I suppose I am (Am I?) Engulfed by Sedaris
I just put down my copy of When you are Engulfed in Flames by the oh-so-popular David Sedaris. My obsession with this awkward gay man started when some of my friends in Pennsylvania had snagged an audio of his reading in Carnegie Hall. I had heard of the name before, obviously in one of my short story seminars in college or in passing with another literary fiend such as myself, but had no time to read any of his saucy snippets of life until I picked up Dress your Family in Corduroy and Denim. I admit that I read Sedaris so that I can laugh hysterically at his life, and mine in return. I suspect that there’s nothing wrong with that.
But, it seems, according to various sources, that there is. I tend to agree with most of the critics from The New York Times, but I was a bit disappointed with Michiko Kakutani’s review of Engulfed. She thinks that the book is a regression from his earlier works, somehow a step backward from his potential. She senses a pressure from his end that he is running out of material and now simply living his life in order to produce new substance: “With many of these tales, the reader has the sense that Mr. Sedaris is scraping the bottom of the barrel for material, writing for the sake of producing another book, vamping for time instead of looking within or trying something new.” And, of course I was a bit dismayed when I read Nancy Dalva’s review in The New York Observer that she too agreed with this sentiment. “Though there are some wonderful essays about his recent life, you can’t help suspecting that some of the time he’s doing things in order to write about them,” Dalva writes. I was, being an avid Sedaris supporter, a bit put off by their pretentious view from outside of David’s life.
My question is: What would it be like to be in David’s life? The poor man has to hear that he’s running dry with material. I can’t help but think that, whether or not Michiko or Nancy get it, Sedaris’s writing is not really about being the next Chekov or Cheever. Instead, he wants to make us laugh. His story “Aerial,” may be nothing other than a funny image of Sedaris trying to put his partner’s ablums in the windows of his house in order to scare off the insistant pecking of birds, but that’s what Sedaris offers us: a funny image. I may have just written a blog entry about how disgusted I was by my dog’s consumption of a gigantic spider, but that doesn’t mean that the blog wasn’t entertaining (to at least me).
I admit, like the good critic that I am, that some of his stories in the book have more substance than others. “Adult Figures Charging toward a Concrete Toadstool,” is a full-fleshed story about the art taste within his family as opposed to “Buddy, Can You Spare a Tie?” which embarks upon us his fashion tips. However, what is most amusing about the latter story is that we get the image of Sedaris trying out a portable catheter to write a story for a fashion column. And, might I note that the former has an amusing image AS ITS TITLE. Sedaris is a man of imagery. And, in his defense, I would like to remind the literary world that there are very few who can invoke laughter without any purpose whatsoever.
I can’t really tell if this is the best or the worst of his work, probably because I was too busy laughing so hard that I was snorting. But I do remember being forced, undoubtly against my will, to read “Misery,” by Anton Chekov. The story, if you haven’t read it (and I don’t think you need to) is about nothing other than the title. It makes you miserably miserable. Miserable, miserable, miserable. And yet, we call this man the creator of the short story. So, I am willing to go along with Sedaris on his journey simply because I know what he is capable of, and not because he wrote one thing that I found particuarly morose or not up to the literary acclaim of James Joyce.
On another note, there are these handy-dandy short stories and poems that I receive via e-mail by narrativemagazine.com every week (go here and here). I suggest you check them out. You may have to create an account, but it’s free. Some of them I truly dislike (just a warning), but they are from acclaimed and (some) classic writers.
I’ve picked up One-Hundred Years of Solitude in my effort to continue the list of books that I haven’t read, and really should have at some point. So, stay tuned to hear whatever I have to say about that. So far, it’s weird.