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innatejames 's review for:
When You Are Engulfed in Flames
by David Sedaris
I didn't care much for Sedaris' last book, Dress your family in corduroy and denim. It felt forced, his embellishments more absurd to the point where I felt it was obvious which events actually happened and which were invented to make the story more interesting.
When You Are Engulfed in Flames was calmer in tone, more believable and felt less deadline inspired. Most of the stories revolve around the author and his partner, as opposed to the Sedaris brood - Gretchen, Lisa, the Chicken and, of course, that weird woman whose always on David Letterman talking about her imaginary boyfriend.
The entire last quarter is about Sedaris' recent break with smoking and the extended vacation they took to Japan to alter his everyday routine. Like the rest of the book, it felt genuine, seamless, and reminded the reader that Sedaris isn't just flash-in-the-pan pop culture: the man can write, especially endings, more specifically, the last sentence of an essay...enjoy:
(from The Smoking Section)
Its not their germs that put me off. I'm simply afraid that on taking one between my fingers, I'll snap to remember, with clarity, just how good a cigarette would taste right now.
(from The Understudy)
Framed through the window, they looked like figures on a stage, two characters who seem like opposites and then discover they have a lot in common: a similarly hard upbringing, a fondness for the jugged Burgandies of California, and a mutual disregard for the rowdy matinee audience, pitching their catcalls from beyond the parted curtain.
(from Of Mice & Men)
The fire spread, the house was consumed, and these are certainly dark times, both for the burning, and those who would set them alight.
(from The Monster Mash)
It was the look you get when facing a sudden and insurmountable danger: the errant truck, the shaky ladder, the crazy person who pins you to the linoleum and insists, with increasing urgency, that everything you know and love can be undone by a grape.
When You Are Engulfed in Flames was calmer in tone, more believable and felt less deadline inspired. Most of the stories revolve around the author and his partner, as opposed to the Sedaris brood - Gretchen, Lisa, the Chicken and, of course, that weird woman whose always on David Letterman talking about her imaginary boyfriend.
The entire last quarter is about Sedaris' recent break with smoking and the extended vacation they took to Japan to alter his everyday routine. Like the rest of the book, it felt genuine, seamless, and reminded the reader that Sedaris isn't just flash-in-the-pan pop culture: the man can write, especially endings, more specifically, the last sentence of an essay...enjoy:
(from The Smoking Section)
Its not their germs that put me off. I'm simply afraid that on taking one between my fingers, I'll snap to remember, with clarity, just how good a cigarette would taste right now.
(from The Understudy)
Framed through the window, they looked like figures on a stage, two characters who seem like opposites and then discover they have a lot in common: a similarly hard upbringing, a fondness for the jugged Burgandies of California, and a mutual disregard for the rowdy matinee audience, pitching their catcalls from beyond the parted curtain.
(from Of Mice & Men)
The fire spread, the house was consumed, and these are certainly dark times, both for the burning, and those who would set them alight.
(from The Monster Mash)
It was the look you get when facing a sudden and insurmountable danger: the errant truck, the shaky ladder, the crazy person who pins you to the linoleum and insists, with increasing urgency, that everything you know and love can be undone by a grape.