language class. Bumbling hilarity ensues — just the way it did with that other country (you know, France) and that other pesky language barrier (you guessed it). We've heard it before.
And chances are, we've read it before, too. All but two essays in this collection have been previously published elsewhere.
But the greatest triumph of When You Are Engulfed in Flames is that David Sedaris is still David Sedaris. This is still the man who takes the ordinary and turns it into laugh-out-loud comedy better than anyone in his league. Sedaris still talks a hell of a lot about smoking, but he also still possesses his famous sixth sense for witticism, wordplay and timing.
Yes, we've heard it all before. We can smell the menthol-steeped punchlines, predict the story twists and recall familiar characters. But in the end, the guy is human. If he wants to settle down with his partner and get on the road to satisfaction and routine, so be it. His rehashed, reworded and easily recalled storylines are much more entertaining the second (third, fourth...) time around than half of the brand new material fresh-faced writers have been cranking out lately.
He's still a lot of things. Lucky for fans, funny is one of them.
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