Me Talk Pretty One Day

Pick­ing up the book, one might won­der about the topic. A lit­tle boy hav­ing to endure day after day of avoid­ing the let­ter ‘S?’ Or might it be about a grown man attempt­ing to speak another lan­guage? Sur­pris­ingly, and hilar­i­ously, the story involves both assump­tions along with many more laughs as David – both the author and main char­ac­ter in the book – recalls his com­i­cal past.

Sedaris reaches out to his audi­ence through his humor. He tells a story that most peo­ple would have sym­pa­thy for – had he writ­ten it like other authors in this world. Instead, he incor­po­rates short sto­ries that make the reader laugh along with him at his memories.

Rather than dron­ing on and on about his monot­o­nous gui­tar lessons, Sedaris writes about his very lit­tle gui­tar teacher. Rants about his ter­ri­ble stu­dents trans­forms into sar­cas­tic com­ments he wishes he could make, and piti­ful train rides turn into dreams of call­ing an Amer­i­can tourist out.

Try­ing to find his place in this world, David exper­i­ments with his cre­ative side. Fail­ing to make it as a glo­ri­fied artist in his eyes, he takes a job offered to him as a writ­ing teacher. Still, David does not give a full effort:

Because I was the writ­ing teacher, it was auto­mat­i­cally assumed that I had read every leather-bound vol­ume in the Library of Clas­sics. The truth was that I had read none of those books, nor did I intend to… I learned it was eas­ier to sim­ply reply with a ques­tion, say­ing, ‘I know what Flaubert means to me, but what do you think of her?’ (86)

David basi­cally BS’s every­thing he does in his early adult life. He tries to get by using the sim­plest solu­tions with­out really think­ing of the future con­se­quences. Instead of invest­ing his time in use­ful mat­ter for both him and his stu­dents, David turns to use­less drug and alco­hol use. Even­tu­ally, he sinks so low that his clever idea for an assign­ment involved episodes of One Life to Live – a soap opera filled with end­less twists. Sadly, but at the same time amus­ingly, David half-asses almost all that he does.

Gay and mis­un­der­stood in Raleigh, North Car­olina, David jour­neys to France with his boyfriend Hugh. In France, he encoun­ters all sorts of peo­ple from all walks of life as he tries to learn the oh-so beau­ti­ful French lan­guage. “My only com­fort was the knowl­edge that I was not alone. Hud­dled in the hall­ways and mak­ing the most of our pathetic French, my fel­low stu­dents and I engaged in the sort of con­ver­sa­tion com­monly over­heard in refugee camps” (172). Through­out the sec­ond part of the book, David focuses on his French – a lan­guage he is really not good at. He and his fel­low class­mates talk about their evil teacher and her insult­ing ways, all in bro­ken French, which makes for a good laugh. Sedaris plays off his trou­ble with the lan­guage by eas­ily mak­ing fun of him­self and by reveal­ing some of the more inter­est­ing conversations.

The story really reaches its pin­na­cle when David and his class­mates try to explain to a Moroc­can stu­dent what Easter is – all in dread­ful French. “‘It is,’ said one, ‘a party for the lit­tle boy of God who call his self Jesus and … oh, shit.’” At this point, read­ing the book near a strict librar­ian might not be the best idea.

Filled with at least sev­en­teen anec­dotes that leaves its reader try­ing to catch their breath from all the laughs, Me Talk Pretty One Day is def­i­nitely a book to pick up at the library or book­store. Sedaris’ way of recall­ing his mem­o­rable past makes the reader want to feel bad for him but as he makes fun of him­self, one can’t help but laugh along with him. So, please, if you given the time, could read this book you?

ME TALK PRETTY ONE DAY
By David Sedaris
272 pp. Lit­tle, Brown and Company.

• Photo by Sub­lim­i­nalpud­ding / Used with Per­mis­sion

• Photo by / Used with Per­mis­sion

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