Book Report: Me Talk Pretty One Day
On account of the fact that nothing interesting is happening to me these days, I've now decided I'm going to write about other people. Specifically, David Sedaris. The observant among you may have noticed I was reading one of his books. Link over there <----- in the sidebar.
Me Talk Pretty One Day is, hands down, one of the funniest bits of wit I have read in a long, long time. Run, don't walk, to your nearest bookstore and pick yourself up a copy. A collection of personal essays, Me Talk Pretty... recounts the author's child- and early adulthood memories in the US and then moves on, in part deux, to his adventures living in Paris. I laughed from the first page of this book until the last and when it was over I was tempted to go back and reread some of my favorite stories, which included:
Go Carolina, in which Mr. Sedaris recounts his speech therapy sessions as a grade schooler, his vocabulary suddenly becoming big and unwieldy with the addition of new words and phrases such as 'affirmative' or 'daily learning academy' to replace such s-laden words as "Yes" and "School." You Can't Kill The Rooster, Sedaris' story about his brother and his unusual relationship with their father. The Youth in Asia, a humorous discussion of the Sedaris family's dogs over the years. and See You Again Yesterday, which recounts the author's early visits to France with his boyfriend.
It is authors like Sedaris that make me feel genuinely pathetic about my writing skills, and overall stupid for ever thinking that I might actually have a chance at employment doing writing... Ah well. Perhaps I'll have to content myself with being a hack. For those of you in any of these cities, you might consider going to hear him speak. And I might head north to Seattle to do the same.
