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3.62 AVERAGE
3.62 AVERAGE
This was all right. None of the short stories really stood out to me too much but I still love his writing.
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
Another cynical Sedaris. My favorite story in this one is Santaland Diaries (of course) followed by Barrel Fever.
This rating is a reflection of his fiction. The title story was okay, but the rest... The lack of resonance combined with the gimmicky feeling story setups makes these stories painful to read. You can read his essay voice in some of these pieces, but it's a different humor. It's a mean, self-centered kind of humor that made me keep asking, what's the point?
Not my favorite Sedaris. Some of the stories were a little too something...I didn't care for about half of it.
It was a curious choice, making this the last part of The Ultimate David Sedaris Audio Collection, considering it was his first publication. It felt a bit like going backwards in quality. While I had the explanation for a number of these stories, they weren't as funny nor as sharply honed as his later essays.
The vast majority of Barrel Fever and Other Stories is fictional tales, mostly about really stupid people. The title story, "Barrel Fever" is about a hateful alcoholic whose mother dies and his best friend joins AA. He spends the majority of the story railing about the pointlessness of AA and sneering at those who want to live without booze, until he finds in his mother's New Years Resolutions a promise to "be good."
"The Last You'll Hear from Me" sticks in my mind pretty well, too. It's a suicide note, penned by a deeply manipulative young woman who exhorts her funeral attendees to stone her enemies with memorial paperweights.
"Glen's Homophobia Newsletter Vol. 3, No. 2," meanwhile, is also written as an address to a specific audience, this time arguing against homophobia that may simply be reactions to the fact that Glen is a jerk. I was uncomfortable with the "asking for it" subtext in that one, though.
The nonfiction stories were an improvement, though most seemed more of a series of vignettes than an entire narrative. "Giantess," about his submitting to a porn fetish magazine, was the most tightly constructed of these. Though, I have to admit, "Diary of a Smoker" had some great one-liners.
If you've read everything else by David Sedaris, it certainly couldn't hurt to pick this up, but I don't think it's the best part of the collection. After Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim and Me Talk Pretty One Day, this felt like something of a consolation prize.
The vast majority of Barrel Fever and Other Stories is fictional tales, mostly about really stupid people. The title story, "Barrel Fever" is about a hateful alcoholic whose mother dies and his best friend joins AA. He spends the majority of the story railing about the pointlessness of AA and sneering at those who want to live without booze, until he finds in his mother's New Years Resolutions a promise to "be good."
"The Last You'll Hear from Me" sticks in my mind pretty well, too. It's a suicide note, penned by a deeply manipulative young woman who exhorts her funeral attendees to stone her enemies with memorial paperweights.
"Glen's Homophobia Newsletter Vol. 3, No. 2," meanwhile, is also written as an address to a specific audience, this time arguing against homophobia that may simply be reactions to the fact that Glen is a jerk. I was uncomfortable with the "asking for it" subtext in that one, though.
The nonfiction stories were an improvement, though most seemed more of a series of vignettes than an entire narrative. "Giantess," about his submitting to a porn fetish magazine, was the most tightly constructed of these. Though, I have to admit, "Diary of a Smoker" had some great one-liners.
If you've read everything else by David Sedaris, it certainly couldn't hurt to pick this up, but I don't think it's the best part of the collection. After Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim and Me Talk Pretty One Day, this felt like something of a consolation prize.
Waa Waaaaa. I'm a fan of Sedaris, but this is not his best by any means. It's interesting that this is his first book: it only gets better from here. The first half of Barrel Fever = a series of unconnected stories that manage to be super sexual and in-your-face without being even remotely funny. Most of them are just gross, actually. I stopped reading them and skipped to the second part of the book, a series of short essays. While a few of them are v. entertaining (it's immediately clear where Sedaris' strengths lie), it doesn't save the book.
3.5 stars. I should probably give this another chance as my head space just wasn't there for humor while I read this...but I liked Calypso a lot more content-wise.
There are hilarious moments, but there are also some really long and really not funny parts -- the final 2/3 if the book is spotty (a generous assessment) but the first 1/3 is fantastic. I just never seem to enjoy it when Sedaris strays from talking about his family. For whatever reason its rarely beyond mediocre (Santaland Diaries notwithstanding.) Really a 2.5, but when its good its crazy good so I will round up.