Of David Sedaris, I am a big fan.
Well, I’m five foot four, but you know what I mean.
David Sedaris, also apparently somewhat diminutive, makes up for this with a Napoleonic attitude. His books all exude a measure of Woody Allen-ness; they cry, “I am small and shy, but, boy, do I have some pent-up angst that I will backhandedly divulge!”
There are many kinds of humor, but mainly, it can be separated into two opposing camps. You laugh with me or you laugh at me. Superficially, Sedaris has us laughing with him at the multitude of riotous personal situations he has endured. American tourists fighting under his Parisian window, jerks on airplanes, heinous babysitters and more.
It then gets complicated because, in actuality, his humor is self-cudgeling. Like Woody Allen, Sedaris is offering up his sins and trials for our entertainment. There is no denying that David Sedaris is shamelessly funny, but be careful to remember that laughing at him is a double-edged sword.
I sound like the school teacher I was, but with any humor it is dangerous to excuse the comic too easily. The recent spate of movies (think “Borat”) encourage us to make fun of people without including ourselves in that definition. Exclusionary humor is a tough genre to embrace. Laughing is a necessity, but laughing solely at others, especially for their misfortune, is cruel.
But I digress – “When You Are Engulfed In Flames” is, like the rest of Sedaris’ work, a series of essays. He satirizes his own life and experiences. Most are riotously funny (the nasty martyr with the cough drop in her lap), but others are sad. His neighbor, Helen is a miserable specimen of humanity and brings out a side of Sedaris that he does not like any more than we do. We see this side a great deal in this book. This assemblage truly is more calignostic than previous works.
Having said this presumably before you have read it, I have introduced the proverbial elephant into the room. Now that I have thought of Sedaris this way it seems difficult not to do so. No more will I believe, “Oh, it’s pure hilarity – read it!.”
Sedaris is rightly touted as a humorous writer, but he straddles the line of social theorizer as well. It should be argued that all great humorists do this and he is no exception, but it calls attention to his increasing dolefullness with regard to his own life.
The title is much more telling then you initially realize. Sedaris may be trying to step through the flames and/or literally extinguish his fears, but it makes it less comedic and more introspective.
A bit of his old fun is gone. He is older and afraid of aging. Sedaris is having trouble letting go of certain self-actualized inadequacies in his quest for a healthier David. They make his life hell and enough whining is enough. Dear God, no Scientology, but a little positive attitude would make him a lot more readable.
The humor should be in recognition of similarities to ourselves and the familiarity of certain situations. “When You Are Engulfed In Flames” teeters toward discomforting awkwardness. Possibly I am just a bigger prude then previously assumed, but some essays are wildly unfunny in their despondent tenacity. The virulently virile cab driver left me shrugging off the willies (almost literally.) Not laughing.
David Sedaris’ strength is in giving this to us with the biggest spoonful of sugar he can. The readers who expect “Reader’s Digest” humor are being misled through no fault of his. The reviewers and editors who tout it as such are to blame. He does tackle the darker jokes and, if you anticipate Sartre-esque humor instead, it will be easier to digest. This is a different category of humor and I want to make sure that the real potential in this book – the message behind the comedy – does not go unattended.