Me Talk Pretty One Day,Books,0349113912,

	Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
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Product Details Binding Paperback Dewey Decimal Number 910 EAN 9780349113913 ISBN 0349113912 Manufacturer Abacus Number Of Pages 272 Publication Date January 03, 2002 Publisher Abacus Availability Usually ships in 1-2 business days Product Description Anyone that has read NAKED and BARREL FEVER, or heard David Sedaris speaking live or on the radio will tell you that a new collection from him is cause for jubilation. His recent move to Paris from New York inspired these hilarious new pieces, including 'Me Talk Pretty One Day', about his attempts to learn French from a sadistic teacher who declares that 'every day spent with you is like having a caesarean section'. His family is another inspiration. 'You Can't Kill the Rooster' is a portrait of his brother, who talks incessant hip-hop slang to his bewildered father. And no one hones a finer fury in response to such modern annoyances as restaurant meals presented in ludicrous towers of food and cashiers with six-inch fingernails. David Sedaris became a star autobiographer on public radio, onstage in New York, and on bestseller lists, mostly on the strength of 'SantaLand Diaries,' a scathing, hilarious account of his stint as a Christmas elf at Macy's. (It's in two separate collections, both worth owning, Barrel Fever and the Christmas-themed Holidays on Ice.) Sedaris's caustic gift has not deserted him in his fourth book, which mines poignant comedy from his peculiar childhood in North Carolina, his bizarre career path, and his move with his lover to France. Though his anarchic inclination to digress is his glory, Sedaris does have a theme in these reminiscences: the inability of humans to communicate. The title is his rendition in transliterated English of how he and his fellow students of French in Paris mangle the Gallic language. In the essay 'Jesus Shaves,' he and his classmates from many nations try to convey the concept of Easter to a Moroccan Muslim. 'It is a party for the little boy of God,' says one. 'Then he be die one day on two... morsels of... lumber,' says another. Sedaris muses on the disputes between his Protestant mother and his father, a Greek Orthodox guy whose Easter fell on a different day. Other essays explicate his deep kinship with his eccentric mom and absurd alienation from his IBM-exec dad: 'To me, the greatest mystery of science continues to be that a man could father six children who shared absolutely none of his interests.' Every glimpse we get of Sedaris's family and acquaintances delivers laughs and insights. He thwarts his North Carolina speech therapist ('for whom the word pen had two syllables') by cleverly avoiding all words with s sounds, which reveal the lisp she sought to correct. His midget guitar teacher, Mister Mancini, is unaware that Sedaris doesn't share his obsession with breasts, and sings 'Light My Fire' all wrong--'as if he were a Webelo scout demanding a match.' As a remarkably unqualified teacher at the Art Institute of Chicago, Sedaris had his class watch soap operas and assign 'guessays' on what would happen in the next day's episode. It all adds up to the most distinctively skewed autobiography since Spalding Gray's Swimming to Cambodia. The only possible reason not to read this book is if you'd rather hear the author's intrinsically funny speaking voice narrating his story. In that case, get Me Talk Pretty One Day on audio. --Tim Appelo Sedaris is Garrison Keillor's evil twin: like the Minnesota humorist, Sedaris (Naked) focuses on the icy patches that mar life's sidewalk, though the ice in his work is much more slippery and the falls much more spectacularly funny than in Keillor's. Many of the 27 short essays collected here (which appeared originally in the New Yorker, Esquire and elsewhere) deal with his father, Lou, to whom the book is dedicated. Lou is a micromanager who tries to get his uninterested children to form a jazz combo and, when that fails, insists on boosting David's career as a performance artist by heckling him from the audience. Sedaris suggests that his father's punishment for being overly involved in his kids' artistic lives is David's brother Paul, otherwise known as 'The Rooster,' a half-literate miscreant whose language is outrageously profane. Sedaris also writes here about the time he spent in France and the difficulty of learning another language. After several extended stays in a little Norman village and in Paris, Sedaris had progressed, he observes, 'from speaking like an evil baby to speaking like a hillbilly. 'Is thems the thoughts of cows?' I'd ask the butcher, pointing to the calves' brains displayed in the front window.' But in English, Sedaris is nothing if not nimble: in one essay he goes from his cat's cremation to his mother's in a way that somehow manages to remain reverent to both of the departed. 'Reliable sources' have told Sedaris that he has 'tended to exhaust people,' and true to form, he will exhaust readers of this new book, tooDwith helpless laughter. 16-city author tour. (June) Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. In this collection of 27 fairly short essays, some of which appeared in Esquire and The New Yorker, Sedaris gives the impression of ease and naturalness. Whether he iswriting about overcoming a lisp, learning to play the guitar, trying to master French, or taking an IQ test, whether the locales are North Carolina, New York, or France, the author is both amused and amusing. Call what he writes essays, sketches, minor discourses, whimsicalities, reminiscences, curiosities, vignettes, chronicles, orbits of narrativeDno convenient blanket phrase covers them allDit is a testimony to his talent that he manages to infect the pieces with his geniality. They are all based on the author's own experiences and are all nicely constructed, cheerful, and absolutely not taxing on the brain. This is the sort of book from which you can read a chapter at random before turning out the lights at the end of the day. Recommended.DA.J. Anderson, GSLIS, Simmons Coll., Boston Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. 'Still keeps me company like a party guest who's been asked to spend the night...His essays about living in Paris are full of piss and vinegar and achingly funny.' Armistead Maupin 'Audaciously combining memoir, essay, and what has to be fiction, this fourth collection of short pieces offers pleasures normally to be found only in the best novels and the rare standup act that is actually funny.' THE NEW YORKER 'He is, simply, very funny... refusing to find anything an unfit subject for humour.' SUNDAY TIMES 'A sophisticatedly funny take on modern life. Treat yourself to this book.' IRISH TIMES 'It may well be the funniest thing you read all year.' BIG ISSUE 'The temptation when reviewing a David Sedaris book is simply to quote liberally and enviously, from his endless stock of pithy one-liners. A humourist par excellence, he can make Woody Allen appear ham-tongued, Oscar Wilde a drag.' OBSERVER 'Excellent company and relentlessly good-natured. His sophistication is spiked with self-doubt,and his insouciance has a tremor of the unhinged.' INDEPENDENT 'His collection of bite-sized morsels of life isn't unlike slipping on a warm sweater, slumping into a soft chair and slurping hot chocolate in front of a fire on a cold March evening...Damn enjoyable.' SCOTSMAN 'A comic gem to savour.' DAILY MAIL 'There's nothing macho about this book at all. That's why it's so good.' LATER 'Whatever the topic, his writing is a pleasure to read...make you laugh out loud more than any other book published this year. Absolutely wonderful.' SUNDAY TRIBUNE 'One of the laugh-out-loud funniest books of the year.' THE LIST 'Writes like the Grinch on crystal meth...Master of the shaggy dog story.' THE FACE 'The chapters on France are classic Sedaris. A gentle stroll around the absurdities of life, interspersed wih perfectly-aimed poisoned arrows.' IRISH EXAMINER 'Possibly the sharpest and funniest observer of human weakness at work today...seriously addictive stuff.' THE TIMES 'I laughed out loud in places and even had tears streaming down my eyes at the end of a chapter called the Tapeworm is In.' WOMAN'S WAY 'The author talks very pretty... Don't read this on the bus, you'll find yourself laughing out loud.' IRELAND ON SUNDAY 'Perfect for the poolside.' OK! MAGAZINE 'Observational comedy at its best- Sedaris has a wry and sardonic voice, taking delight in deflating pretensions and reserving special scorn for stupid people and American tourists. Essentially though, his outlook on the world is generous and amiable.' INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY 'A funny and intelligent strip-search of the human psyche.' ARENA 'A satirical brazenness that holds up next to Twain and Nathaneal West' NEW YORKER 'Original, acid and wild' LOS ANGELES TIMES 'David Sedaris became a star autobiographer on public radio, onstage in New York, and on bestseller lists, mostly on the strength of Santaland Diaries a scathing, hilarious account of his stint as a Christmas elf at Macy's department store. Sedaris's caustic gift has not deserted him in his fourth book, which mines poignant comedy from his peculiar childhood in North Carolina, his bizarre career path and his move with his lover to France. Though his anarchic inclination to digress is his glory, Sedaris does have a theme in these reminiscences: the inability of humans to communicate. The title is his rendition in transliterated English of how he and his fellow students of French in Paris mangle the Gallic language. In the essay 'Jesus Shaves', he and his classmates from many nations try to convey the concept of Easter to a Moroccan Muslim. 'It is a party for the little boy of God', says one. 'Then he be die one day on two... morsels of... lumber', says another. Sedaris muses on the disputes between his Protestant mother and his father, a Greek Orthodox man whose Easter fell on a different day. Other essays explicate his deep kinship with his eccentric mother and absurd alienation from his IBM-exec dad: 'To me, the greatest mystery of science continues to be that a man could father six children who shared absolutely none of his interests'. Every glimpse we get of Sedaris's family and acquaintances delivers laughs and insights. He thwarts his North Carolina speech therapist ('for whom the word pen had two syllables') by cleverly avoiding all words with 's' sounds, which reveal the lisp she sought to correct. His midget guitar teacher, Mister Mancini, is unaware that Sedaris doesn't share his obsession with breasts, and sings 'Light My Fire' all wrong--'as if he were a Webelo scout demanding a match'. As a remarkably unqualified teacher at the Art Institute of Chicago, Sedaris had his class watch soap operas and assign 'guessays' on what would happen in the next day's episode. It all adds up to the most distinctively skewed autobiography since Spalding Gray's Swimming to Cambodia.' Tim Appelo, AMAZON.CO.UK REVIEW 'Welcome to the wonderful world of America's foremost humorist' gushes the back cover, 'where life is littered with idiosyncratic delights.' Luckily, Sedaris's fourth collection of deadpan semi-autobiographical pieces delivers much more than this anodyne blurb suggests. Sedaris is Edgar Allen Poe as adapted by John Waters, or an episode of Seinfeld scripted by Flannery O'Connor. No wait, he's Charles Adams meets The Simpsons. At any rate, 'idiosyncratic' doesn't quite describe him. Sedaris begins by recounting his childhood battle with a speech therapist. A confirmed lisper, he outwits the enemy - and increases his vocabulary - by avoiding words that contain the letter 's'. Young David then terrifies his guitar teacher, a chain-smoking macho midget, by singing advertising jingles for processed meat in a Billie Holiday voice. The alternative world of David Sedaris is peopled with the damaged and damaging, but somehow he's witty with it. I gawped at his affinity for skin rashes, war wounds and rusty cranial saws (I wasn't kidding about Charles Adams) and nodded appreciatively as he outlined his contempt for computers and cyberspace. The Sedaris family provides a lot of raw comic material: 'the Rooster' (David's ultra foul-mouthed brother), his wacko sister (who jumps out of a subway car with a cheery 'Good luck beating that rape charge, David') and his jazz-obsessed father (unnaturally close to the family's Great Dane). Eventually he moves from North Carolina to New York and then from the Big Apple to France. The French chapters inject a new ironic energy as he attempts to learn the language ('me talk pretty one day') and is called upon to defend US foreign policy at dinner parties where everyone has had too much to drink. The chapter in which he's mistaken by an American tourist for a Parisian pickpocket is a particular delight. (Kirkus UK) The undisputed champion of the self-conscious and the self-deprecating returns with yet more autobiographical gems from his apparently inexhaustible cache (Naked, 1997, etc.). Sedaris at first mines what may be the most idiosyncratic, if innocuous, childhood since the McCourt clan. Here is father Lou, whos propositioned, via phone, by married family friend Mrs. Midland (Oh, Lou. It just feels so good to . . . talk to someone who really . . . understands). Only years later is it divulged that Mrs. Midland was impersonated by Lous 12-year-old daughter Amy. (Lou, to the pranksters relief, always politely declined Mrs. Midlands overtures.) Meanwhile, Mrs. Sedarissoon after shes put a beloved sick cat to sleepis terrorized by bogus reports of a miraculous new cure for feline leukemia, all orchestrated by her bitter children. Brilliant evildoing in this family is not unique to the author. Sedaris (also an essayist on National Public Radio) approaches comic preeminence as he details his futile attempts, as an adult, to learn the French language. Having moved to Paris, he enrolls in French class and struggles endlessly with the logic in assigning inanimate objects a gender (Why refer to Lady Flesh Wound or Good Sir Dishrag when these things could never live up to all that their sex implied?). After months of this, Sedaris finds that the first French-spoken sentiment hes fully understood has been directed to him by his sadistic teacher: Every day spent with you is like having a cesarean section. Among these misadventures, Sedaris catalogs his many bugaboos: the cigarette ban in New York restaurants (Im always searching the menu in hope that some courageous young chef has finally recognized tobacco as a vegetable); the appending of company Web addresses to television commercials (Who really wants to know more about Procter & Gamble?); and a scatological dilemma that would likely remain taboo in most households. Naughty good fun from an impossibly sardonic rogue, quickly rising to Twainian stature. (Kirkus Reviews) Anyone that has read NAKED and BARREL FEVER, or heard David Sedaris speaking live or on the radio will tell you that a new collection from him is cause for jubilation. His recent move to Paris from New York inspired these hilarious new pieces, including 'Me Talk Pretty One Day', about his attempts to learn French from a sadistic teacher who declares that 'every day spent with you is like having a caesarean section'. His family is another inspiration. 'You Can't Kill the Rooster' is a portrait of his brother, who talks incessant hip-hop slang to his bewildered father. And no one hones a finer fury in response to such modern annoyances as restaurant meals presented in ludicrous towers of food and cashiers with six-inch fingernails. David Sedaris recently moved from New York to Paris. Raised in North Carolina, he has worked as a housecleaner and most famously, as a part-time elf for Macy's. Several of his plays have been produced, and his essays are featured regularly on BBC radio and in THE NEW YORKER and ESQUIRE. David Sedaris's deadpan delivery is the perfect foil to the bizarre in his latest collection of essays, and it's hard to imagine another reader recounting these unlikely anecdotes. Most of the readings were recorded in a Paris studio, although some live performances are interspersed, complete with an appreciative live audience. But their easy responses, sometimes as automatic as a television sitcom's laugh track, are often more distracting than encouraging. Listeners accustomed to Sedaris's stories on Public Radio International's 'This American Life' will find these readings, about his family, his early adult life, living in France and attempting to learn the language, a little less exuberant, a little more thoughtful, suffering only, perhaps, from the absence of producer Ira Glass's masterful editorial hand. The tone does seem fitting, though, for the essays slide in and out of fleeting sadness, even as they mock and self-deprecate and aim for irony. Sedaris is at his worst when glib, and his least successful essays are those that rant against modern life: New York restaurants, computers. He is at his best when he's describing the absurdity of childhood, moments so unexpectedly strange and yet recognizable, like Sedaris's boyhood dream of performing a one-man show as Billie Holiday singing commercial jingles (and he provides pitch-perfect renditions), that they prompt gleeful, giddy laughter. J.M.D.-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine Customers who bought this item also bought Naked Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim Holidays on Ice: Stories When You Are Engulfed in Flames Barrel Fever: Stories and Essays Customer Reviews for: Me Talk Pretty One Day Rating - Thank you, David Sedaris! With sardonic wit and an eye for the absurd, David Sedaris gives hyperbolic treatment and philosophical consideration to what would otherwise be a mundane life. And just when it seems that his aresenal of experiences is depleted, he invites us to witness from the perspective of his unfettered imagnination. We oblige, of course, because by now this neurotic maladroit is our friend, his fantasies of being a celebrated and sought-after hero are our own, and we are more like him than we ever dared to admit. Rating - Pure drivel This highly overrated book is far from being funny. Dreck and dross, that's what it is. I mean, i would have read past chapter 8 if it were at least a remotely interesting book, let alone funny. I skimmed a lot even to get there. Out of the first eight chapters, the ones on his speech therapy sessions, guitar lessons, his years as an art school student, his dad's poor sense of humor, his trash spouting brother, putting his family pets down, a Thanksgiving dinner anecdote etc failed to entertain. ... Read More Rating - The David Sedaris Starter Kit One mark of a great book is when you laugh out loud alone. This book accomplishes the feat, and my main complaint is that it didn't last longer. Sedaris is an engaging presenter live, and I'd suggest watching or listening to him speak before reading the book. You'll understand the comic timing and the absurdity of some of the stories more. Highly recommended. see more reviews See all books by author David Sedaris

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