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A review by knitnetic
When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris
4.0
This is the latest offering from one of America's best-loved humorists, the author of the hilarious Me Talk Pretty One Day -- if you haven't read it, do it. Now.
This latest collection of stories is not as funny as Sedaris's earlier works. Instead, the stories reveal the full potential of strangeness and emotional depth only hinted at in previous collections. This is clear from nearly the very start of the collection. While the first story of the collection is about tapeworms and catching crabs (I did mention his strangeness, yes?) the second, entitled "Keeping Up" is a funny and ultimately touching tale of modern coupledom, of the things that keep us from running out on each other, even though we may fantasize about it on a regular basis.
Another overarching theme of the book can be found on its cover: death, and the various ways it affects life. Sedaris's humor has always walked the line between normal and morbid and this collection is no different. From the tale of buying his boyfriend a skeleton to his misadventures working in a morgue over Halloween, death touches nearly ever story in the collection. These build up to the final story, an 80 page opus documenting his journey to Tokyo to quit smoking. This story, which also tells of Sedaris's successful attempts to quit drinking and using drugs, is interspersed with the author's realization of his own weakness and mortality. This leads to a poignant, though not depressing, end to the collection.
Overall, though the book is not as amusing as some of Sedaris's other collections, it's still immensely entertaining and worth an afternoon of your time.
Final Opinion: Go buy it, sit down, and enjoy. Unless you have a weak stomach. Then you might want to think twice.
Sorry for the lack of posts this week -- I've been preparing a longer post about my trip to Milan this January. I'm now realizing that that post is much too long for any single day -- expect it to show up in installments this week.
This latest collection of stories is not as funny as Sedaris's earlier works. Instead, the stories reveal the full potential of strangeness and emotional depth only hinted at in previous collections. This is clear from nearly the very start of the collection. While the first story of the collection is about tapeworms and catching crabs (I did mention his strangeness, yes?) the second, entitled "Keeping Up" is a funny and ultimately touching tale of modern coupledom, of the things that keep us from running out on each other, even though we may fantasize about it on a regular basis.
Another overarching theme of the book can be found on its cover: death, and the various ways it affects life. Sedaris's humor has always walked the line between normal and morbid and this collection is no different. From the tale of buying his boyfriend a skeleton to his misadventures working in a morgue over Halloween, death touches nearly ever story in the collection. These build up to the final story, an 80 page opus documenting his journey to Tokyo to quit smoking. This story, which also tells of Sedaris's successful attempts to quit drinking and using drugs, is interspersed with the author's realization of his own weakness and mortality. This leads to a poignant, though not depressing, end to the collection.
Overall, though the book is not as amusing as some of Sedaris's other collections, it's still immensely entertaining and worth an afternoon of your time.
Final Opinion: Go buy it, sit down, and enjoy. Unless you have a weak stomach. Then you might want to think twice.
Sorry for the lack of posts this week -- I've been preparing a longer post about my trip to Milan this January. I'm now realizing that that post is much too long for any single day -- expect it to show up in installments this week.