Wednesday, January 05, 2005

I just finished reading "Me talk pretty one day" by David Sedaris. I have been hooked on the comedy of his sister, Amy, for quite sometime and I decided to finally pick up this book and read it.

What an amazing collection of essays. I have never related so much to a book before. His stream of thought and the way he tells the stories is brilliant. He takes the mundane situations of everday life and peppers them with language to create vivid tales of life that I am uterly envious of. He even takes the most undesirable situations and narrates them into an adventure.

I particularly related to the last chapter, one where he exposes about his father's habit of buying old vegetables and meat from the grocery store. I grew up with a similar father and to this day he cant resist items that are marked for sale because they are old. Reading the final chapter was as if reading my own memories.

I was fascinated by his time in Paris in the book as well. I just went for my first time this summer and I was deeply disappointed by my experience. I expected to be taken away, seduced by the "City of Light" but instead I was disgusted and repulsed. It seemed to me a city devoid of all life, passion, and creative juice. It has reached, in my view, a state where it cares nothing about its present existence but instead lives in the present in a vicarious haze of its past. Sedaris, however, offers a different American perspective on Paris, one of someone that has spent a considerable amount of time there. His view is more anthropological. He makes keen observations about the french, their language, and their culture. He finds a niche for himself in Paris but yet doesnt lose his perspective as an outsider. The result is a collection of great stories of Parisian and provincial life and the linguistic hardships that accompany him throughout his stay.

I highly recommend this book. I will be reading his latest book, "Naked," in the very near future.

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