Outside A Dog

I’ve been meaning to read something by David Sedaris for ages — at least since my freshman year of college, and that was… yikes, eight years ago? (And now you can see exactly how far on my to-read list that I actually am.) I finally started in on Me Talk Pretty One Day and gobbled it up.

Each chapter in the book is its own story (I’m tempted to call them vignettes, but I’m not sure as to the accuracy of the term), and the first half of the book focuses mainly on Sedaris’s formative and college years. In the opening story, Sedaris relates his experience with speech therapy in fifth grade. Having been diagnosed with a ‘lazy tongue’ by his speech therapist, he begins a mission to avoid the letter S whenever possible.

“‘Yes,’ became ‘correct’, or a military ‘affirmative.’ ‘Please’ became ‘with your kind permission,’ and questions were pleaded rather than asked. After a few weeks of what she called ‘endless pestering’ and what I called ‘repeated badgering,’ my mother bought my a pocket thesaurus, which provided me with s-free alternatives to just about everything. I consulted the book both at home in my room and at the daily learning academy other people called our school. Agent Samson was not amused when I began referring to her as an articulation coach, but the majority of my teachers were delighted.” (pg. 11)

In the book’s second half, Sedaris is living in France and battling the language and culture barrier. Personally, I found this second part to be better than the first, possibly because I could relate a little more to his adventures with masculine and feminine articles.

“It’s a pretty grim world when I can’t even feel superior to a toddler. Tired of embarrassing myself in front of two-year-olds, I’ve started referring to everything in the plural, which can get expensive but has solved a lot of my problems. [...] A masculine kilo of feminine tomatoes presents a sexual problem easily solved by asking for two kilos of tomatoes. I’ve started using the plural while shopping, and Hugh has stated using it in our cramped kitchen, where he stands huddled in the corner, shouting, ‘What do we need with four pounds of tomatoes?’ [...] Hugh tells me the market is off-limits until my French improves. he’s pretty steamed, but I think he’ll get over it when he sees the CD players I got him for his birthday.” (pg. 191)

Sedaris also deals with the challenge of trying to explain Easter — in his fledgling French — to a fellow language student. This particular chapter had me laughing out loud, and also annoying my mother. But when I made her stop what she was doing — it’s okay, she was only watching the news — to read it, she cracked up herself.

I’m not sure that David Sedaris is for everybody — he has a dry delivery style, and if you read too quickly, you might miss some of the less-in-your-face funny bits. I totally enjoyed this book, though, and will probably pick up another of his books in the near future.