So yes, basically, I find it encouraging that David Sedaris wasted that much of his life and still seems to have got somewhere. Not that I’m some big druggie, but I’ve certainly wasted my fair share of time here and there.
I find Sedaris’ use of language strangely brilliant. I’ll laugh out loud at a sentence, and then spend ages trying to understand what about that turn of phrase made it so funny. It’s less about the comedy of incident,and more about the comedy of language, which is SO DIFFICULT. So well done that man.
He does on occasion try, especially at the ends of his stories, to give us a kind of literary thrill, or a sense that he’s been talking about something larger than we at first thought. This is only sometimes successful.
Disclaimer: Okay, I skipped some stories this time round. I really didn’t feel I could handle the death ones. Maybe when I know you better I’ll tell you why.