I'd never heard of Sedaris, but this book came up as 'What book makes you laugh?' in a magazine Q&A with another well-known writer. I was reading a beautiful, but very sad book at the time and thought this would be an excellent book to dip into from time to time, if the sadness got a bit too much!
Hmm. 'Sedaris takes us on side-splitting adventures' says the blurb. I have to disagree. It's a book of essays, accounts of his travels around the world. He certainly has a very wry sense of humour, and I did smile from time to time, but I did find his writing a tad unsettling. He comes across as a rather angry, irritable, unforgiving, oh-so-anti-Obama and oh dear, a teensy bit racist (or is that like saying you're a bit pregnant?). And while, for the most part, his observations of customs and people in other countries are fairly amusing, they come over more as a bit of a poke rather than observations. Which I thought a bit rich from an American: Americans who (as I gather from Sedaris) have an unnatural propensity for therapists, colonoscopies and gun possession. I found it all a bit pot-kettle-black.
But…ultimately, I did enjoy dipping into it. Sedaris's aim was to entertain, and entertained I was. Not 'side-splittingly', but certainly enough to make the sides of my mouth twitch to a faint smile.
Am I tempted to explore his other books? Maybe.
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