David Sedaris@@http://www.barclayagency.com/sedaris.html@@ has discovered a new way to be funny while still keeping the best parts of his signature style.
“Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk,” originally released in hardcover in 2010@@http://www.amazon.com/Squirrel-Seeks-Chipmunk-Modest-Bestiary/dp/0316038393@@, came out in a paperback edition on Oct. 4@@http://bestsellers.about.com/b/2011/10/04/new-in-paperback-squirrel-seeks-chipmunk-by-david-sedaris.htm@@. It’s a collection of fable-like stories written in Sedaris’ quirky, abrupt, sense of humor that reflects life’s realities.
Last Thursday, as he read excerpts from his work to an audience at the Hult Center@@http://www.magicspace.net/eugene/david-sedaris-eugene/@@, Sedaris said, “I hesitate to call them fables, because fables have morals and I don’t always.”
At the event, Sedaris leaned over a podium and read excerpts of his work aloud to the audience. Between his pieces, he occasionally digressed into some hilarious political and social rants.
“One in three Americans weighs as much as the other two,” he said at one point. The audience roared with laughter.
While Sedaris’ writing is a joy to read, hearing him read it out loud is something else entirely and seems to bring his words to life in a different way. Sedaris has a slightly high-pitched, unique sounding voice — undoubtedly one of the reasons he has had so much success with his work on NPR’s “This American Life.”@@http://www.thisamericanlife.org/contributors/david-sedaris@@
The rhythm with which he phrases his sentences creates unexpected accents and exclamations. Listening to him read is as natural as drinking a glass of chocolate milk on a summer afternoon — the man could read the dictionary aloud and make it sound interesting.
The 192-page book, subtitled “A Modest Bestiary,” contains 16 short stories ranging from “The Crow and the Lamb,” to “The Sick Rat and the Healthy Rat,” to “The Judicious Brown Chicken.”@@http://www.bookreporter.com/reviews/squirrel-seeks-chipmunk-a-modest-bestiary AND http://www.roanoke.com/entertainment/books/wb/265617@@
Ian Falconer, best known as the author and illustrator of the “Olivia” series, contributed illustrations for the stories that, in a design nod to children’s books, are embedded within the text throughout the book@@http://books.simonandschuster.ca/Olivia/Ian-Falconer/9780689829536@@. Sedaris’ sense of humor is anything but childish, however.
In “The Crow and the Lamb,” a crow discusses health and spiritualism with an ewe in a conversation that has a surprise ending. At one point, while circling above the ewe and her newborn lamb, the crow bitterly considered the differences between raising a lamb and raising a chick.
“’It takes a village,’ they (sheep) liked to say, not that there was much to learn in the first place. You lower your head, and food goes in. Raise your tail, and it comes out. The eating part, they had down, but the rest, forget it. Crap smeared from one end of their bodies to the other. Where was the fucking village when it came to cleaning themselves?”
Undoubtedly, “Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk” is a departure from Sedaris’ usual work, in which he writes both fiction and nonfiction in a sardonic, memoir-like voice. The change in form is precisely why you’ll either love or hate the book. The anthropomorphic collection of stories gives Sedaris a new venue from which to draw humor.
These enjoyable vignettes are quick, easy reads: an encounter in a prison’s Alcoholics Anonymous meeting between an antagonistic cat and a mouse jailed for arson; a dialogue between two rats in a research lab; two storks discussing where babies come from.
Of the 16 stories, not all are knee-slapping jaunts that will reduce the reader to tears of joy. The humor in some is quite subtle in its dark irony. But throughout the book, Sedaris ability to hilariously and honestly describing our true thoughts in everyday situations is clear.
For example, in response to a question at the Hult Center, Sedaris explained why he always misses “Morning Edition,” an NPR show.
“I never listened to ‘Morning Edition’ because to me the definition of a good life is being asleep when that program is on,” he said.
Indeed “Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk” is in some ways different than the rest of Sedaris’ work. But Sedaris, in all of his wit, humor and enchantment, is still there, accompanied by Falconer’s terrific illustrations. The paperback has an suggested retail price of $13.99 and is worth every cent.
David Sedaris delights audience during Hult Center book reading
Daily Emerald
November 5, 2011
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